Value-able still life.

Let's face it, it's hard work traveling between elementary schools, artrooms, and grade levels. We switch media, motivation, expectations, lessons, and sometimes, even furniture as one grade level leaves the artroom and another enters. When I developed a set of lessons around the still life for many grade levels several years ago, I was able to leave a table laden with fall fruits, baskets, flowers, containers, and other objects in the middle of the room for the entire morning. This year, I made a major improvement to my fifth-grade lesson plan by providing a hands-on Internet experience before students worked on their own oil pastel still life. It was a success with beautiful finished products and highly motivated, engaged students.

The Visual Problem

This lesson involves drawing from life and creating value, depth, contrast, and form through the use of color intensity, tints, and shades.

Materials

12 x 18" (30.5 x 46 cm) construction paper in a variety of colors o white chalk for initial drawing of still life (chalk is easy to see and erase on dark colored papers)

* white and black oil pastels for each student one colored oil pastel per student

* viewfinders made by cutting tiny rectangles out of scrap paper 

Getting Started

We reviewed various drawing techniques that students used in the past, as well as the use of a handmade viewfinder to choose a portion of the still life to draw. Students chose a color of construction paper that was the complementary color of the oil pastel that they would later use to define their values. Students were required to draw objects going off the edges of their paper with white chalk. This part of the lesson emphasized drawing from life, symmetry of forms, and the use of overlap, placement, and size comparisons.

The Hook--Using the Web

I introduced the central part of the lesson by using a projector hooked up to a computer with a wonderful website (listed at the end of the article). It was a hands-on introduction to creating value with tints and shades. The projector provided an advantage by allowing the entire class to view the site.

This site has three components: the visual component, with audio and animation, to view the use of the element in a selected famous artwork; the "find" component, with arrows for students to find examples in three different artworks; and the "create" component, where students can create artworks by manipulating colors, shapes, line, etc., to experiment with the principles or elements of design. Students experimented with the site at home and in the classroom.

Students took turns at the computer, tinting and shading while the rest of the class completed their chalk drawings. Students at the computer were surprised at the variations in value and intensity they created by alternately adding more shade, tint, or color in random orders and amounts. The computer experience encouraged them to focus more intently, and for a much longer period.

Completing the Drawings

After students completed their chalk drawing, they outlined them in black oil pastel. Students rendered their drawings into forms with their three oil pastels: black, white, and their chosen color. They were asked to use the oil pastels in combination as they shaded and tinted their still life drawings. At first, they were encouraged to use the sides of the oil pastels and to put down thin layers. As they built up the layers, students observed the limitless range and began to focus on saturation and intensity of color as well. Students who made errors in using additional colors were encouraged to go back and layer in some of their correct color. That experience allowed students to see that color can be shaded and tinted with color choices other than black and white.

Students' artwork progressed and improved with continuous delineation of values. It took two to three class periods to complete the still life as students saw for themselves that creating mid-range values of color was as important as creating strong contrast. We were all amazed at the different techniques, styles, and beautiful results.

NATIONAL STANDARD

Students intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of their experiences and ideas.

WEB LINK

www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/tint sandshades.

Susan Gardner is an elementary art teacher at Englewood Elementary School in the Northmont City School District in Northmont, Ohio. [e-mail]