Students will learn how to draw shaded bottles which appear to be three dimensional.
By Amy Shapley [Amy is an art educator from Notre Dame de Sion, in Kansas City, MO]
Objectives:
- Students will learn about shading and value.
- Students will learn basic techniques of watercolor painting.
What You Need:
- assortment of colored (or clear) bottles in a variety of shapes
- pencils
- brushes
- heavy white construction paper or inexpensive watercolor paper
- scissors
- glue stick
- pan watercolors
- back ground paper for display
- a light source (small desk lamp will do)
- Optional: chalk pastel
What You Do:
- Arrange bottles on a desk or table so they can be seen clearly by all students. (You might need to set up several “stations” around the classroom).
- After students have looked at the bottles with no light source, add a light source (small desk lamp) coming from the side and discuss with students how highlights and shadows are made and how they affect the way the bottles look.
- Demonstrate the way different amounts of water can be used with watercolor to show different values.
- Students then draw the outlines of 3 to 6 bottles on the white paper.
- Using light wash, encourage students to paint one bottle with one color of water paint.
- In the center section of the bottle, they should paint a darker value.
- On the shadowed side, they should paint the darkest value.
- On the light source side, they should use less paint.
- Students should be encouraged to use a wet brush to blend the three values together.
- Optional: Students can use chalk pastels to add additional details to the artwork (as shown in examples).
- Optional: Once they have finished, cut out each of their bottle paintings and glue them onto the background paper for display.
