20 June 2015

Still Life inspired by Paul Cezanne

This lesson is by far one of my favourites for Grade 2 because there is a beautiful mix of observational drawing, an artist study & oil pastel techniques. Although this was the first time I did this project, it is definitely going to be repeated again with next year's second grade students.

The learning objectives for this lesson was to become familiar with the works of Paul Cezanne, to identify a still life, to recognize highlights and shadows within a still life and to use primary or secondary observation to draw & render a still life in the style of the artist.

Materials required:
- A3 paper
- A5 paper
- paints, brushes, water pots
- oil pastels
- pencils, erasers
- laminated images of still life 
- 3D arrangements of fruit
- images of Cezanne's artwork on PowerPoint
- ebook "Cezanne's Astonishing Apples"

Duration: 3 lessons of 80 minutes each

1. After going through the objectives with the students and showing them an example of the finished piece, I started off the lesson by reading them a story about Paul Cezanne which I found online. I asked students to look for all the things that Cezanne painted while they listened to the  story of "Cezanne's Astonishing Apples". What's even better is that the story is already pre-recorded so as long as you have access to speakers, you're good to go!
2. When the story was finished, as a whole class we discussed the works of Cezanne while I showed them more images of his paintings on a PowerPoint. We talked about the subject matter, colours, tones, similarities and differences within his work. 
3. Next, on the board, I showed them a photograph of some fruit in a bowl and did a quick demonstration on how to observe the size, shape and placement of objects while drawing. 
4. As a mini lesson, I gave them each an A5 piece of paper and a pencil and put a selection of real, 3D fruits arranged on a plate in front of them. By "real" I actually mean plastic fruits. Since this project was going to carry on for a period of three weeks, I couldn't possible keep edible fruit in my class for that length of time. Anyway, I set the timer for 3 minutes and the kids had to quickly sketch what was in front of them keeping in mind size, shape and placement of objects. Then, I turned the plate of fruit around so that the viewpoint for each student changed and gave them another 3 minutes to sketch. This made them understand how their drawing of the same fruit would change if they were to look at it from different angles.
5. Now it was time to get on with the final drawing on A3 paper. Based on the results of the mini lesson and their abilities, I selected my high ability students to draw from primary observation using the 3D fruits and the middle/low ability students to draw from photographs.
A student drawing from primary observation
6. A finished drawing on A3 paper saw the end of the first lesson. Have a look at the results.

1. In the second lesson, the main objective was to learn a variety of oil pastel techniques and to start observing & creating the highlights and shadows with the still life drawn in the first lesson using those techniques.
2. As a starter activity, I found a tutorial on YouTube that would teach six different techniques of oil pastels (blending, layering, short strokes, long strokes, pointillism and drawing). After a guided lesson through the tutorial, this is what each student created:
3. Next, I showed them another short video on how to create a realistic apple. As students watched the video, I questioned them on which of the six techniques they saw the artist using.
4. Students are now set to work on their still life. Be sure to remind them to observe the highlights and shadows. Take a look at some of the work in progress.



1. In the third and last lesson, students continue adding highlights and shadows to their objects and once that is complete, they start to paint the background.
2. I did a quick demonstration on how to mix colours and show texture & students got to select their own colour combinations for their background.
3. Once the paint is dry, the only thing left to do it outline with a black oil pastel and you end up with a masterpiece!

If you have done a lesson on Cezanne, I would love to hear how it went!

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