Introduce well-known painters and their most well-known works to your child to stimulate their imagination and creativity.
Your child can use a few well-known works of art as inspiration as they discover the glories of great art. These vibrant works of art may be created using only common materials! These five pieces of art are ideal for children to copy in their own styles since they have bright colours and straightforward shapes. It is useful to have images or posters of the original artworks on available for reference and inspiration, and all of these may be easily accessed online. But remember, the main objective is to encourage your kids to have fun; don’t get caught up in trying to recreate every little aspect of these paintings.
Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh
Let your imagination soar through this sky of stars.
You’ll require white paper, grey, black, and yellow crayons, gold star stickers, watercolour paints, and a paintbrush.
Make It: In this well-known painting by Van Gogh, the artist repeatedly used bold, wavy lines to imply movement and emotion. Starry Night is one of the most well-known paintings in the world despite the fact that van Gogh only ever sold one painting during his lifetime due to its vivid colours, brilliant stars, and bold manner. Turn your paper horizontally to get started. Draw and paint a crescent moon on the paper with the yellow crayon.
Then, add a few wavy, curving yellow lines, and outline them with the grey, white, and black crayons by doing the same. Stick stars all over the page. The moon, wavy crayon lines, and star stickers should all be painted with diluted blue watercolour paint after being dipped into the paint. Observe the paper change into a vivid night sky.
Red Poppy by Georgia O’Keeffe
Discover brilliant hues by looking at beautiful flowers.
White paper and oil pastels are required (red, orange, yellow, green, black)
Make It: O’Keeffe used a variety of hues to great effect in her painting of a single blossom. She emphasised up-close views of flowers, transforming them into larger-than-life works of art, and this innovative, exciting style helped the artwork become well-known. Turn your paper horizontally to start. With the help of a red pastel, make broad petals with edges that touch every edge of the paper, but leave space for the stem at the bottom. While instructing your child on the components of a flower, provide extra specifics.
Fill in the centre (or pistil) of the flower in the centre of the page with a black oil pastel. The petals should next be filled in by layering pastel orange and yellow hues over one another. By smudging your fingertips on the paper, begin with the orange and then combine it with the yellow. Use more red to enhance features such as shading and shadow. Finish by shading in darker lines underneath certain petals and adding the leafy elements (the sepal) beneath the petals with a black or green pastel. The bottom stem can then be drawn and coloured in using the black or green.
Number 8 by Jackson Pollock
With this impulsive art, let your creativity go wild.
You’ll require: White paper, red, yellow, and blue tempera paint, four little cups or bowls, four paintbrushes, a smock, and either old newspapers or an old fabric sheet.
How to Make It: Pollock employed the ground-up “drip and splash” method, moving 360 degrees around a canvas with various paintbrushes (instead of sitting or standing still in one place). Many people think of Pollock as one of America’s best painters; his works were creative and distinctive as well as easy and enjoyable to copy. First, spread some old newspapers or a sheet over the floor of your workspace (such a garage or a driveway).
Place your paper on the work surface with the right side up. Each of the little containers should have one cup of each paint colour. Dip a different paintbrush into each container. Toss, shake, drip, fling, wave, spin, and spatter the paint on the white paper while standing above it. Don’t be scared to overlay each colour and slide each paintbrush across the paper in different directions until the surface is almost or completely covered in a riot of colour.
Several Circles by Wassily Kandinsky
Practice rotating while maintaining your position in the lines.
White paper, seven circles of various sizes (cups, bowls, plastic lids, etc.), a black marker, watercolour paint, and a paintbrush are all necessary.
Make It: Through clever placements, Kandinsky gave a basic circle an intriguing appearance. He produced kaleidoscopic collages by combining shapes and lines. Many artists have imitated his style because his paintings are regarded as the first abstract paintings. By turning the paper vertically, you can make your own artwork. Choose the largest or smallest of the seven circular objects to place on the paper, then trace around it with the marker. Place and trace the remaining round items in their desired locations.
Play around with circles that overlap, barely touch, or are contained within other circles. Use various colours to fill in the spaces between each circle’s lines. Circles can be painted entirely in one colour, in multiple colour portions, or with a combination of colours. Whiten the background to highlight the vivid circles.
Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso
Learn how to put objects together using basic shapes.
You’ll need white paper, construction paper in the following colours: orange, yellow, blue, brown, and black. You’ll also need scissors and glue.
Make It: Picasso used geometric shapes and strong strokes to create the likenesses of three musicians. He did this by using straight lines and edges. Cubism is the name for the whimsical aesthetic he helped promote and simplify the subject matter. Verticalize the piece of paper. From the colourful construction paper, cut a variety of squares, rectangles, or four-sided geometric objects in all sizes. (Creating straight or ideal shapes doesn’t require the use of stencils; the more angular and peculiar the better.)
Combine the pieces on the page to construct three human-like shapes. The forms should be close to one another, but you can arrange them wherever you like. You could choose to use midrange shapes for the musical instruments, smaller shapes for the heads, wider shapes for the bodies, longer shapes for the limbs and legs, and wider shapes for the bodies. Create each of the three forms using four to five huge shapes, and the instruments from one to two medium-sized shapes. Details can be created using smaller shapes. After adhering the pieces together, use the black marker to draw lines, squares, circles, or zigzags to decorate the faces and instruments.
Learn more: 6 Educational Crafts for 1-Year-Olds You Can Easily Do at Home