You will need
- Everyday objects (a few per table). Some of these should be see-through, e.g. glass or plastic and ideally of different colours
- Large sheets of paper (A2/A3)
- Coloured oil pastels, chalk, pencils, pens, wax crayons
Aubrey Williams
Explore the artwork
Aubrey Williams
Sketch of vases or urns ([1950s])
Tate Archive
Your students don’t need to know anything about an artwork or artist to start exploring it.
Use these quick group activities to build their confidence and curiosity in sharing their first responses to the artwork. Some artworks they might like straight away, some they might not.
Discovering art can be new, exciting and sometimes confusing. There are no right or wrong ways to respond!
In pairs or as a group, take it in turns to imagine the artworks answering these questions and telling their story.
- What are you made from?
- When were you made?
- What has happened here?
- Do you want me to feel sad or joyful, or something else?
- What else would you like to say?
In pairs or as a group, use your body to respond to the artwork.
- Mirror movements or shapes in the artwork
- Imagine sounds the artwork might make
- Trace the artwork in the air with your hands
- Move like the artwork
- What else could you do?
About the artwork
Sketch of Vases or Urns 1950s is a still life made using gouache paint on paper. Aubrey Williams (1926–1997) paints the collection of vases with bold colours, highlighting the negative space and overlapping shapes to play with form and depth.
Williams began drawing and painting at an early age. When he was working as an Agricultural Field Officer, he spent a lot of time in parts of Guyana inhabited by the Indigenous Warao people and was deeply inspired by their art and cultural practices. His paintings combine elements of abstract expressionism, a 20th century Western art movement, with forms, images and symbols inspired by the pre-Columbian art of Mesoamerica made by the Warao.
Williams was born in Guyana and travelled to the UK and Europe in the 1950s to explore modernist art and meet other artists. He later spent time in Jamaica and the US, capturing the light and colour of those environments. He was also passionate about music, especially the work of Soviet-era Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Williams was an important figure in post-war British avant-garde art, working between abstraction and figuration.
Make
Aubrey Williams’s sketch of everyday objects plays with light, colour and shadow to draw our attention to positive and negative space. In this activity, create your own still life drawing exploring colour and shape.
- In small groups of 3–4, choose some objects and arrange them together. Look closely at the objects. How are they arranged? Where do they overlap? What can you see through? What is obscured? Can you find any negative space? Negative space is what you can see around and through an object rather than the object itself (which is positive space)!
ADAPT
Explore the objects through touch and gesture. What do they feel like?
How could you arrange the objects together in different ways? Try grouping objects of the same colour or tone together or introducing a light source to add shadows.
2. Pick one colour from the drawing materials and draw the outlines of the objects on a large sheet of paper. Include the parts where they overlap by imagining that you can see through the objects and drawing in what’s behind them.
3. Pick another colour in a different material. Use it to shade in any overlapping sections of the objects. Pick yet another colour and fill in all the negative space between the objects.
4. Have a look at what you have made. It might not look anything like the objects you’re studying – and that’s a good thing! By drawing what you can see rather than what you think the drawing should look like, the work you’ve created is a representation of your own reflections on the still life.
What do you want to add to the drawing now?
5. Play with colours you haven’t used yet to finish your drawing, filling in any shadows and details that you see. You decide when the work is finished!
6. At the end of your lesson, find each other’s drawings and celebrate all the different styles and approaches in the artwork you’ve just made!
What does this tell you about how overlaps can partially or totally hide objects, people and things?
How does this make you feel?
Do your colour choices change anything?
Extend
Invite your students to look at their drawing as a series of shapes rather than a depiction of objects. Work with coloured paper and scissors to cut out these shapes and reassemble a second still life. This may look even less like the original objects but think about what the process and the result shows you about the materials you are exploring.
How to use art makes
Making art is a powerful way to learn new skills, explore ideas and express ourselves creatively. Encourage your students to discover new materials, techniques and methods inspired by great artists at Tate.
- Prepare
- Project the artwork in your classroom and/or print off copies for your students to have in front of them.
2. Explore (10 minutes)
- Invite your students to respond to the artwork through the group activity.
- Read the background information on the artwork and the artist.
3. Make (30 minutes)
- Follow the step-by-step instructions.
- Use the Adapt section for accessible alternatives to this activity.
- Use the Extend activity within the same lesson or in a future session.
