History-themed art projects are an enjoyable alternative to extensive and time-consuming history activities. Hands-on history doesn't have to mean mummifying a chicken! These 30 + art lessons, projects, and tutorials are available for free!

Students love creating cave art paintings! Lots of art materials are used for this layered project. I like to have my students create these projects at the beginning of the year to build their conf…

A Fun New Way to Teach Art History! % %

Make this fun papyrus paper for your next art project! The texture adds a unique touch!! Great activity while studying Egypt

The daily practice of art history warm-ups will develop art criticism skills while investigating a broad range of artists throughout history.

Inside: Nazca Lines craft for kids learning about Peruvian culture and history. It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, 2017! At the end of this post, find our Multicultural Kid Blogs HHM giveaway for some fun prizes. Today I’m sharing an exploratory Nazca lines craft. The project gives hands-on feel for these marvels of Peru, and how they were

Welcome! This blog post features a guided tutorial of how to create a geometric, Bauhaus-inspired paper collage. Prior to beginning, it is helpful to learn more about the Bauhaus art movement. Some of the key characteristics of Bauhaus art includes (1) simple, geometric shapes, (2) basic color schemes, and (3) asymmetrical balance. This activity challenges artists

Exploring famous artists for kids. There are famous artist inspired art projects for kids of all ages. Art ideas for toddlers, preschoolers upwards ar

Integrate art and literacy with no prep or background knowledge with step by step tutorials for art history and art around the world!

I must say, it's hard to avoid the Yayoi Kusama dot pumpkin around the fall time. Searching for pumpkin-inspired art project ideas inevitably reveals this contemporary Japanese artist's dimensional, plump and somewhat psychodelic pumpkins. It's been done, again and again, but I felt it was now my turn... despite the hype. Kusama pumpkins White board instructions and guides, with teacher samples I love the graphic quality, and I particularly love the challenge of drawing contours without lines, by using only dots of various thickness. My kids classes (8-14 year olds) have varying degrees of experience with pen techniques since we did a few projects last year and in the last weeks involving stippling, hatching, and adding texture with pen. This no-lines drawing is not too far off, but definitely in a new direction, and I saw it as an extension of our previous illustration and pen work. Win win. Medium choice: I wanted the results to be super neat and crisp, like Kusama's own work. I knew painting dots with brushes would not give us that crisp quality, and I felt similarly about painting or drawing in the background pattern. So I opted for drawing in the dots with permanent black markers in various thickness, on colored paper. Pumpkins would be cut out and pasted on a background which was painted with a foam roller and stencil with black acrylic paint over top a vibrantly colored paper. With this approach we get the bright color of the pumpkins and the background, the neatly controlled lines of dots with the makers (that's the objective, after all), and the clean patterned background with the stencils. Process Day 1 1. Drawing pumpkins Student had visuals of Kusama's pumpkins as well as photos and illustrations of pumpkins to observe the variety of their form and shape. Simple step-by-step pumpkin drawing guides were also at their desk, so they could see how to break down and simply the drawing steps. I also demonstrated how to draw a pumpkin on the white board, and showed them several different options for shapes. Pumpkins are most easily drawn starting with the central 'section shape', them the section shape to the left and the right, and so on. The stem is drawn slightly tucked down into the top, so is doesn't look like it's sitting on the top contour edge, but rather growing out the pumpkin. Students were encourage to try a few different shapes - tilted, plump, oblong and even with wavy sections.... like Kusama's. We practiced a few rounds of pumpkins on scratch paper. Then we chose our colored paper, and began drawing our favorite version in pencil. 2. Dots Each pumpkin section must be filled with dots in a crisp, systematic fashion. Our dots must create the illusion of form. We analyzed Kusama's work and noted how she uses a row of larger dots at the center of her central section, with increasingly smaller rows of dots on both sides. This gives our section a 3-D shape. The tricky part is addressing the next sections to the left and the right. We noted that Kusama uses large semi-circle, or half-dots, along the outer edge of the first section (where we drew our section line with pencil). From there, the lines of dots get increasingly smaller again toward the other edge. This is repeated for each section. The darker intensity of the large half-dots serves the purpose of creating a strong visual line which separates the sections (thereby replacing our 'line' with 'dots'). *Super important for an effective gradient of dot sizes is using differently sized markers. We used permanent markers with hefty fat tips, medium tips (or a sharpie with a good point) and fine liners in various tops. 3. Stem We observed that Kusama did her stem in the same manner, but in the inverse. So dots are white, and the negative space is black. To achieve this effect, we simply drew open circles with our black pen, and colored the space around our white circles. Pencil lines were erased and pumpkins were cut out. We managed all this in a 90 minutes class. Drawing dots Drawing dots Day 1 results Day 1 results Day 2 Background: Student chose a colored paper that complemented or contrasted with their pumpkin color. Then they chose the stencil of their choice. My stencils are from Marabu. We chose stencils that contrast the dot pattern, so those with a different angular of liner quality. We did not, for examaple, use the stencils with hearts, small stars, circles, etc. because they are visually too similar to our dots. We used black acrylic paint and foam rollers to stencil on our colored paper. In many cases, our stencils were not as large as our paper, so we had to carefully reposition the stencil, lining up the stencil with the printed edge, and rolling again to fill the page. Pumpkins were finally pasted on the printed background, for a visually exciting result. My students were quite wowed by their vibrant, dimensional results, and proud of their hard work and dedication to neatness and precision. Hard work pays off. Ages 8-14 Ages 8-10

Vincent Van Gogh was a dutch artist in the 1800s who became one of the most famous and influential artists. He is known for his oil paintings. Many of his most notable works include the Starry Night, Irises, Almond Blossoms, his self portrait and Vase with fifteen sunflowers. This project is inspire

Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step How to make a Matisse art project tutorial and Coloring Page. Stop by and grab yours for free.

It brings me so much joy knowing that my daughter loves art as much as I do. My five-year old spends the vast majority of her free time drawing, painting or crafting. It is wonderful to be able to share this with her. I introduced her to the great artists early on and her curiosity […]

Inside you'll find an easy Gee’s Bend Quilt art lesson for how to make a paper quilt project with your kids. Grab it for your classroom now (it’s free!)

Use this collection of Vincent Van Gogh teaching resources and complete Famous Artist Unit lesson plans for elementary art classes.

Add Take Time for Art to your history curriculum this homeschool year. Take Time for Art is a hands-on art program that will enhance your history year.

Some of the biggest names in art history are featured in our Famous Artists Word Search Puzzle – Pollock and Picasso, Michelangelo and Monet.

Marc Chagall believed in painting from the heart and that's what he did! Learn more about this amazing artist with 10 Marc Chagall Art Projects for Kids.

Invite your kids to enjoy a peaceful art session at home with this lovely Georges Seurat Pointillism for kids art activity! Bathers at Asnieres is a p

Our exploration of Art History at a preschool-level! And there's plenty for grown ups to learn and enjoy too!

O'Keeffe's paintings make great inspiration for kids' art projects, so let's check out 10 of the best Georgia O'Keeffe projects for kids!

In this Aquarium Perspective Lesson, Middle School students will dive right into learning about the principle of perspective while designing an aquarium.

Free Printables, Free Homeschool Printables

Joan Miro was an artist who didn't subscribe to any artistic label. Learn more about this incredibly talented artist with these Joan Miro Projects for Kids.

Michelangelo is one of the greatest artists the world has ever seen & these Michelangelo Art Projects for Kids are perfect for the kids to learn about him!

It's never too soon to start introducing your kids to famous artists. Challenge them to make their own masterpiece with one of these art projects for kids.

Famous Paintings: Explore 100+ iconic artworks and their stories. From masterpieces to renowned artists, discover the world of art.

Free homeschool art curriculum with famous artists, art history lessons, world culture, easy art techniques and a weekly online art lesson.

When I was a girl, the grocery store my mother shopped at sometimes sold oddball items - including, for a time, lovely oversized books about famous artists. Fortunately for me, my mother was happy to buy me one of these books each time she shopped, and soon I had most of them. I used to pour over them and dream - and my life is richer for it. There are a number of reasons I've wanted to include art history in our homeschool. Certainly I want to expose my children to lots of different types of art in order to spur their own creativity. But art is also an important piece of history. Every kid should be able to recognize famous works of art and know who painted them - and at least a little bit about the artist and the time period in which he or she created. The great thing is, you don't need to buy curriculum in order to supplement your child's education with art! You'll want to have access to the artist's work; your library will probably have some books to help here - and it's also easy to find famous works of art online. (For example, to find famous paintings by Van Gogh, just Google "Van Gogh paintings" and click on the "images" link at the top of the page.) /P> There are also free videos, coloring pages, and other resources online that can be helpful. But mostly, you'll want to learn a bit about the artist, observe his or her style, and then let your kids try their hand at painting or drawing something similar. Let your children experiment - and don't be concerned if they decide to go off on their own creative tangent. For this, of course, you'll want a few art supplies - paper, crayons, and water colors will do, but also consider having pastels, colored pencils, finger paints, acrylic paints, and colored markers on hand. Each week, I'll share with you great free resources for adding art history to your children's lives. For young kids, consider keeping their coloring pages/art projects in a folder, then staple them all together into a book at the end of the year. For older kids, consider having the student keep a notebook; each page would have the artist's name, some basic information about him or her, plus a sample of artwork. By the end of the year, your children will have an excellent "book" to browse through and be inspired by. Currently Available Lessons (more coming every week!): Vincent Van Gogh Leonardo Da Vinci Claude Monet Pablo Picasso Rembrandt Henri Matisse Michelangelo George Seurat Andy Warhol Thomas Gainsborough Mary Cassatt Grant Wood Edgar Degas Grandma Moses Georgia O'Keeffe

Everyone is familiar with Georgia O'Keeffe's larger then life flowers, and if they are not, they should be! She was an amazing artist: at the forefront of the American Modernism. Her art career spans decades and is as fascinating as the woman herself. ***This page contains affiliate links.*** When it came down to doing an

If you enjoy learning about different artists in your homeschool, you will love learning about 8 of our favorite artists!

Integrate art and literacy with no prep or background knowledge with step by step tutorials for art history and art around the world!

Last year, our most popular kids activity series by far was Exploring Art History with Preschoolers. We continue to add to it over time, featuring simplified artistic techniques and fun books about art for kids. Today, my friend Nicola from Crafty Kids at Home is sharing some awesome kids painting…

Today we will be learning about Henri Matisse’s Cut-Outs and using his work as a tool to practise your child’s Fine Motor Skills and creativity. We will do this by creating our own Matisse Cut-Out masterpiece. Got older kids that want to join in? No problem! This activity caters for a range of ages.

Create this Starry Night Masterpiece with your students! This Van Gogh inspired Art Project for Kids uses simple materials you already have in your art supply closet. Free Step-by-Step video and tutorial at The Crafty Classroom.

Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step Magritte art project for kids and Magritte Coloring Page. Stop by and download yours for free.