A fall themed art display looks festive and always excites my students so here’s some fall art lesson ideas to get everyone thinking about leaves, apples, pumpkins, and of course, Halloween!ย These fall art projects include cute monsters, colorful leaves and even witches,ย all while teaching about an artist, an art concept or introducing an art technique. Elementary-geared lessons are first, with lessons for older students at the end.
Georges Seurat Fall Treeย
This is my favorite Kindergarten painting lesson. My students learn a few fun facts about Pointillist painter Georges Seurat. Then they create a fall tree using dots of paint applied with the eraser end of a pencil or a Q tip. The students place fall colors, such as, orange, yellow, red and brown next to each other for optical mixing. The end result is stunning and students have a blast dotting their papers!
Paul Cezanne Apple Still Life
This is hands down one of my favorite lessons. Early elementary students are so proud of their finished painting, because they look so realistic. Students create a still life of apples and oranges using lids to make round shapes. I teach my students how to create the illusion of space by overlapping the round shapes. They add color with reds, yellows and greens with big brush strokes just like the Impressionist painters. My students love to see the โneighborโ colors mixing as they paint each fall apple.
Romero Britto Leaf
I love introducing my early elementary students to Miami-based artist, Romero Britto. His art style is so fun and colorful and relatable to them. After drawing a large leaf shape, students use the veins of the leaf to break the leaf into 8-10 sections. Within each section they use construction paper crayons to draw a variety of patterns using lines and shapes. In the negative space around the leaf they draw lines to represent ripples in water. Finally, watercolors are used to create a crayon resist to fill in the area around the patterns in each section. The final result is a colorful abstract leaf painting!
Georgia O’Keeffe Leaves
Creating fall leaves is the perfect way to introduce one of my favorite nature artists, Georgia Oโ Keeffe to my middle elementary students. They create a leaf template and trace the leaf four times. Then they use oil pastels to create patterns in the positive space and add a solid color in the negative space. They create contrast by using the same color and pattern, but flipped, this time the pattern is the positive space and the color is the negative space. Students repeat this again with a new leaf template, patterns and colors. They use fall colors and patterns to create unity in their painting.
Buff Monster Complementary Monstersย
This lesson is a student favorite. My students create 3 expressive monsters using black crayons and fill the composition of the square format. I teach my students about complementary pairs and how to use the color wheel to identify these contrasting colors. My students use complementary pairs to paint each monster and the negative space around the monster. These simple high contrast monsters are fun for students of all ages and make a fun playful display for Halloween.
Pablo Picasso Cubist Witch
During Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 to October 15, I like to introduce my students to Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. I teach my students about cubism and they create a portrait of a witch depicting 2 points of view. We use collage to create the witch in a Cubist style. Upper elementary students enjoy the challenge of combining art materials and points of view to make their own interpretation of a witch.
The complete lesson plans of the above elementary fall art lessons are available here.
Middle and High School Fall Art Lesson Ideas
Haunted House Architectural Drawing
This Halloween themed art drawing lesson keeps my middle school boys and girls so engaged and excited. Students learn about the roles and responsibilities of an architect as well as information about a career as an architect. I share a short biography on architect Antoni Gaudi and we critique his work in class. In addition, my students demonstrate creative decision making by including several architectural details in their haunted house design and โspookyโ details to fill the space around the haunted house. The outcome is a mixed media of watercolor and colored pencils. For more information on Haunted House lesson, click here.
Inktober Mark Making Drawing
This national Inktober challenge is perfect for middle school artists or high school students. Students will learn the potential of mark making to create texture and shading. They will practice stippling, hatching, cross hatching and scribbling to create value with a black pen. Lastly, they will use creative problem solving to create an original work of art that relates to the given prompt. This is a perfect drawing exercise to teach mark making as well as an exciting lesson for Halloween. Click here for more information on Inktober lesson.
Clay Pumpkin
By October my students are begging for a clay lesson. This hand-building clay art lesson, is a perfect introductory clay lesson to teach students clay procedures. My students learn how to combine 2 pinch pots to create a sphere and use slip and score to attach a stem and other details. They also learn important clay vocabulary, such as, kiln, bone dry, slip and score, bisqueware. Lastly, students use creative problem solving to carve a unique and original Jack O’ Lantern, while applying craftsmanship to create and finish their clay sculpture. More information about the Clay Pumpkin lesson available here.
Happy Fall Yโall, Trista
Related: My Halloween Art Ideas post has many other art lesson ideas like this.
Check out my Seasonal Lesson Ideas for more posts like this.
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