On the Move: Drawing with Pastels

Tiny toys motivate. No matter how old the student, miniature, life-like objects fascinate. When my 7th and 8th graders enter the art room and see matchbox cars and planes, trucks and motorcycles set up at each table, they can't wait to get started.
We do a few color mixing exercises first, to get used to the pastels, to see how to mix and blend colors and to understand how to  change color value by blending in white or black and decide on warm or cool colors for the vehicle. Then I have them use a neutral grey  construction paper for their drawing to help emphasize the rich hues.
The only challenge with this lesson is keeping the kids from playing with the cars so that they don't disturb the still life set-ups between classes!