Wednesday, March 5, 2014

4 part still life project - middle school

4 Part Still Life Exploration with 8th grade
on 18x24 paper split into 4 9x12 sections

Students chose their still life object.
It had to be bigger than their hand with limited text.
I steered them away from stuffed animals and fuzzy/furry textures. 

I would absolutely do this project again and keep the order in which I introduced the parts. 

This was wonderful for differentiation-
it allowed all levels of students to learn a lot, better their skills, and feel comfortable. 



1. Realistic pencil drawing of the entire object with shading. 
(2-3 class periods)

2. In the style of Romero Britto. 
(3 class periods with introduction/quick slide show)
Students must zoom in on the object, with the option to abstract it. 
Using marker they broke the section down and filled it in with bright color to make it pop. 

(toaster abstraction)

3. Collage
(3-4 class periods depending on type of collage they chose, with slide show)
Students could choose the composition for this section- with the option to zoom & crop or showcase the entire object. 
I showed LOTS of examples of different types of collages. 
They could choose their materials- I suggested magazine cut outs, newspaper, or tissue paper. 
They had to include a background. 








4. Acrylic painting
(2 class periods with introduction to painting/demonstration)
This was the final section of the four.
Students had to look at their image as a whole and figure out what type of composition was needed in order to make the entire paper feel balanced. 
Most of them have never used acrylic paint before. 
Color options and backgrounds were up to the them. 
Students decided if they wanted to paint the object in colors true to life or not.



Suggestions if you are limited on time:
- you can cut down squares & stripes ahead of time
to collage for stripe or checkerboard backgrounds
- select the objects ahead of time and limit the objects they can choose 

More finished examples to come!

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