Our last Family Day, in March, highlighted the exhibition “The Awe of Ordinary Labors: 20th-Century Paintings from Ukraine.” Between 1930 and 1980, Ukrainian artists had to follow strict rules about what they could paint. Their art showed strong, happy workers, busy factories and caring leaders. This style of art is called socialist realism. Even though artists had to follow these rules, many of them found ways to express their own ideas and creativity in their artwork.
Many works of art in this exhibition are still-life paintings. A still life is a painting or drawing of a group of objects that don’t move, like food or flowers. The objects in still-life paintings often have a double meaning and tell a personal story. What objects do you notice in this painting? Why do you think the artist chose to include them? If you painted a still life, what objects would you include? What story would they tell
about you?
Now it’s your turn to create your own still-life.
You will need the following supplies:
- black construction paper
- oil pastels
- pencil
- miscellaneous household objects
Directions:
- Cover your work space.
- Use some of your favorite things or find random objects around your house. Arrange them in a group on a flat surface.
- Sketch your still-life design on black construction paper with a pencil.
- Trace over the sketch with a white oil pastel.
- Next, cover the entire paper with color by layering your colors. Oil pastels look like they glow when you layer one color on top of another. This works best using colors that are next to each other on the color wheel (orange on top of red, green on top of blue, etc.). Try adding white on top of any color to really brighten them.
- Once the entire paper is covered, outline each shape with black oil pastel for contrast.
Our next Family Day is Saturday, April 19.
Come have fun with us!