acrylic cupcakes

The elementary class created cupcake acrylic paintings that worked on composition and the use of tint. Before beginning the students explored the work of artist Wayne Thiebaud and I had them take some time to dissect a painting and make a multitude of discoveries on their own.

8 year old

This project idea however was not inspired by the work of Thiebaud but by the students' interest in the palette knives they had seen in the studio the week before. I took note of how fascinated they were with the tool and figured what better way to introduce them than by "icing" a cupcake the following week.

So when the kids got to class that Wednesday, they each found a cupcake sitting at their seat.

8 year old

I asked them to start by deciding where to put the cupcake on their paper to create visual interest. Then they each drew a cupcake shape on the paper and began to put in a background. I encouraged them to think about the direction they were using their paintbrush and to add lots of white to whatever color they chose to mix for their palette.

Once they had a background painted in I asked each of the students to mix a brown, remembering to add white. We basically baked a cupcake with paint, creating the entire shape with the brown paint they created.

Then while the paint was wet, they added a bit more white to the color where they saw the paper and I brought out some spatula tools I have that create texture. I figured as long as they were going to explore other tools for painting, why just stop with palette knives? The spatula tools make a natural pattern that imitated the lines in the cupcake paper. Although most of the students gave it a try, some also just flipped their brush around and used the top to create lines.

9 year old

Once each student was happy with where they were in the painting, it was time to break out the modeling paste and the palette knives.

I definitely had their interest peeked when I put a small mound of the modeling paste on each of their palettes along with a palette knife. I showed them how to mix some white acrylic paint with the paste using the knife and then told them to ice their cupcakes with the knife.

There was a small learning curve as they figured out how to manipulate the knives, but each child quickly figured out how to make it work for them.

After they were done, they each took a small brush and added the final touch- sprinkles!

When finished each student devoured their "live" subject and we were left with some very delicious looking paintings hanging to dry on the studio walls.

8 year old

 It was a yummy project from beginning to end.