Thursday, August 6, 2015

Cakes Revisited

I was recently asked by a reader how to draw cakes like the oil pastel ones below (which I did with 5th graders a few years ago during a study of Wayne Thiebaud).

I thought maybe I had directions somewhere on the blog showing the steps I used that I could refer her to, but I couldn't find any. So, here is a quick step-by-step. Hope it helps!!

Of course, you could just bake up (or buy) a luscious cake, cut out a slice or 2 (which you could eat as a snack at recess time), project the cake onto a screen with your document camera (if you have one) and let the kids do an observational drawing. Just sayin' -- it's an option:))

Here is what a whole bunch of cakes look like. You may notice that kids made their cakes whatever number of layers and flavors they wanted and decorated however they liked. We also talked a LOT about "light source" and where the shadows would be. The platters were sandwich foil that I got at our local Smart & Final and they were glued first, before the cut out cakes were glued on.






6 comments:

  1. Really helpful tutorial. Those cakes look scrumptious! Pinning!

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  2. thank you...I am looking forward to using this with my kids

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  3. Lovely - what brand of oil pastels do you use? I can't get mine to achieve the same blending results.

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  4. Lauren - My favorites are Pentel. They are very soft, so they may not last as long, but are easy for kids to blend with.

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  5. what type of paper did you use? Sometimes we use black construction paper for oil pastels and sometimes white 80lb paper. Neither is optimal for students.

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  6. Students used oil pastel on cardstock for the cake. Then they cut out the cake and made a “plate” out of aluminum foil to glue it on. Finally they chose a piece of colored construction paper for the background.

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