acrylic pumpkins

The preteens worked on acrylic pumpkin paintings their first night back in the studio.

I had a pumpkin set up in the middle of the table and asked them to sketch with charcoal, not only working out compositionally where they wanted to place the pumpkin on the paper but also spending time to really look at the placement of the stem and the shape of the pumpkin.

Using primary colors, they each blended their own background colors.  I encouraged them to do the blending on the paper, but they also chose to create colors on the palette also.

Once they had their backgrounds complete, I demonstrated how to create an interesting mix of oranges by placing the yellow on the top and the red on the bottom of each section and bringing the colors together to blend.

Finally I encouraged them to use the complimentary color of their pumpkin for shading, instead of using black. 

I think their work came out stunning.

11 year old

11 year old