I’m back with another post in the Teaching Art {with the help of Pinterest} blog series!
I enjoyed our lesson on Van Gogh so very much that I had to come and share with you about how it went!! AND show off some of the artwork of my students! They did SUCH a great job drawing sunflowers last week!
There are SO many great ideas for learning about Van Gogh online…I will share what we did and where I got all my ideas from!
First, we read the book Katie And The Sunflowers
After we read the book, I gave each child a laminated postcard of one of Van Gogh’s famous pieces. We looked at his various paintings – I loved having enough cards for each child to see one of his famous works! I had the kids that wanted to take turns telling me about their Van Gogh painting. We looked on the back to see what year they were painted in and also the title of each piece. These little cards from Dover are great!!
I did make sure that each child could see the Sunflowers painting that we were going to work on ourselves. So, we looked at that painting, we noticed his name on the vase, we noticed the colors of the wall and table behind them, we discussed lots of the little details.
After we learned just a little bit about Van Gogh, looked at the cards and read the story, we went back to our tables to begin our own art project!
At each spot I had a piece of 12×18 white paper for each child and at first I told them we were only using pencils. I had a jar with water and a few sunflowers at each table and I told them to choose what type of vase/jar to draw and then begin their own Sunflowers artwork!
For the first session, we only DREW WITH PENCIL our vase and sunflowers. At the end of the first session, I had them find a SECRET or SPECIAL place to put their name – just like Van Gogh did. Then, for those that had time, they went over all their pencil drawings with a Sharpie marker.
Next week I will be giving them the option to paint or use oil pastels to finish up their sunflower art!! Can’t wait to show you the finished products!
Links I used to help me create this lesson:
Teaching Art Links
- Series Introduction
- Supply List
- Favorite Art Blogs
- Pinterest Board of Art Projects for our Co-op
- Van Gogh Sunflowers ~ Part 2 of the lesson
One of my favorite tools for teaching art is Tricia’s Simple Chalk Pastel Tutorials! Find them here!
Van Gogh is one of my favorite artists, I loved learning about him in my art history class in college! Looks like such a fun class you are teaching, can’t wait to see the finished product!