6th Grade Still Life Value Sketch
The past few years I have been starting 6th grade art with this lesson. It’s a great review of following directions, sketching, values, representational drawing, etc.
With 45 sixth graders it’s not possible to set up an actual still life with lighting, so we just all work from my example. We discuss lighting and shadows. Also shading with the charcoal to create 3 values (light, medium, dark).
Materials: Compressed charcoal sticks, drawing paper, eraser, paper towel
We use the side of the compressed charcoal to fill in the whole paper, leave a clean boarder around the edges so they have a clean place to hold on to the paper. Use the paper towel to smooth out the charcoal.
We discuss the things that create depth and make a drawing look realistic- overlapping objects, shadows, background, etc. We sketch out the cups and horizon line.
Then start placing in the darker values (shadows, above the horizon line, dark top sides of the cups).
We then begin to erase the light areas (light side of cup, rim, inside of cup).
I show them on mine how to compare values to make sure objects are standing out and are not getting lost in the drawing.