For our very last art project of the school year, we took a bite out of the work of Wayne Thiebaud! While he started out painting landscapes, Wayne is most famous for his works featuring food. He painted everything- from pies, to cake, to ice cream- in his signature styles of bold colors and heavy shadows. The kindergarteners made mixed media pieces inspired by his Roast Dinner painting, and the lower elementary class made Paper Mache cakes that look good enough to eat!
The kindergarteners cooked up a classic meal of alphabet soup for their project. The first step was making the placemat- they drew horizontal and vertical lines with markers, and painted over them with water to give the lines a watercolor texture. Then, they wrote letters in oil pastel and painted over them with yellow paint to fill their bowls with broth. We learned all about shadows and how to use them to make our art look three dimensional. The students used black chalk pastel to add shadows to their bowls and napkins. The final step was gluing a plastic spoon and letter beads to make our alphabet soup really pop!
The lower elementary class made 3D versions of Wayne’s famous cakes. They started by putting Paper Mache over a cardboard cake slice. Once it was dry, they started painting it in all different colors. The last step was using whipped cream glue in piping bags to add icing, just like a real baker. They all absolutely loved piping different designs on their cakes. The last step was adding fake fruit to complete their cake slices!
