Drawing: observe and draw cakes using charcoal
I can observe and draw cakes using charcoal to create tone, texture, and depth.
Drawing: observe and draw cakes using charcoal
I can observe and draw cakes using charcoal to create tone, texture, and depth.
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Lesson details
Key learning points
- Observing carefully before drawing improves accuracy and proportion.
- Charcoal can create deep contrasts and textures using pressure, blending, and erasing.
- Shading techniques (hatching, cross-hatching, blending) helps bring drawings to life.
- Light and shadow add depth to make cakes look realistic.
Keywords
Observation - looking closely at an object to notice its details, shape, and texture before drawing
Texture - how a surface appears or feels; in art, it's represented using different marks and shading
Charcoal - a black, powdery drawing material that allows for rich shading and contrast
Tone - the lightness or darkness of an area in a drawing, used to create depth
Blending - smoothing charcoal marks to create soft transitions between light and dark areas.
Common misconception
Charcoal is too messy to control, and mistakes can’t be fixed.
Charcoal is a flexible material. Smudging can be used to soften mistakes or use a rubber to refine shapes and add highlights.
To help you plan your year 5 art and design lesson on: Drawing: observe and draw cakes using charcoal, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 5 art and design lesson on: Drawing: observe and draw cakes using charcoal, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
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The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 art and design lessons from the Ceramics: cake culture unit, dive into the full secondary art and design curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
Charcoal sticks and pencils, rubbers, blending tools (tissues/cotton buds/smudge sticks), sketchbooks or drawing paper. Images of cakes or real cakes for observation.
Licence
Lesson video
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Starter quiz
6 Questions
a soft, powdery material that can be colourful or black and white
a type of paint that mixes with water to create transparent layers
a black, powdery drawing material that allows for rich shading
looking closely at an object to notice its details, shape, and texture
how a surface appears or feels
smoothing marks to create soft transitions between light and dark
Exit quiz
4 Questions
