“Focal Point” Valentine

This is an exercise to have students think about how they can make their art have a focal point by using different colors, patterns, values, etc. Many masters such as Cezanne used it in paintings like this one to make the warm fruit stand out from the cool background.
1. Give each student a piece of paper, pencil and cardboard heart to trace. The students are to trace lots of hearts, either in a row or randomly spaced. If you are desperate, I've linked my sample template here.
2. The hearts are then traced with a black marker. Ask the students to choose one heart that is to be the focal point of their picture. When coloring, that heart needs to be different from all the others. It could be that one uses warm colors and the rest are cool, or the colors are all similar but one has stripes in it. Or as my students had just learned about making 3D shapes, one could have dimension added and the rest are flat. I personally like colored pencils for this project, and if you can afford them, the Prismacolor brands are the best. It’s a simple but good exercise, I think, and you also have an interesting Valentine card when you’re done.

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