The Art of Drawing Still Life With Pastels

In this 7-week drawing class we will focus on still life (objects on a table that they can draw from). Learners will learn how to use different values of darks and lights to create a rounded realistic look. I will teach learners to shade and blend one value into the other. I will also be teaching how to layer objects to create distance. Learners will have the opportunity to choose to use a shading pencil as well as colored pencils, oil pastels or soft pastels. I will be teaching how to use darks and lights for a rounded realistic look with pencil and in color. In the course of the class, I will demonstrate and talk about how to use pastels, oil pastels and colored pencils.  I will be using soft pastels in all the videos, and I will talk about oil pastels and colored pencils and give instructions on how to use them when it is different from the soft pastels. 
    
Each Monday your learner will receive a video lesson and an explanation of what to do for the week. I will have an extended learning activity for them to do too. This will be specifically directed at helping them practice what has been taught. It will also give them an opportunity to use what they have learned and add their own creative ideas to it. I will be encouraging them to share ideas and their artwork in the midweek message on Thursdays. This will be a great learning experience on how to collaborate with other artists and use these ideas to help stir their own creativity. In addition to the Thursday message, I will have question starters to help encourage discussions about the week's lessons. 

As a teacher I have developed these easy first steps to learning how to have a rounded realistic look in your art subjects. We will start with simple shapes like fruit and then move onto cubes. After learners have learned these important first step then they will have success moving onto more complicated subjects. I my goal as a teacher to assist the learners in having an understanding of art and having the abilty to draw and paint the subjects. Drawing has so much to learn and can be overlooked as learners tend to jump to painting or in color art. In this class we will have weeks where we focus on drawing and shading. As we take color away then learners are forced to focus on values. I use these drawing lessons to teach learners how to use values and blend values together which is all skills they need for their in- color art. All that I teach in this class can easy be applied to painting with acryrlic too.  

The Lesson Schedule:
Week 1 - Focus for the lesson is - Draw and Shade fruit two ways. First learn to use values with a shading pencil only. We will focus on making objects look round.  I will be teaching layering objects and planning a still life. 
I will do the same still life with pastels and show how you use color to make an object look round.

Extended Learning: Find household items and arrange your own still life, take pictures or draw what you have come up with. Save all ideas to use as references for future artwork.

Share your artwork and ideas: Each Thursday in the midweek message I will encourage art learners to share ideas. They can post artwork that they are proud of or share an idea of something they want to do. This artwork can be on any type of art or craft. They can also include written instructions of what they did and how they did it so other learners can try it out too. I will be message each learner privately as I see their artwork and encourage them in what they are doing well and set goals for the next step for them.  

Join the discussion: Each Thursday I will send a midweek message with a conversation starter about the topic of the week. Learners can post a video message or a written message and add to the discussion. This will be a great time to talk about what you like and don't like about the weeks art topic and to share what is going well or what you are struggling with. Some weeks I will use this time to encourage brainstorming and planning for lessons that are coming.

Week 2 - Focus for the lesson is - Creating backgrounds and talking about realistic verses abstract. I will be demonstrating different backgrounds and be talking about lots of other ideas to get their creativity going.  

Extended Learning: Come up with your own abstract patterns you could use in a background. Try to do at least two different ones.

Share your artwork and ideas: Each week in the Thursday message I will encourage art learners to share ideas they can post artwork that they are proud of or share an idea of something they want to do. This artwork can be on any type of art or craft. They can also include written instructions of what they did and how they did it so other learners can try it out too. I will be message each learner privately as I see their artwork and encourage them in what they are doing well and set goals for the next step for them.  

Join the discussion: Each week on Thursday I will send a midweek message with a conversation starter about the topic of the week. Learners can post a video message or a written message and add to the discussion. This will be a great time to talk about what you like and don't like about the weeks art topic and to share what is going well or what you are struggling with. Some weeks I will use this time to encourage brainstorming and planning for lessons that are coming.

Week 3 - Focus for the lesson is - We will also be drawing and shading with pastels a vase with flowers. I will also demonstrate how to draw a glass vase in color too.  

Extended Learning: Try drawing and shading different types of flowers or plants that you have around your house or outside. Try drawing from different angles and eye levels.   

Share your artwork and ideas: Each week in the Thursday message I will encourage art learners to share ideas they can post artwork that they are proud of or share an idea of something they want to do. This artwork can be on any type of art or craft. They can also have written instructions of what they did and how they did it so other learners can try it out too. I will be message each learner privately as I see their artwork and encourage them in what they are doing well and set goals for the next step for them.  

Join the discussion: Each week on Thursday I will send a midweek message with a conversation starter about the topic of the week. Learners can post a video message or a written message and add to the discussion. This will be a great time to talk about what you like and don't like about the weeks art topic and to share what is going well or what you are struggling with. Some weeks I will use this time to encourage brainstorming and planning for lessons that are coming.

Week 4 - Focus for the lesson is -on other interesting objects you can add to your still life.  I will be teaching how to draw and shade with pastels a stuffed bear starting with drawing shapes and adding detail. 

Extended Learning: Create a still life with objects that show your interests or something about you. Then draw and shade your still life. 

Share your ideas: Each week in the Monday message I will encourage art learners to share ideas they can post artwork that they are proud of or share an idea of something they want to do. This artwork can be on any type of art or craft. They can also have written instructions of what they did and how they did it so other learners can try it out too. I will be message each learner privately as I see their artwork and encourage them in what they are doing well and set goals for the next step for them. 

Join the discussion: Each week on Thursday I will send a midweek message with a conversation starter about the topic of the week. Learners can post a video message or a written message and add to the discussion. This will be a great time to talk about what you like and don't like about the weeks art topic and to share what is going well or what you are struggling with. Some weeks I will use this time to encourage brainstorming and planning for lessons that are coming.

Week 5 - Focus for the lesson is - drawing a cube and talking about angles and eye level. We will be learning how to add 2D square objects to our still life.  I will also go over shadows and how to add those to our still life. I will be teaching how to plan a still life with 3 objects of different shapes and how to position objects for interest.

Extended Learning: Observe shadows and how the light hits the still life. I will explain the observing activity in the video lesson

Share your ideas: Each Week in the Monday message I will encourage art learners to share ideas they can post artwork that they are proud of or share an idea of something they want to do. This artwork can be on any type of art or craft. They can also have written instructions of what they did and how they did it so other learners can try it out too. I will be message each learner privately as I see their artwork and encourage them in what they are doing well and set goals for the next step for them.  

Join the discussion: Each week on Thursday I will send a midweek message with a conversation starter about the topic of the week. Learners can post a video message or a written message and add to the discussion. This will be a great time to talk about what you like and don't like about the weeks art topic and to share what is going well or what you are struggling with. Some weeks I will use this time to encourage brainstorming and planning for lessons that are coming.

Week 6 - Focus for the lesson is - Putting everything together that we have learned we will Draw and shade with pastels or colored pencils a teapot on a platter. Learn to layer objects and talk about eye levels and how that changes the still life.

Extended Learning: Find items a round object and a square object and arrange a still life use at least 3 objects. observe or take pictures of different eye levels. 

Share your ideas: Each week in the Monday message I will encourage art learners to share ideas they can post artwork that they are proud of or share an idea of something they want to do. This artwork can be on any type of art or craft. They can also have written instructions of what they did and how they did it so other learners can try it out too. I will message each learner privately as I see their artwork and encourage them in what they are doing well and set goals for the next step for them.  

Join the discussion: Each week on Thursday I will send a midweek message with a conversation starter about the topic of the week. Learners can post a video message or a written message and add to the discussion. This will be a great time to talk about what you like and don't like about the weeks art topic and to share what is going well or what you are struggling with. Some weeks I will use this time to encourage brainstorming and planning for lessons that are coming.

Week 7 - Focus for the lesson is - We will draw with pastels a still life with a nature scene for the background of a basket of apples spilling out onto the grass.   We will focus on using different colors and shades with pastels or colored pencils to add dark and light values and adding different textures.

Extended Learning: Find items in nature and arrange a still life and draw, shade it in color. Practice anything you are struggling with and communicate with me about how I can help before class ends.

Sharing Ideas: Each week in the Monday message I will encourage art learners to share ideas they can post artwork that they are proud of or share an idea of something they want to do. This artwork can be on any type of art or craft. They can also have written instructions of what they did and how they did it so other learners can try it out too. I will message each learner privately as I see their artwork and encourage them in what they are doing well and set goals for the next step for them. 
 
Join the discussion: Each week on Thursday I will send a midweek message with a conversation starter about the topic of the week. Learners can post a video message or a written message and add to the discussion. This will be a great time to talk about what you like and don't like about the weeks art topic and to share what is going well or what you are struggling with. Some weeks I will use this time to encourage brainstorming and planning for lessons that are coming.

My hope is that each art learner will be excited as they learn and will find the steps to be easy to follow.  I want all art learners to have an "I can do it attitude" that will help them have the confidence to draw whatever they choose and draw with ease.

I look forward to teaching your art learner soon.