Van Gogh Pastel Sunflowers

This is a tribute to Van Gogh’s famous “Sunflowers” painting.
1. Instruct the students to draw a line for the table, and then the outline of a jar above it. Show them the jar in the original painting so they can add a curved middle line for dimension, and sign their name, in the style of Van Gogh.
2. Ask them to draw a series of circles for flowers, some large, some small, maybe some even going off the page. Add small petals around the flowers.
3. Connect the flowers to the jar by drawing stems, and add leaves.
4. Trace all the pencil lines with a medium size black marker.
5. Have the students fill in the shapes with good oil pastels. Show them that if they color everything very solidly, their picture will look much like an oil painting.

K-2 Drawing Practice Sheets (50)

The inspiration for these worksheets came from Mona Brooke’s book “Drawing with Children”. She explained that one skill needed for realistic drawing is the ability to look at shapes and draw them for what they are, not what students think they are.

I created this set of 50 worksheets for warm up exercises. The students copy what they see in the empty boxes below. These exercises serve as a quick and easy way to get the students to focus while sharpening their cognitive and motor skills.

This collection of drawings is suitable for grades K – 2. I'm working on another 50 sheet set for grades 3-5 that are a bit more complex. All of the worksheet pages are numbered for your convenience. Click on the Add To Cart button below to access Paypal for same day delivery of your PDF files, for just $5.

Landscape Collage

You can put your old paperbacks to good use by turning them into art collage paper.

1. Give each students several printed sheets from an old, preferably yellowed book. They are to paint each with watercolor paint, filling each page with large swatches of color. I made a red, yellow and green sheet for my sample.
2. After the pages are dry, the students are to cut out simple landcape shapes, such as a sun, grass, trees, and buildings. The shapes then get glued down to a background paper.
3. After the glue is dry, give each student a ball-point pen to trace around the edges of the shapes, and add details. Double-tracing the lines adds a kind of casualness to the art.

Kandinsky Oil Pastel Circles

Kandinsky pretty much invented abstract art back in the early 1900's, and his “Study of Abstract Squares” is a fun painting to imitate.

1. Start with a 9" x 12" paper, and have the students fold it in half; and then in thirds so that you have 2 rows of 3 squares.
2. Using oil pastels, students are to make a circle in the middle of each square fill it in. Then they gradually add rings of different colors around it, some thick and some thin until they reach the edge of the square. The corners are filled in as needed.
3. Students continue until all the squares are filled in. Remind them that slow, solid coloring is going to look much better than quick scribbles.
4. Young students may just practice their coloring with a variety of pastels. The 4th and 5th graders could be challenged to use different color theme in each square. For example: warm colors, cool colors, neutral colors, complementary colors, etc.
This art was made by a 2nd grader.

A Kinder Portrait

Sometimes when a student gets to use a new media for the first time, like oil pastels, a visible excitement can be seen the results.

These kinders traced a head and shoulder template and then drew a line down the middle. They were supposed to draw and color a “calm” and a “wild” side. But this young boy instead just had a blast coloring with as many colors as possible, watching how they would blend together. Not the directions, but I love the results!