Older elementary students like to get things just right when it comes to drawing from life. We talked about symmetry and practiced drawing simple objects like a bottle, but we only drew ONE side with a charcoal pencil. Then, we fold paper in half and rubbed the back of our drawing with a pencil to make a perfectly symmetrical bottle! Students felt so proud that their bottle looked 'real'. Next, we shaded one side dark, the other light for an instantly 3d effect. Once we'd drawn and shaded our objects with pastels, we arranged them in a balanced composition on 2 pieces of wall-paper taken from an old sample book. The result--a truly life-like still-life that gives students pride.
