Still Life Art: Through the Eyes of a Child

I often set up still life provocations in our art area using flowers, produce, etc. We encourage the children to look closely at the colors, textures, and shapes and to paint what they "see". 


Part of the process of drawing the children to the activity is setting up a provocation that is both aesthetically pleasing and inviting, something that makes them want to stroll over and check it out. The best way to do this is having all that they need for the project available and displaying corresponding/coordinating colors in the paints available and the paper they will use as their display area.

The provocation to draw them in. I didn't have the water
bowls out for this photo, but they were added later.

The view from above...

Sometimes the results are very abstract, sometimes
amazingly close. The results aren't the benefit, the
process is where all the work is done.

Last week we did an Elephants study and discussed how we can mix black and white to make gray, a tint. Today's discussion was about how to make a shade, as the red paint we had was too bright to match the flowers. After a little discussion, it was determined correctly that mixing black with the red made the perfect shade to match.

What still life projects have you tried with your children??