I started creating art worksheets for my students for many reasons. Surprisingly, they interest my students and keep them engaged. I will be the first to admit I want students to create art and a lot of it. I would never assign worksheets as busy work, but I have grown to realize that they are often the fastest and most effective way to achieve a variety of goals. Here’s a short list of reasons and ways I use worksheets in my art classroom.

Using Art Worksheets to Review Content

In a perfect world I would have the same students year after year and they would remember everything I taught them. This would make scaffolding, scope and sequence and lesson planning a dream, right? However, I have students who have been with me for the long haul and also students who just joined with little or no experience. For this reason, I have found a need to incorporate technique worksheets into my curriculum. For example, worksheets can review the basics of landscapes, still life, portraits, how to draw with shapes or review the difference between realistic, abstract or non-objective art.

Cover More Content

If I had any wish, I wish there was another hour in the day. My curriculum requires me to cover a lot of content in a relatively short time. In addition, my students also have a district created final to assess they have learned this content at the end of the year or semester. I found worksheets are the best way to cover content without spending a week or more on a technique or skills with an art project. For example, I have to cover many different drawing techniques with my Studio Art students. With worksheets I can cover or review 1 point perspective, 2 point perspective, foreshortening, amongst other drawing skills. With the time saved, I can spend 2 weeks on a detailed grid drawing for their portfolio.

Introduce a Lesson

Color Theory or Color Wheel worksheets are the easiest way to introduce color schemes and color mixing, before students apply their knowledge to their art work. Recently I taught a student favorite, Scratchboard Art Lesson. Here is the link to the Scratchboard blog if you are interested. Prior to starting on the actual Scratchboard, my students completed a mark making worksheet. Line drawings of cylinders were provided for the students, and they used stippling, scribbling, hatching and cross-hatching to create 3D forms. Following this exercise, students applied their practice to the scratchboard and made a connection to creating a value range with marks.

Satisfaction of Completion

It is crazy to say, but my students seem eager to complete a worksheet. I am not sure if it is a learned behavior or if it is the sense of accomplishment. Either way my students dive right in. I hope it is because the content is engaging and exciting. Many of my worksheets are skills and technique based, therefore, students are still creating art. It other words it is just more art practice. Art students are always looking to improve their skills, and it is satisfying to see progress on these skills.

These are just a few reasons how and why I have increased the use of worksheets in my art curriculum. You can create a worksheet for almost any skill or drawing technique. I hope this inspires you to add more worksheets into your curriculum. They make great emergency sub plans too!

My 30 Art Techniques Worksheets are available here.

Other Kinds of Worksheets

My school is an AVID school and we are encouraged to incorporate WICOR which stands for Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading into our teaching strategies. I created a series of worksheets I use for bellwork that require my students to read a passage and answer questions about the artist, genre or art career. Reading, check. Writing, check. You can read my post about art bell work here.

In addition, I use Close Reading worksheets to incorporate art criticism into my curriculum. I introduce my students to and artwork and ask guiding questions about the artwork using Feldman’s model of art criticism. These question check off Inquiry and if they work in pairs to critique the work, I checked off Collaboration too. Lastly, I have my students use a binder in art class, which checks off Organization. We have a sections to each of the following: vocabulary, process journal, art history (Close Readings), bell work, and blank pages for sketching. Click here for more information about my Close Readings worksheets.

Thanks for reading! – Trista

Related: Click here to read my Early Finishers Art Activities Ideas blog.

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