Delicious Desserts, Inspired by Wayne Thiebaud

After exploring color mixing by creating new colors and naming them, 3rd grade artists looked at and discussed the work of American painter Wayne Thiebaud. Thiebaud (pronounced "tee-bow") is known for his paintings of everyday objects, like food, and is still alive and making art today! 

Wayne Thiebaud, Four Ice Cream Cones (1964)

We looked at his paintings of different kinds of desserts and noticed his use of bright colors and dramatic, colorful shadows. Looking at several examples made us hungry! 

To begin our own paintings of desserts, we looked at the geometric shapes and forms that make up a lot of our favorite desserts. We noticed that many desserts are either a cylinder, like a cake or pie; a cone shape, like an ice cream cone; a sphere, like the scoop of ice cream; or a triangular prism, like a slice of cake. We brainstormed and drew a few sketches of our favorite desserts before selecting one to sketch out on larger paper, focusing on the shapes. 

The following class, we used our recent experience with mixing colors to paint our favorite desserts! We thought about how we could mix a variety of colors, thinking about the bright colors that Thiebaud uses in his painting, as well as using white to create lighter tints of a color. 

Students painted their desserts, incorporating tints, and the following week, they added additional details on top, now that the first layer of paint had dried. Students thought about how they could decorate their cakes, ice cream cones, sundaes and doughnuts with creative details like frosting, sprinkles, flowers, candles and hot fudge. 

During the next class, students painted the background, considering the use of a complementary colors and colors that would help their desserts to stand out. Since Thiebaud is also known for his use of strong shadows, we looked at cast shadows and how the shape of the object changes the shape of the shadow. Students added a colorful shadow to their dessert, and many students actually chose to add a window in their background to show a light source. 

For our last class, students participated in a gallery walk to see everyone's artwork and also a turn and talk to share their work with a partner. Here are some colorful examples of our delectable Wayne Thiebaud inspired desserts:

Ditty, 3rd Grade (Fletcher)

Gianna, 3rd Grade (Monfette)

James, 3rd Grade (Donato)

Laisa, 3rd Grade (DeBaie Nickl)

Mane, 3rd Grade (Fletcher)

Mary, 3rd Grade (DeBaie Nickl)

Norah, 3rd Grade (Monfette)

Ruken, 3rd Grade (DeBaie Nickl)

Sean, 3rd Grade (Donato)

Bianca, 3rd Grade (Debaie Nickl)

Duncan, 3rd Grade (Fletcher)

Griffin, 3rd Grade (Fletcher)

Leila, 3rd Grade (Donato)

Mason, 3rd Grade (DeBaie Nickl)

Noa, 3rd Grade (Donato)

Snowmen at Night

Inspired by the recent (and never ending...) snowy weather and the book Snowmen at Night, 5th grade artists drew wintery scenes of snowmen at night participating in a variety of winter activities! We thought about how the concept of value that we have been learning about can be applied with color, not just gradations of black and white as we had been using previously.

First, we read the book, paying particular attention to the illustrations. We noticed that even though one would assume the snowmen are all white, since they are made of snow, the artist used many different colors to help give them a 3D form. There were warmer colors, like yellow and orange, where the light source hit the snowman and darker colors, like blue and purple, in the shadows.

We also discussed how to make a flat shape, starting with a circle, into a 3D form by adding highlight areas and shading to create a sense of roundness. 

Then, we sketched ideas for what our snowmen could be doing. Some students chose to draw one snowman and some drew a scene featuring multiple snowmen. Some snowmen were skiing, playing hockey, having a snowball fight, or drinking hot chocolate by the fire. The inclusion of a light source was also really important, so we could use that to decide where it might be lighter and darker.

Using chalk pastels, students thought about how to use value to create areas of light and dark on their snowman's body before moving onto the background and adding details. Students worked hard to give their snowmen a round, 3D form and thought about where the shadow would be according to their light source.

Here are some examples of our finished snowmen at night drawings!

Taylor, 5th Grade

Ariana, 5th Grade

Vincent, 5th Grade

Mackenzie, 5th Grade

Ciaran, 5th Grade

Claire, 5th Grade