Classroom Activity

Thiebaud Cake Math — Intermediate

Part of Counting on Art

Using the painting, Cakes by artist Wayne Thiebaud, students will learn and practice math concepts of volume and surface area. Then they will create a bold cake painting, either online or with classroom art materials.

Thirteen round cakes sit in three rows, each on a disk-like stand supported on a thin rod, in this horizontal painting. We look slightly down onto the cakes, which only barely overlap. All of the cakes are round except for one, which has been cut in half so we see the four layers of yellow cake and chocolate frosting inside. The top of that cake is white. All of the other cakes are unique except for two angel food cakes at the center, which are slightly different heights. Most of the other cakes have white or brown frosting, except for a pink cake at the front right. That cake has white swags piped on the sides and a pink rose on the top. Next to it is a cake topped with yellow, perhaps lemon curd. The other two cakes in the front row have a white swirl against dark brown frosting, and the fourth, near the left egde, is topped with a single red cherry. Half of a low, pale orange cake is cut off by the left edge of the canvas in the middle row. Each cake stand casts a pale gray shadow against the light, arctic-blue counter. The paint is thickly applied throughout, and the outlines around the cakes, plates, and rods are streaked with rainbow colors. The artist signed the work by incising his name and the date into the wet white paint in the top right corner: “Thiebaud 1963.”
Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963, oil on canvas, Gift in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art from the Collectors Committee, the 50th Anniversary Gift Committee, and The Circle, with Additional Support from the Abrams Family in Memory of Harry N. Abrams, 1991.1.1

Grade Level

Subject

Materials

  • Smart Board or computer with ability to project image of Thiebaud’s Cakes
  • Art paper
  • Pencils
  • Markers or poster paint
  • Brushes

 

Warm-Up Questions

Have you ever seen a scene like this? What seems unusual about it? (Note the thin, delicate stands—almost like a circus performer balancing plates on a straw!)

Background

Ten Things About Thiebaud:

  1. Wayne Thiebaud was born in 1920 in Mesa, Arizona. He moved with his family to Long Beach, California, at age nine.
  2. Thiebaud grew up during the Great Depression. He was a boy scout and worked in restaurants.
  3. In high school, he played basketball. He took art classes and started drawing cartoons. He also worked on stage sets for theater productions. Perhaps this experience with stage lighting gave him the idea to put bright light in his paintings.
  4. As a teenager Thiebaud held several jobs, making posters for a movie theater and painting signs. One summer Thiebaud worked in the animation department at Walt Disney Studios. He drew the "in-between frames" (drawings positioned between key changes in movement in order to make animation play smooth) for such cartoons as Goofy and Pinocchio.
  5. In the 1940s, Thiebaud went to junior college and then served in the Army as an artist and cartoonist. He married and settled in Los Angeles and worked as a commercial artist and illustrator. At age twenty-nine he went back to college and received degrees in art, art history, and education. He began teaching art to college students and decided to become a serious painter himself.
  6. In 1961, Thiebaud's food paintings—images of cakes, pies, candy, gumball machines, and deli counters painted with thick paint in bright colors—were exhibited in New York. They were a big hit! Though some scholars called Thiebaud a Pop artist because he painted popular consumer goods, he said he painted them out of nostalgia; they reminded him of his boyhood and the best of America.
  7. Thiebaud explained:

    "My subject matter was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be . . . . I would really think of the bakery counters, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants . . . [it was] always poetic to me."

8. Thiebaud painted things other than food. He made still lifes of neckties, eyeglasses, lipsticks, even cows and dogs. He also painted large portraits of human figures, applying thick paint in bright colors against stark white backgrounds.

9. Thiebaud went on to paint cityscapes—from the steep hills of San Francisco to the colorful landscapes of the Sacramento Valley in California.

10. Wayne Thiebaud retired from full-time teaching in 1990. He lives in Northern California and continues to paint.

Guided Practice

Begin by looking carefully at the painting Cakes by Wayne Thiebaud with your students. Display a copy of the painting and ask students:

  • What do you see? Describe the cakes.
  • Where are these cakes? How are they displayed?
  • How is the painting lit? How can you tell?
  • What is the painting about? What is happening?
  • What is the mood here? Why do you say that?

Read the facts “Ten Things About Thiebaud” at the very beginning of the lesson and ask students what they learned about the artist that might help explain his painting.

Most of the cakes shown are the same geometric solid, a cylinder. Solid shapes such as cylinders have volume. In this case, the volume is the amount of cake inside.

Let's focus on the Valentine cake:

The baker sells it as a 10-inch cake. Which part of the cake measures 10 inches? (diameter)

To calculate the volume of this cake, use this formula: V = pi(r2)(h)

What measures do you need for this formula? (radius and height)

Since the diameter of the cake is 10", the radius (r) equals 5". The height of the cake (h) is 4.5". You can use 3.14 as an approximation for pi and calculate the volume of cake using V = pi(r2)(h).

Answer = 353.25 cubic inches

Now, how can we calculate the amount of frosting on the cake?

First, try to estimate the amount of frosting you think it will take to ice the cake. Here are your choices: 12 square inches, 50 square inches, 98 square inches, or 222 square inches. This is how to figure the answer:

The formula for the surface area of a cylinder is: 2(pi)(r2) + 2(pi)(r)(h), but the formula for the cake is: pi(r2) + 2(pi)(r)(h)
 

Why are they different? The cake is a cylinder, but the bottom is not frosted; so you only need to include the surface area of the top; so you don't need to double pi(r2).

Use what you know about the cake to calculate the surface area.

Answer: 222 square inches of frosting

Doesn't that sound like a lot of frosting for one cake? If you have ever frosted a cake, you know it takes only a cup or two of frosting to cover its surface. It is amazing that those cups contain frosting to cover several hundred square inches!

Use what you have learned to calculate the volume and surface area of this 8" cake. It is 4" high.

Remember:

V = pi(r2)(h)
SA = pi(r2) + 2(pi)(r)(h)

 

Answers: V = about 201 cubic inches (200.96 in3), SA = about 151 square inches (150.72 in2)

Activity

Now that students are familiar with the painting, have them make their own boldly-designed cakes paintings. What type of cake do they like? What shape is their cake? round? rectangular? another shape? What colors are used for this type of cake? How would they decorate it?

 

Extension

Have students challenge their classmates with other math problems relating to the cakes in this painting. What about the ones that have already been cut into? How much cake and icing would a slice contain?

More Lessons in this Unit

Pippin's Story (K–4)

Calder’s Balancing Acts (5–8)

Thiebaud Cake Math (K–4)

 

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