Vincent Van Gogh Spring flower vases

Middle school artists that used markers and paint to make this Van Gogh inspired work

It's officially Spring! In celebration of this joyous moment I had my Middle school students Draw and create some Vincent Van Gogh inspired vases! Van Gogh created an array of work involving sunflowers in vases, although he used vibrant tints and shades of yellows and oranges we decided to hit the contemporary palette and add some funky colors in the mix.


To get started I presented my students with a simple presentation of Van Gogh and some of his most celebrated works. I then proceeded to play one of those Roll the dice games similar to the ones that we used last month with our Picasso lesson. If you are interested in this artwork making process you can get the template here

Middle school artists that used markers and color pencils to make this Van Gogh inspired work

After printing out the Roll-a-Van-Gogh Template for all the students I then had a wall projection of a digital dice which you can find here  Once that's set I have the students take their papers and fold it in in half . We then did two sessions of the Roll-a-Van-Gogh game. Afterwards I have the students customize the Van Gogh inspired portraits. This all takes about a whole class period (1hr 30 min). We then take 2 more class periods to paint and color them up and create completed artworks like the ones shown above.

Picasso Inspired Portraits

One of my students Picasso inspired work, Acrylic on paper

It's been so long since I last posted about me and my artsy kids. The holidays and that first month coming back always tends to fly right by. The bases of this article is to showcase a fun and fantastic artist project that can easily be done with both middle school and high school students. The project starts out with a quick presentation of the artist Picasso and his Cubist style. I presented the students with plenty of portrait references and we then commenced to play an art game that I absolutely love. It's called Roll a Picasso. I was able to get the amazing template on Teachers pay Teachers and you can access it by clicking here

Roll a Picasso Template used.

After printing out the Template for all the students I then had a digital dice which you can find here  

Once that's set I have the students take their papers and fold it in in half . We then did two sessions of the Roll a Picasso game. Afterwards I have the students customize the Picasso inspired portraits. This all takes about a whole class period (1hr 30 min). We then take 2 more class periods to paint them up and create some of the following, talented works.

One of my students Picasso inspired work, Acrylic on paper

One of my students Picasso inspired work, Acrylic on paper

One of my students Picasso inspired work, Acrylic on paper