Van Gogh Sunflowers Art Project
Vincent Van Gogh was a dutch artist in the 1800s who became one of the most famous and influential artists. He is known for his oil paintings. Many of his most notable works include the Starry Night, Irises, Almond Blossoms, his self portrait and Vase with fifteen sunflowers. This project is inspired by his sunflower work and has been adapted for young artists.
Van Goh’s sunflowers
Source: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140120-van-goghs-flower-power
Time required: 90 minutes (I split this over two days. An hour on day one, half hour to finish another day)
Materials:
Card stock (white or light beige)
Pencil
Eraser
Permanent marker
Oil pastels (yellow, orange, green, black, brown)
Watercolour paint (I use tempera pucks) & water
Paint brush (thinner is best for around flowers, larger is fine for the other sections)
Teacher prep: None
Steps:
Start by drawing (with pencil) the vase by making a small curved line for the top, then two large curves for the sides. Then connect the two sides along the bottom. Make a curved line through the middle of the vase. Write your name under the vase’s middle line on the left side.
Draw a straight line on either side of the vase for the table.
Draw several sunflowers. I started with the outward facing flowers, and then did the ones that are tipped down.
Draw the stems coming from the flower into the vase.
Once the scene is sketched out, trace all the lines with a Sharpie.
Use oil pastel for the flower petals (yellow and orange or dark yellow mixed), centre (brown and yellow) and stem (green). You might need to fill inside the vase if you have empty space. I used black pastel.
Paint the background blue and the table yellow.
I gave my students the choice of which colour they wanted for the vase.
*Optional step: After the paint has dried, I went over the vase and table with their matching oil pastel to give a bit of texture since we are not using oil paints. There is no need to add this step.
