Submitted by Eldon Davis, Art Teacher at Earnscliffe Sr. PS,
Bramalea, Ontario, Canada
Grades: 6 and up

Materials:

• APPLES, ORANGES, PEARS, OTHER FRUITS
• 12 x 18 CARTRIDGE PAPER
• PENCIL
• PASTELS

Procedure:

This is a popular lesson with most students because they may eat while creating a still life fruit salad drawing. Students start by bringing apples, oranges, pears etc. to class. Using 12 X 18 cartridge paper, they 1st draw in pencil a whole fruit as a centre of interest. The class cuts their whole fruit into halves and share these. A student drawing a whole apple then may use a half orange to draw, overlapping some of the whole apple previously placed on the page. When everyone has completed their half drawings, the fruit is then cut into quarters. Mix and share these quarter pieces to continue developing the still life drawing by overlapping each new fruit section. The whole apple, half orange art piece then may include quarters of pears, oranges or even other types of apples. I encourage students to include a minimum of 4 shapes in the finished piece. Colour the final product using pastels to match as closely to the real fruit's colour as possible. Cutting across the apples (star), oranges, grapefruits, lemons (wheel) when cut gives very interesting internal shapes to be drawn. Great results are achieved for fantastic realistic drawings. A super confidence building lesson.