The Wayne Thiebaud cake lesson. If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all. That's how I was feeling. This lesson had gotten stale and I needed to kick it up a notch to keep my 4th grade artists engaged.
A few weeks ago I reached out to one of my favorite instagram artists. Anastasiya Levashova is an amazing contemporary illustrator who paints drool-worthy confections among other things. It was the perfect balance to the artwork of Wayne Thiebaud. To get started I asked the artist for permission to print some of her cake images to inspire my students. I was so delighted to hear from her the very next day and she even asked to see their work when finished. How sweet is that?
In this remixed lesson I presented Thiebaud as the past, Anastasiya as the present and suggested that they could be the next great cake artist. Sharing a little about Levashova opened the conversation up to different career paths and options for artists today. This was the missing link. Adding the contemporary artist into the mix made the lesson much more relatable to my students. The next logical step was to move our media into the 21st century.
Our district purchased a class set of apple pencils (I know, spoiled!) for the 7 elementary schools to share. So when it was our turn, I knew I had to make the most of it. Not only were they using a stylus for the first time, we were using the procreate app on their ipads (yes, completely and utterly spoiled).
Here are some more of their amazing cakes:
My lesson plan and support materials to help your students succeed are available here.
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