Art is not just a way to keep kids busy and thinking creatively, it is also a way to expand their horizons and teach them about some of the world's most famous artists. Not only are the following ideas fun and educational, they are projects that are well-suited to kids of all ages. Rather than just looking a picture in a museum or book, these projects allow children to truly experience the style of a specific artist.
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.
Wassily Kandinsky is another great artist to consider teaching your children about, and his abstract works are particularly suitable for kid art projects. Begin by showing your children images of one of his works, such as "Color Studies," which basically is a diamond created out of many colors. "Squares with Concentric Circles," is another suitable painting, and all children need are squares of paper in which they draw or paint colorful circles. Explore further by using something other than crayon or marker and hand your child some chalk or oil pastels. For more advanced artists, consider creating a work in the style of "Composition X," a beautiful collage-like work of Kandinsky's that begins with a sheet of large black paper. Use oil pastels or crayon or good quality chalk to color intersecting shapes.
Another fantastic surrealist and cubist painter was Paul Klee, and he has many works which can be transformed into a wonderful easy art project for children. Consider a project based on "Senecio," which is a wonderful representation of cubism. Begin by having children trace a round shape that will form the head, add a neck using straight lines, two eyes that touch each other and a line dividing the head. Two small squares form the mouth. Trace the lines with permanent market and color the entire paper heavily using oil pastels. Paint over the work with acrylic paint and let this dry. Once it has dried, scrape most of the paint away using an old plastic gift card and voila.
Children also can create an amazing photo collage in the style of David Hockney. You can look through a variety of magazines and find a nature scene, a portrait or just about any image. Have the children cut the picture into rectangles and squares and then re-paste the image together on paper, taking care to overlap pieces slightly and also rotate pieces here and there. It can be fun to have children work separately on the same image and see how each picture turns out differently.
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.
Wassily Kandinsky is another great artist to consider teaching your children about, and his abstract works are particularly suitable for kid art projects. Begin by showing your children images of one of his works, such as "Color Studies," which basically is a diamond created out of many colors. "Squares with Concentric Circles," is another suitable painting, and all children need are squares of paper in which they draw or paint colorful circles. Explore further by using something other than crayon or marker and hand your child some chalk or oil pastels. For more advanced artists, consider creating a work in the style of "Composition X," a beautiful collage-like work of Kandinsky's that begins with a sheet of large black paper. Use oil pastels or crayon or good quality chalk to color intersecting shapes.
Another fantastic surrealist and cubist painter was Paul Klee, and he has many works which can be transformed into a wonderful easy art project for children. Consider a project based on "Senecio," which is a wonderful representation of cubism. Begin by having children trace a round shape that will form the head, add a neck using straight lines, two eyes that touch each other and a line dividing the head. Two small squares form the mouth. Trace the lines with permanent market and color the entire paper heavily using oil pastels. Paint over the work with acrylic paint and let this dry. Once it has dried, scrape most of the paint away using an old plastic gift card and voila.
Children also can create an amazing photo collage in the style of David Hockney. You can look through a variety of magazines and find a nature scene, a portrait or just about any image. Have the children cut the picture into rectangles and squares and then re-paste the image together on paper, taking care to overlap pieces slightly and also rotate pieces here and there. It can be fun to have children work separately on the same image and see how each picture turns out differently.
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. To get further information about awesome art projects for kids or to find flower art projects for kids, please check out the ArtProjectsForKids.org website now.
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