Teach children art history through a variety of fun art projects and lessons. We love using artists as inspiration for our own creations.
I don’t know how many of you might remember the board game Masterpiece. This was one of my favorite games as a child, not because of the strategy of the game, but simply because of the artwork. It came with a deck of brightly colored cards filled with famous works of art that I loved. I took a […]
This fun lesson was inspired by "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds, and is a perfect choice for celebrating "Dot Day"! Use this technique to make a series of quick and colorful, one-of-a-kind monoprint "dots". Then repaint your printing surface and make as many new designs as you like!
A collage art lesson inspired by Henri Matisse. "Students will learn about the life and art of Henri Matisse, and create a cut out collage inspired by his work.Drawing With Scissors is an interesting and creatively written story of the life of one of the art world’s greatest masters, Henri Matisse, and his wonderful artistic contribution that had made our culture rich.
One of my students' favorites is a Tim Burton art lesson I call "Spooky Selfies". It yields excellent results and works for almost all ages.
Everyone will love these Renoir art projects for kids that teach us about the famous Impressionist painter from France - Pierre-Auguste Renoir!
Explore shapes, lines, colors, balance and composition with kids in this collage art lesson inspired by Mondrian. Perfect for elementary-aged kids!
The Kindergarten artists and PreKinders also created some artwork inspired by Mondrian. The PreKinders glued down black lines creating squares and rectangles they then colored some of their shapes …
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
Decorate your classroom with these 10 fun and eye-catching posters of famous artists featuring: Salvador Dali Rene Magritte Henri Matisse Faith Ringgold Bridget Riley Jean-Michel Basquiat Joan Miro Gustav Klimt Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Piet Mondrian Each poster features an illustration of the artist on a patterned background which represents their artwork. There are five base colours to create some cohesion in the series. The artists are from a diverse range of art movements and eras, featuring some of the most famous artists in history. The designs are colourful, modern and kid-friendly. There are two poster sets included: A4 size and Letter size. They can be printed at much larger sizes without loss of quality. For a fantastic display, get all 30 posters in this bundle.
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!
Here is a fun printmaking project inspired by artist Paul Klee and his painting Castle and Sun. Do your kids watch Little Einsteins? My little girl loves them and was watching them the other day. If you do watch them, you know that they feature an artist and a composer each episode. Paul Klee was […]
This pointillism for kids art project is fun for all ages! Try q-tip painting to create colorful art inspired by the famous artist Georges Seurat. Kids will love creating their own masterpiece!
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Exploring famous artists for kids. There are famous artist inspired art projects for kids of all ages. Art ideas for toddlers, preschoolers upwards ar
Taking Neurographic Art to another level! If you are new to this fun and mindful method of drawing illustration, please check out my other posts first: and This trimester, I decided to change up my…
An easy pointillism project for children and an art lesson about French artist Georges Seurat and colour theory.
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 […]
Create your own artistic interpretations of famous artists' work with these Famous Artists Crafts for Kids!
A lesson plan in cut paper collage. “You get an education in school and in college, and then you start to work– and that’s when you really learn!” – Mary Blair 1911-1978 A lesson plan in cut paper collage for grades 2nd - 12th, completed in 3 45 minute class periods. Objective: Students learn about the life and car
My daughter and I love the famous artists. We also love playing around with different paint techniques. We combined the two for these Monet inspired landscape sponge paintings. The sponge created a wonderful backdrop for these impressionist style paintings. We chose Monet’s Water Lilies and Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies as our inspiration. […]
This Picasso inspired art project is a wonderful introduction to Cubism for the kids. This is great for an individual or a collaborative project.
This "Matisse Cutouts Collage" is a fun and easy activity to do with someone who has Alzheimer's!
Pop Art! In the 1950s and 1960s, young British and American artists made popular culture their subject matter. By incorporating logos, brand names, television and cartoon characters, and other consumer products into their work, these artists tested the boundaries between art and everyday life. Roy Lichtenstein was one of the originators of this new pop movement. Fascinated by printed mass media—particularly newspaper advertising and cartoon or comic book illustration—Lichtenstein developed a style characterized by bold lines, bright colors, dot patterns, and sometimes words. The art of today is all around us. Roy Lichtenstein "America's Worst Artist Ever??" What is ONOMATOPOIEA? "Splat, Giggle, Moo" click here to learn more about Roy Lichtenstein from the National Gallery of Art
Embrace the magical season of fall with this beautiful, fun and engaging mixed media Autumn Landscape art lesson. Through a varety of materials and processes, this lesson draws inspiration from legendary artists Monet and Van Gogh, while also featuring contemporary artist Hannah Flanagan. Through this enriching lesson, students will explore the beauty of fall through a multifaceted, mixed media lens while learning how to create a landscape with that shows depth, texture, and more through a variety of techniques. In this 43 page presentation, the lesson provides literary connections, art history of 3 different artists, and is broken down into clear and simple steps complete with full color photos demonstrating and explaining each step of the project. This lesson is great for students in grades 2-5 and focuses on engaging techniques such as wet on wet watercolor, blending with chalk pastel, collaging and more. The digital pdf for this lesson includes: National Standards Lesson Objectives Vocabulary 4 books/ video providing literary connections Art History for artists Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, and Hannah Flanagan Supplies needed for each project Step by step instructions with full color photos Student work examples Helpful tips & tricks ___________ Terms & Use: Please note, in purchasing this resource, you are agreeing that the contents are the property of Kaitlyn Edington and licensed to you only for classroom/personal use. I, Kaitlyn Edington retain the copyright, and reserve all rights to this product. This lesson is intended for classroom use only and may not claimed or resold as your own.
Affiliate Links These sketchbook prompts each borrow a bit from a famous artwork. The rest is up to the imagination […]
Famous Artist Edgar Degas successfully combined painting and drawing when he was working with his brilliant colored pastels! From Nana's Back Porch Podcast.
Top 10 Henri Matisse Projects for Kids - Art projects for elementary school. Paper collage, art appreciation& other projects to explore with kids
Please Note: All images seen below are of my students artwork only. These photos/lessons are not posted in any particular order regarding the flow of my curriculum. Hot Air Balloon Collage Hot Air …
Create James Rizzi art with your students using watercolors and oil pastel. Teach detail and expression to your children's work of art with watercolor faces
The name Picasso has become synonymous with the word artist. Kids can learn a lot from the artist, by trying out these 10 Pablo Picasso Projects for Kids.
Crafts for kids can be fun AND educational. Here are some tips for creating art based on famous artists and ideas for inspiration!
Inspired by the paper collages created by Henri Matisse, this lesson transforms the realistic image of a leaf through the use of color and shape. Complementary colors, Geometric Shape, and Organic Shape are the art terms that will be taught and implemented during the production of this collage project. Information about Matisse, the art of paper Collage, and Fauvism will be introduced to the students through two separate articles. This lesson is a simple collage lesson that will produce beautiful results which will be perfect for autumn. A detailed lesson plan is included which outlines National Core Visual Arts Standards, Lesson Objectives, Vocabulary with definitions, a Material List, as well as a detailed Teaching Procedure for each instructional day. The PDF slides are quite inclusive and detail vocabulary, definitions, instructions, and clear photos that show the progression of the lesson step-by-step. A Project Reflection handout has been included to allow the students the opportunity to review their artistic experience as well as facts pertaining to Matisse and art vocabulary. Preparing for this lesson will take very little time. Print enough copies of the student handouts and organize the art supplies needed for each day. (The material list includes basic art supplies such as construction paper, pencils, erasers, glue, and scissors.) Project the PDF presentation during class time and guide the students through each step of the lesson. An arrangement of the student's completed complementary color leaf collages certainly will make for a colorful fall bulletin board display. NOTE: This PDF presentation is non-editable
Students will learn about artist Norval Morrisseau as they create an x-ray painting in the Eastern Woodland Style.
Create a beautiful alphabet painting for kids with this art project inspired by artist Jasper Johns.
Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step How to Draw a Matisse inspired art project and Coloring Page. Stop by and grab yours for free.
Exploring great artists :: complete art lesson plans for elementary and preschool. Artist history lessons and hands-on, creative art projects
