The point of this project is to get students to focus on values and modeling instead of worrying about color. Three-dimensionality comes from light and shadow, and this has to do with value, not color. Often the first impulse for a student is to color an object with its local color. By removing color both from the still life and the painting, the student can concentrate on form.
It is amazing how many different fruits and vegetables are yellow. I stop on the way to class at a farm market and pick up a variety of yellow produce. I'll eat it all, or my students can, so I don't mind paying for the supplies, although they are more expensive now that they were when I first started doing this project.
Since everything in the still life is yellow, it is easy to ignore what color there is, and think in terms of shades of grey. Using acrylic, the students paint the still life with a full value range, paying attention to the various types of light and shadow.
We leave it to dry and, at the next class, they paint over all the elements of the still life using transparent colors. They can use any color they want. The still life is no longer on the table, so they have to use their imaginations. They will find that the still life reads well as a display of produce no matter what colors they choose.
