4th Grade Week 4: Cakes, Pies, and Candy OH MY!

Let's learn a little bit about the life and career of Wayne Thiebaud, an American artist whose early focus on delectable treats launched his career.

Study the painting above for a minute. What do you notice about the artwork? Do you recognize the objects he has depicted? How would you describe this painting?

Wayne Thiebaud (pronounced tee-bow) focused on ordinary objects that he came across in his own life. While he is most known for his paintings of desserts, he also created artwork focusing on cosmetics, or accessories such as ties. He has also explored and created series of landscapes and portraits

He is often associated with Pop Art which is a movement that is associated with commonplace object, mass production, and popular culture. Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are two artists from that movement who were creating around the same time that Thiebaud was becoming very popular. Check out their work below. What similarities do you see between their work and Wayne Thiebaud's piece shown above?

Andy Warhol Roy Lichtenstein

Pop artists often worked from images while Thiebaud worked from life or memory. His pieces show heavy, loose brushstrokes where you can see how the paint was applies whereas pop artists had clean flat color in their works, similar to printed images. He is more influenced by the Abstract Expressionists who used thick gestural brushstrokes.

Willem de Kooning

Let's learn a little more!

The video below is a short biography on the life and career of Wayne Thiebaud. You'll see more of his artwork and learn about how he got started as an artist. Enjoy!!!!!

Be inspired!!

Sometimes looking at his artwork can make me hungry! Our next project is going to take inspiration from the work of Wayne Thiebaud and focus on sweet treats. Let's start with some sketching. Grab a sheet of paper and spend some time sketching out different desserts. Cakes, pies, cupcakes, ice cream, donuts, lollipops, etc! Should I could keep going?! Try to work from memory!! If you have trouble with this and you happen to have something in your house you can look at it to sketch, but try not to use photos!!! Try to focus on items that can be made by hand that don't have packaging or labels. Hold on to your sketches because you'll want to look at them next week as we move on!