Impressionist Pear Still Life in Soft Pastels

Students drew two pears overlapping, with one in front.  Students used soft pastels and no eraser.  Students chose a main color for the pear and then worked their way into the cool colors for the shadows.  Students, then, added warm colors for the highlights.  After, students chose a table color and made sure to put the table line beyond the rear pear.  Students added shadows under the pears in the shadow colors.  Students could choose whether to blend the soft pastels with their fingers or to blend with the side of a soft pastel.  When the piece was nearly done, students checked their edges and worked on cleaning up their pear's edges or adding more roundness to the pears.  This was a one day project. 

Students practiced using shading to create Form, a 3-dimensional shape, and one of the Elements of Art.  This project was the next step of learning how to create form after the Tiger Lily drawing.  This is a challenging concept because there is no outlining, since outlining creates flatter, 2-dimensional drawings.