“See Three Shapes” is a special way of looking at objects to help us draw them. Instead of seeing all the tiny details straight away, we break what we see into three simple shapes – outline, form and shadow.

In order to do this, the children had to stay quiet and concentrate. They looked carefully at their Still Life object (a banana) and observed it for a while. They had to think about:

• The outline of the object.
• The shadow the object makes on the ground.
• The shadow on the underside of the object.

The children carefully followed the below instructions to complete their Still Life painting:

1. Take the fine brush and use undiluted paint or ink draw the outline of the object. We had to make sure it is a good size, i.e. not too small.

2. Next, take a thicker brush and use the diluted paint or ink and make a single brush stroke to describe the shadow on the ground.

3. Using the same thick brush and diluted paint or ink made a third mark to show the shadow on the object itself.

Take a look at some of more of our creations below:

In this task, at least half the time was spent just looking at the banana before the children started to commit their drawing to paper.