Drawing From Still Life

Introduce young artists to still life drawing with a handout that details the basic steps in the creation of these works.

Students review art history in the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. In this art history lesson, students discuss art vocabulary emphasizing landscape, portrait, and still life. They visit the museum and create their own pictures. 

Provide your young artists with an opportunity to study the masters and their techniques to become skilled at drawing still life. They discuss and view images from artists like Degas and Michelangelo, practice drawing techniques such as...

Students investigate the Realism movement. In this Realism art movement lesson, students explore the movement and evaluate the elements of still life painting. Students compare the Realism movement to other 19th century art movements.

Showing light and shadow in a drawing or painting is trickier than it looks. After viewing famous examples of still-life paintings, young artists use shading techniques in their own art to emphasize the contrast between light and shadow.

Students discuss still life painting and the Realism style of art. They plan a personal narrative still life drawing, complete the project and present it to the class.

Fully analyze the elements of art and unexpected beauty in the William Merritt Chase's Still Life with a Fish. The class will examine the painting very closely, then use photography to express unexpected beauty in still life. This is a...

A still life with tissue paper? Why not! Using Paul Cézanne's art as inspiration, learners create their own still life pictures by gluing various colors of tissue paper onto a paper or pattern.

Students draw their own still life fruit salad. Using various types of fruit, they draw one piece of whole fruit as the center of interest. Using the real fruit, they divide them up into quarters and halves and mix them with the other...

Eighth graders examine still life as subject matter, personal expression as a purpose for creating art, and creating a still life using a 19th or early 20th century technique.