A great art project provides families with a wonderful way to enjoy an afternoon, but you can also use art as an opportunity to teach your children about different artists and styles of art. Here are a few art projects for kids of all ages that also teach them about a famous artist, which can prove to be the most meaningful method to teach them about a new style of art.
Joan Miro, a Spanish master of Surrealism, has many works particularly suitable for a children's art project. Consider a work of his such as "People and Dog in the Sun." You will note as you view the painting, that essentially this is a painting with whimsical stick figures surrounded by circles and stars. Provide large pieces of paper and begin by having children draw a stick figure in action then adding a few circles and stars. Create the stars by using lines and dots, as Miro did. Once the circles, stars and stick figure are drawn, trace them in black crayon and then use watercolors to paint the circles and background.
Another artist that children will enjoy learning about is Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky. Several of his works can be used for a great children's art project, including "Squares with Concentric Circles," or "Color Studies." Both of these can be easily copied because they are basic shapes. Because the picture itself is easy to do, this is an excellent way to use unique art mediums, such as oil pastels, chalk or watercolor rather than crayons, colored pencils and markers. For a slightly more advanced project, consider taking a look at Kandinsky's "Composition X," and consider having children begin by drawing intersecting shapes and coloring each section individually with crayon and then finish with a black watercolor wash. Or, for a different application, draw with chalk, crayon or oil pastel on black paper.
Another artist that children will find inspirational and relatively easy to mimic is Paul Klee. Begin by showing children some of his paintings, such as "Red Balloon," "Castle and Sun," and "Senecio." The latter painting is a great project for kids. Children simply create a head by tracing a big circle and then adding straight lines for the neck, dividing the head in half with a straight line and adding touching eyes and squares for the mouth. Trace the lines with permanent marker and color in the picture very thickly using pastels. Then paint over the picture using acrylic paint. After the paint dries, you can scrape it away with an old credit card, leaving only traces of the paint.
Collage art is fun for children, and one artist that excels in collage is David Hockney. Show your children pictures of some of his photo collages and have them search through magazines to find pictures that appeal to them. Once they find a great picture, perhaps a beautiful nature scene, have them cut it into strips or squares and then paste it onto paper. The image should still look similar to the original photo, but by rotating the pieces or overlapping them slightly, the image is distorted somewhat and quite interesting.
While surrealism and abstract art can be easier to imitate, it is fun to introduce your child to artwork that would be a bit more difficult to imitate. One way to make this easy is to purchase a PDF collage of a famous painting online. These collages, such as those at ArtProjectsForKids.org, take a famous work and divide it into manageable squares. Children need only color each square and then arrange the squares back into the original image. There are PDFs of works by Van Gogh, Klimt, Cezanne, Gauguin, O'Keefe and many more artists.
Joan Miro, a Spanish master of Surrealism, has many works particularly suitable for a children's art project. Consider a work of his such as "People and Dog in the Sun." You will note as you view the painting, that essentially this is a painting with whimsical stick figures surrounded by circles and stars. Provide large pieces of paper and begin by having children draw a stick figure in action then adding a few circles and stars. Create the stars by using lines and dots, as Miro did. Once the circles, stars and stick figure are drawn, trace them in black crayon and then use watercolors to paint the circles and background.
Another artist that children will enjoy learning about is Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky. Several of his works can be used for a great children's art project, including "Squares with Concentric Circles," or "Color Studies." Both of these can be easily copied because they are basic shapes. Because the picture itself is easy to do, this is an excellent way to use unique art mediums, such as oil pastels, chalk or watercolor rather than crayons, colored pencils and markers. For a slightly more advanced project, consider taking a look at Kandinsky's "Composition X," and consider having children begin by drawing intersecting shapes and coloring each section individually with crayon and then finish with a black watercolor wash. Or, for a different application, draw with chalk, crayon or oil pastel on black paper.
Another artist that children will find inspirational and relatively easy to mimic is Paul Klee. Begin by showing children some of his paintings, such as "Red Balloon," "Castle and Sun," and "Senecio." The latter painting is a great project for kids. Children simply create a head by tracing a big circle and then adding straight lines for the neck, dividing the head in half with a straight line and adding touching eyes and squares for the mouth. Trace the lines with permanent marker and color in the picture very thickly using pastels. Then paint over the picture using acrylic paint. After the paint dries, you can scrape it away with an old credit card, leaving only traces of the paint.
Collage art is fun for children, and one artist that excels in collage is David Hockney. Show your children pictures of some of his photo collages and have them search through magazines to find pictures that appeal to them. Once they find a great picture, perhaps a beautiful nature scene, have them cut it into strips or squares and then paste it onto paper. The image should still look similar to the original photo, but by rotating the pieces or overlapping them slightly, the image is distorted somewhat and quite interesting.
While surrealism and abstract art can be easier to imitate, it is fun to introduce your child to artwork that would be a bit more difficult to imitate. One way to make this easy is to purchase a PDF collage of a famous painting online. These collages, such as those at ArtProjectsForKids.org, take a famous work and divide it into manageable squares. Children need only color each square and then arrange the squares back into the original image. There are PDFs of works by Van Gogh, Klimt, Cezanne, Gauguin, O'Keefe and many more artists.
About the Author:
Kate Halfey enjoys writing about art projects for kids. For further information about awesome art projects for kids or to find flower art projects for kids, please check out the ArtProjectsForKids site today.
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