NGAkids Still Life (Shockwave, 8 MB) helps you create interactive compositions that mirror the paintings of the old masters. This Art Zone activity is suitable for all ages. Young children can explore spatial arrangement, perspective, proportion, and balance while creating engaging, interactive still life compositions that mix everyday objects with elements borrowed from famous works of art. More advanced artists will enjoy creating complex arrangements, and then switchng to the painting mode to add and manipulate textured 'brushstrokes" that give their art a more abstract, painterly quality.

VIEW A SLIDESHOW (Flash, 32K )  A slideshow features photographs of real still life paintings and related art objects in the Gallery's collection that inspired this interactive program. These works may give you good ideas about how to get started on your own still life. You may recognize some of the art, and you probably can identify a few of the artists. Try to spot the elements in the pictures that appear in the interactive. Here's a printable checklist of who made what (PDF, 220k) so you can check your guesses and learn more about the artists on the Gallery's main Web site.

It may take a few minutes to load the program the first time you use it. If you have a slow internet connection, pre-load the program in the background and come back later to play.

Use the COMPOSER to arrange your still life, then switch to PAINTER to add interesting textures. The RANDOM button will generate  combinations automatically, so it's a simple way to sample the menu choices. Try the different menus and buttons to figure out what they can do. Then make something.

You can SAVE paintings and still life compositions as you work, which makes it easy to backtrack if you change your mind about your design. Saved images will remain active and "re-paintable" as long as your Web browser and the window with the Still Life program remains open. If you refresh the Web page, the program will reload and any work in progress will disappear.

To print your art, click the printer icon. Click the question mark button at the top of the interactive for more HELP.

If the top of this page is blank, download or update Shockwave Player. Macintosh computers running Snow Leopard OS 10.6 should set Safari to open in 32-bit mode. Visit our help page to learn how. If you use an older PC and have not updated your software recently, you may prefer this earlier version of this Still Life program.

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