Still Life Drawing
with Chalk
Project Description: Students will be drawing objects using chalk. They will practice gesture drawing and blind contour drawing techniques. They will continue to use directional line techniques and begin to develop skills in value shading and color mixing.
Impressionism Still Life
Paul Cezanne "Nature Morte au Crane" 1895-1900
IMPRESSIONIST STILL LIFE Still-life painting played a minor but vital role in the history of Impressionism. With the single exception of Degas, all the important painters of the movement made still lifes, many of which are among the most ravishing in the history of the genre. Like portrait painting and landscape, still life was considered to be a lower form of artistic expression by the French Academy of Fine Arts. Related to the bourgeois art produced in Holland during the seventeenth century, still-life painting seemed to lack the moral and intellectual possibilities inherent in literary painting — whether of historical, mythological, or fictional subjects — that aimed to depict great themes or embody great intellectual aspirations.
It is difficult to make moral or intellectual claims for any arrangement of fruit and vegetables on a table, even these consummately balanced and painted compositions by Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. Monet, who painted Apples and Grapes in Vetheuil during the late summer of 1880, seems to have been looking down on a table covered with a fresh clean cloth, its fold-marks still visible. He may have made a precise arrangement of apples and grapes in a bowl and allowed the rest simply to be scattered over the table in groups. The large cooking apples hold down the left side of the composition, while the small red and green ones appear almost ready to roll from the lower right corner. The whole quivers with life and potential movement, as the fruits tilt and overlap and as the light plays over their juicy flesh.
IMPRESSIONIST STILL LIFE Still-life painting played a minor but vital role in the history of Impressionism. With the single exception of Degas, all the important painters of the movement made still lifes, many of which are among the most ravishing in the history of the genre. Like portrait painting and landscape, still life was considered to be a lower form of artistic expression by the French Academy of Fine Arts. Related to the bourgeois art produced in Holland during the seventeenth century, still-life painting seemed to lack the moral and intellectual possibilities inherent in literary painting — whether of historical, mythological, or fictional subjects — that aimed to depict great themes or embody great intellectual aspirations.
It is difficult to make moral or intellectual claims for any arrangement of fruit and vegetables on a table, even these consummately balanced and painted compositions by Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. Monet, who painted Apples and Grapes in Vetheuil during the late summer of 1880, seems to have been looking down on a table covered with a fresh clean cloth, its fold-marks still visible. He may have made a precise arrangement of apples and grapes in a bowl and allowed the rest simply to be scattered over the table in groups. The large cooking apples hold down the left side of the composition, while the small red and green ones appear almost ready to roll from the lower right corner. The whole quivers with life and potential movement, as the fruits tilt and overlap and as the light plays over their juicy flesh.
GOALS:
-Chalk Practice: Blending and Layering
-Beginning color theory (Good Color choices/Mixing/Matching). Beginning to apply values (Shadows/Highlights). Gesture Drawing and Blind Contour Drawing
-Image should reflect still life subjects.
-Study Impressionism Still Life.
-Chalk Practice: Blending and Layering
-Beginning color theory (Good Color choices/Mixing/Matching). Beginning to apply values (Shadows/Highlights). Gesture Drawing and Blind Contour Drawing
-Image should reflect still life subjects.
-Study Impressionism Still Life.