Art has the power to inspire creativity, invoke emotion, and spur intellectual thought. In the classroom, art activities can provide students with a hands-on understanding of different materials, styles, and historical perspectives. Here are seven art activities inspired by famous artists which instructors can incorporate into their lesson plans to ignite students’ imaginations and foster their artistic skills.
1. Picasso’s Portraits: Cubism Collages
After studying Pablo Picasso’s revolutionary contribution to art with Cubism, students can create their own abstract portraits. Using construction paper, scissors, and glue, each student cuts shapes to represent different facial features and then assembles them in a fragmented, yet recognizable, face on a larger piece of paper.
2. Van Gogh’s Starry Night: Swirling Skies
Vincent Van Gogh’s iconic painting “Starry Night” displays a sky filled with swirling colors and bright stars. Students can replicate this style by using finger paints or thick brush strokes with acrylics on canvas paper to paint an emotionally charged night sky full of movement and vibrant color blendings.
3. Jackson Pollock’s Action Painting: Splatter Techniques
Embrace the chaos with an activity inspired by Jackson Pollock’s action paintings. Lay down a large canvas or butcher paper outside or in a covered area. Supplying various colors of paint and tools such as brushes, spoons, and sticks, students can splatter, drip, and toss paint onto their surfaces to create an abstract expressionist work.
4. Claude Monet’s Impressions: Water Lilies Painting
Explore impressionism with Claude Monet’s water lilies as inspiration. Students use short dabs of paint on canvas to create their own serene and softly-blended water lily ponds that capture the light and atmosphere as Monet did in his garden at Giverny.
5. Georgia O’Keeffe’s Big Flowers: Close-Up Drawings
Georgia O’Keeffe is known for her large-scale flower paintings that are rich in detail. With magnifying glasses, children can observe small flowers up close or study pictures of them before taking to large sheets of paper to draw or paint exaggerated versions of these botanical wonders.
6. Keith Haring’s Pop Art: Bold Line Drawings
Keith Haring’s bold lines and vivid colors capture the energy of his subjects. Using black markers or paints on large rolls of white paper, kids can draw figures in motion—people running, jumping or dancing—and then fill in these figures with bright tempera colors in true 1980s pop art fashion.
7. Andy Warhol’s Pop Art Prints: Replicated Images
Andy Warhol turned ordinary objects into pop art icons using simple silkscreen printing techniques for repetition effect. Students could carve small blocks with simple designs such as stars or fruits (alternatively use foam sheets for easier cutting) and repetitively print these elements onto paper in varied patterns like Warhol’s famous Campbell’s soup cans.
By engaging with these seven art activities inspired by famous artists, students not only learn about art history but also apply these artists’ techniques and visions in a way that excites their creativity and allows for personal expression in the classroom setting.
