Art Lessons for Kids
Modigliani portraits have become an art room staple, thanks in no small part to Kathy over at Art Project for Kids for providing a simple, fool-proof technique for imitating the elongated faces famous to Amedeo Modigliani. I copied Kathy’s project a couple of years ago with my sixth grade students where we created the Modigliani [...]
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A perennial favorite of mine, Van Gogh inspired flowers is a lesson I try to do every year with my third grade students. Sometimes my medium varies. A year ago I tried tempera painted flowers and I loved the results. I even made it into a PDF art lesson so you can see exactly how [...]
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I’ve been admiring this art project for a while now. VK Bowerman’s Laurel Burch Cat project is colorful and fun. VK doesn’t have a website, only a Flickr account, so I can’t provide a website. But please visit her Flickr page and prepare to be inspired by wonderful work. I studied VK’s project and visited [...]
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Joan Miro, a Spanish artist who studied in Paris, is best known for his whimsical abstracts. Many of his paintings combine lines and colors that create wonderful shapes that may or may not tell a story–depending on your perspective! I love teaching Miro as his art is so engaging. For little ones, I like to [...]
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Here is an easy art project that takes minutes to complete. After studying Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and creating a colorful collage, some of my fifth grade students finished early. Instead of doing random free-choice art, I handed them a small piece of watercolor paper (9″ x 12″), some colored waterproof markers and a pan of watercolor [...]
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This Georgia O’Keeffe inspired art lesson is quick, easy lesson that all grade levels will enjoy. Needing a one-lesson project for the end of my sixth grade art rotation, I was inspired by an O’Keeffe art print on my wall. But instead of focusing on the center of a flower and creating a detailed drawing, [...]
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Artist James Rizzi has been providing my art students with fabulous inspiration this Fall. After finishing another James Rizzi art lesson before class was over, some students continued on the Rizzi path and created these adorable birds. The 2012 James Rizzi Wall Calendar (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch Edition) is a great visual aid [...]
Hundertwasser is inspiring. For many of my fifth grade students, learning about and creating their own “Hundertwasser” inspired art was the best ever lesson. Combining a lesson in warm and cool colors, patterns and lines, composition and flow, this lesson has it all. I picked up the book by Harvesting Dreams: Hundertwasser for Kids by [...]
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James Rizzi is a dynamic artist/illustrator who lives in New York City. His animated art style, rich in detail and expression, has a massive following. The simple black lines with bold dashes of color make a perfect style for my students to imitate. My 6th graders loved this lesson. I mean, loved! I used the [...]
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Phyl at “There’s a Dragon in my Art Room” has a fantastic Lesson on Fauves. I’ve never really thought about doing this type of lesson before, so as soon as I saw it on Phyl’s blog, I bookmarked it and filed it away for a time when I needed some extra help. My art program [...]
Van Gogh’s “Wheat Fields with Cypresses” is one of my favorite paintings. There is a distinct separation between the foreground, middle-ground and background, making it a perfect example for a landscape lesson. The Landscape I used 3 pieces of paper for this project: 12″ x 18″ white paper, 8″ x 18″ blue or purple paper [...]
Everyone has done a birch tree art lesson. They are such a lovely tree, stripped of their leaves and shimmering with black and white bark. Most kids in Southern California have never seen a forest of birch trees, unlike my 10-year old self who collected the bark to someday build my own birch-bark canoe like [...]
After a recent trip to Seattle where Picasso’s “Dora Maar” was on exhibit, I knew my fifth graders would love an art project that would express what Picasso did: express emotion through color and shapes. I love Picasso’s work but not all of it is suitable for elementary, but if you can get your hands [...]
Kandinsky’s concentric circles are an art room staple and for good reason. The opportunity to explore color is nonthreatening and children can see how powerful mixing colors can be. For this lesson, my students folded a piece of white 12″ x 15″ paper into quarters. Then, with tempera paint, they painted a circle and expanded [...]
A 24-page booklet that includes three simple art lessons for grades 5 & 6 using basic art supplies: paper, paint, oil pastel or marker. Drawing handouts, photo tutorials and student art galleries take the guess work out of teaching these lessons. Collage dancers inspired by the paper cuttings of Henri Matisse, students use scraps of colored [...]
