Still Life Studies in the Style of Cézanne
I had a fantastic day creating still life artworks with Deanne’s Year Two and Three class today. I set up apples and pears on risers so the students would experience what it is like to draw from life. Still life arrangements were traditionally used as a basis for formal experimentation, such as the Post-Impressionist artist Cézanne. To begin the day the students learnt how to create value scales to warm up their sketching skills. We did three scales, hatching, cross-hatching and scribbles.
Next the students did an observational drawing of the apples and pears. I modelled the difference between drawing from imagination and drawing from life. We talked about drawing what we can actually see, not what we think we can see. The students concentrated on creating the outside shape of the fruit first. I demonstrated two ways of drawing the shape, by either starting at one point and drawing the outline as one continuous line or by drawing the base shapes of the fruits and then adding contour lines after. The students then used their shading skills to add shadows, highlights and cast shadows to their drawing.
Our artist model today was Paul Cezanne. We looked at many of his still life artworks and talked about his artistic style. The students identified loose brushstrokes, layers of colour and dark shadows as being typical in his work. The students used layers of oil pastels to make gorgeous studies of the fruit in the style of Cezanne. I modelled how to keep the work loose and layer the colours to achieve detail and depth in their work.
We had some time left at the end of the day so I showed the students how to make a still life composition with crayon and tempera paints. The students arranged the fruit in a way that pleased them and then carefully drew the outlines they could see. I remind them to think about Cézanne’s work as they created their own artworks with layers of paint to show form and texture. Unfortunately I didn’t get to photograph all of these works because the students took these pictures home after their lesson today.
The students created some wonderful artworks today but what was more exciting for me was observing them thinking, creating and problem-solving as wee artists. The student were engrossed in the lesson and stretched themselves with the challenge of creating art in the style of Cézanne. I hope they all learnt something new, whether it be about art history or development of their practical skills.
