Wayne Thiebaud, how cool is he!? Cakes and desserts were his thing, and thick, impasto oil paint was his medium.
My 6-12 year olds took on his cakes with these colorful, creamy oil pastel versions.
The operative goals were oil pastel techniques (blending, layering, thick application of our medium); form and dimension (highlights and shadows, drawing ellipses); and perspective (parallel lines). For a richer finished product, we drew on colored paper, which gives our art an additional back glow and a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. I think of using colored paper as our drawing surface as an underpainting to our painting. A must.
A pretty simple and effective project. Students practice drawing ellipses. For a cake, draw two identical ellipses, one above the other, and connect these with two lines (left and right). Voila, there's your cake. For the cut out piece, draw an upside down 'V' outwards from the center. This is the 'V' of the top of the cut out slice. For the 'V' of the bottom of the cut out slice, draw another upside down 'V' from the bottom half of the cake and ensure that the lines of the top and bottom 'V' are parallel. Connect the two Vs by drawing a vertical line down the front from the center point of one V to the center point of the other V. Done.
The plate that the cake sits on is yet another ellipse. The horizon line is drawn in.
Coloring
Students color their cake with a strong slight-to-the right light source in mind. Highlights are created by adding white over top of our main color, while shadows are created by adding a similar but darker color over top of our main color. These are blended with finger or with the oil pastels themselves until smooth and creamy. The inside of the cut out slice also has a highlight and shadow. Since the light source is slightly to the right, the slice section on the left has a bit of a highlight (part of which is cut off from the section of the cut out slice opposite it, while this opposite side is in shadow. Plate shadows are done in blue or purple.
Super fun. Kids were very proud and feeling hungry.
