Let them draw cake!

Second grade artists learned about the life and artwork of Wayne Thiebaud. Thiebaud (born November 15, 1920) is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate the works of the classic pop artists. Thiebaud uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work.
We talked about the difference between shapes and forms. Namely, that shapes are two-dimensional and forms are three-dimensional. We practiced drawing cylinders and then stacked 4-5 cylinders on top of one another and came up with designs for a cakes. We finished these in oil pastels while we discussed tints, shades and value. To create a tint we mixed our cake color with white. To make a shade we mixed our color with black. This range of color, from light to dark, in art, is called value.