Still Life Apple Drawings

These are some of the best results I've had with students using Still Life to explore value and tone. The trick seemed to be to supply many black and white photos of apples to students as a reference whilst drawing so they could really see the contrast between light and dark areas. Always great to see kids this age developing their own style too!

 

Still Life Secondary Colour Collages

These still life collages were created by grade 3 and 4 students. They are inspired by the absolutely beautiful cut paper still lifes at Mrs Crosbie. I asked my students to paint three pieces of paper to match the colour, tone and pattern of each of the secondary coloured items in the still life I set up (see left). Students were given only primary coloured paints and white and needed to mix the colours themselves. Once dry, students drew and cut out the bowl and oranges and glued them to the mauve tablecloth paper which was torn to attempt to capture the movement in the fabric.

Chalk pastels were used to draw back into the collages to add shadow and detail. Whilst their observational drawing skills need work, these collages are quite charming and a great way for them to experiment with colour mixing.

 

Still Life in Tints and Shades

 

This was another experimental lesson based on this image from Artsonia. I had my students complete a still life drawing in pencil which was then photocopied onto cartridge paper. 

The second drawing was then divided up using a grid. I asked the students to paint the objects and the foreground of the drawing using only tints (colours mixed with white) and the back ground using only shades (colours mixed with black). After painting lines were defined using black marker. 

This project took a lot longer to complete than expected and sadly some students did not seem to know what they were painting where after a while! As you can see, some have done as I asked and some have done their own thing. The finished results do look great (very Paul Klee-ish), but I would do this project differently in future - possibly on smaller paper to stop the students losing interest!