I teach high school. My students have to research an artist who worked or
works with still life and create a page in their sketchbooks. They must
include 1)the definition of still life, 2) the title, (which is the name of
the artist), 3)the dates and origin of the artist, 4) a decription of the
artist's style, 5) an image of one of the artist's still life paintings
preferably in color- either photocopied, printed from the internet or
sketched) and then they must identify how the principles of art are evident
in the image they have chosen. The artists that I give them to choose from
are:
the Dutch still life painters, Chardin, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Peto, Harnett,
O'Keeffe, Janet Fish, Wayne Thiebaud, Audrey Flack. There may be a few more
but I don't have the assignment sheet with me. The pages turned out
beautifully. This is much more interesting and creative for them than
writing a paper. They are able to design the page any way they want but
they must include all the info. listed above. I plan to do the same
assignment when we cover portraits, landscape and abstraction. These pages
add a lot to the visual journals.
Marian
