Fruit is a fabulous subject for 3-D value studies, hence
their prominence in still life painting. In the last lesson we studied value in shades of grey with charcoal. However, this time we turned on the
color! The students each received dollops of Red, Yellow and Blue acrylic
paint then mixed them together on their palette and directly on their painting to form secondary and tertiary colors
(remember back to the first of the year and the color wheel?). They
were challenged to paint a Pear and an Apple - one in 'Hot' colors and one in 'Cool' colors, but could
choose which specific colors they wanted to use remembering that there
are 'warmer' greens and purples and 'cooler' yellows and reds.
We
learned that a dry brush was important to maintain the intensity and
thickness of the paint, but that it was all too easy to blend the
colors too much so that they lost their individually and became brown.
We saw that acrylics are great for building up color, so brush strokes were encouraged as was the overlay of colors. Best of all, however, is that we found out how much we could paint with just Red, Yellow and Blue.
Some
people tried their hand at grapes (we added a dollop of white),
peppers, lemons and one person even painted a potato! Ask your child to show you
how to paint one of the items in your fruit bowl!
