Play-Based Ideas
from Sarah Kranz via Facebook
- Get permission from an adult before using any supplies or leaving the house!
- Note how you feel before and after making the art...do you feel better or worse?
- All the art will be different, be creative with what you have. Make a little or make a lot!
Use found items.
1. Plan a Party: Pick a theme, design invites, create a cake sculpture, make decorations.
2. Create a zoo or circus using things from around your home. Tin foil sculptures would be perfect for this!
3. Puppets Paper bags, sticks, straws, socks, paper tubes.
4. Masks with paper plates and cardboard
5. Sewing/fabric Create fashion designs for your favorite stuffed animals. Put on a fashion show. Draw or use a stop motion app to record.
6. Build with toys you already have: Legos, play dough, or build a fort.
7. Use 3-4 pieces of junk mail to make art.
8. Draw things you can see: the view from a window, your hand, your foot, a toy
9. Make a sculpture from recyclables or food packages that are empty (cereal boxes, frozen food boxes). How can you attach things creatively?
10. Draw a comic strip of your future life, give yourself a super power
11. Make art about your favorite song
12. Go for a walk and collect items you find, make art with them. Like Andy Goldsworthy!
13. Follow along a 'how to draw' video on Youtube, Art for Kids Hub has many excellent videos!
Drawing Prompts
• Draw yourself as an original superhero. • Make a drawing that looks sticky. • Draw a mysterious doorway or staircase. • Draw an empty room. Make it interesting. • Draw a flower. Make it dangerous. • Draw an object melting. • Draw an imaginary place, adding all kinds of details. • Draw a gumball machine that dispenses anything but gumballs. •Draw what’s under your bed (real or imagined). • Draw the most incredible game of hide-and-seek you can imagine. • Create a new sport. You can improve an existing sport, combine two existing sports, or come up with something completely new. Draw a pile of dishes before they get washed. • Tighten a C-Clamp on a banana. Draw it. • Draw a slice of the best pizza you have ever seen. • Draw junk food and the wrapper. • Draw your favorite food. • Create your own restaurant. Draw the restaurant, • Draw fresh fruit or vegetables,
Choice Art at Home
Choose an art prompt each day. Spend at least 15 minutes working on your artwork. Be sure to label your art with the prompt. Snap a picture of your art. Send it to me on SeeSaw.
❑ Draw a pig in a wig dancing a jig.
❑ Design a candy bar wrapper. Make up a new kind of candy. Be creative!
❑ Look up a salt dough recipe and get an adult to help you make it. Use the dough to sculpt your favorite animal.
❑ Go outside and draw a landscape. Be sure to show the horizon line (where the ground and sky meet.)
❑ Create a comic showing a beginning, middle, and end of a story.
❑ Choose a shape. Create a drawing using only that shape.
❑ Watch the sunset. Draw what you observe. Write a few sentences to describe the sunset.
❑ Sort items by color groups
❑ Visit Art for Kids Hub on YouTube. Pick a video of your choice and draw along.
❑ Create a new cartoon character.
❑ Draw a portrait of someone in your family. Be sure to include features that make them unique.
❑ Create a visual alphabet. Doodle a picture of something that starts with each letter of the alphabet.
❑ Go outside and use sidewalk chalk!
❑ Go on a texture hunt. Find, draw or create a rubbing, and label the textures that you find.
❑ Look up Vincent Van Gogh’s "Starry Night." Write 3-5 sentences about what you see and how it makes you feel.
❑ Trace your hand. Fill it with symbols
❑ Read a story. Create new illustrations to represent your favorite things.
❑ Listen to music. Draw lines and shapes as you listen to match the sounds, rhythms, and mood.
❑ Draw yourself as a superhero.
❑ Draw a Pop Tart lifting weights.
❑ Gather 3-5 objects and arrange them to draw a still life.
❑ There are millions of fish in the sea! Create your own fish, give it a name and design its environment.
❑ Read the book "Little Cloud" by Eric Carle or watch a read-aloud on YouTube. Go outside and observe the clouds. Draw the shapes you see.
❑ Create marbled paper using shaving cream and food coloring. (Tutorial available at: https://youtu.be/65e5hKRPEnA). Once it is dry, create something out of it.
❑ Create a sculpture using items located around your home. (Ask your family for permission before using the items.)
❑ Design your dream home.
❑ Use magazines or other items around your home to create a color wheel.
❑ Cut out facial features from magazines. Arrange them into a funny face collage.
❑ Draw a llama skateboarding.
❑ Use your imagination. Create a drawing that combines features of three different animals.
❑ Design your own Baby Yoda meme.
❑ Visit artk12.com and complete the Starry Night Puzzle.
❑ Impressionist artists loved to participate in Plein Air painting, or painting outdoors. Grab your paints (or drawing supplies) and head outside to create an artwork of your choice.
❑ Head outside and collect a variety of leaves. Lay a sheet of paper over them and use the side of a peeled crayon to create leaf rubbings.
❑ Design a new mode of transportation
❑ Use Legos or blocks to build a structure that can hold a shoe.
❑ Draw a pig in a wig dancing a jig.
❑ Design a candy bar wrapper. Make up a new kind of candy. Be creative!
❑ Look up a salt dough recipe and get an adult to help you make it. Use the dough to sculpt your favorite animal.
❑ Go outside and draw a landscape. Be sure to show the horizon line (where the ground and sky meet.)
❑ Create a comic showing a beginning, middle, and end of a story.
❑ Choose a shape. Create a drawing using only that shape.
❑ Watch the sunset. Draw what you observe. Write a few sentences to describe the sunset.
❑ Sort items by color groups
- Primary Colors: red, yellow, blue
- Secondary Colors: green, purple, orange
- Warm Colors: Reds, Yellows, Oranges, Pinks
- Cool Colors: Blues, Greens, Purples
- Neutral Colors, Browns, Whites, Blacks, Greys
❑ Visit Art for Kids Hub on YouTube. Pick a video of your choice and draw along.
❑ Create a new cartoon character.
❑ Draw a portrait of someone in your family. Be sure to include features that make them unique.
❑ Create a visual alphabet. Doodle a picture of something that starts with each letter of the alphabet.
❑ Go outside and use sidewalk chalk!
❑ Go on a texture hunt. Find, draw or create a rubbing, and label the textures that you find.
❑ Look up Vincent Van Gogh’s "Starry Night." Write 3-5 sentences about what you see and how it makes you feel.
❑ Trace your hand. Fill it with symbols
❑ Read a story. Create new illustrations to represent your favorite things.
❑ Listen to music. Draw lines and shapes as you listen to match the sounds, rhythms, and mood.
❑ Draw yourself as a superhero.
❑ Draw a Pop Tart lifting weights.
❑ Gather 3-5 objects and arrange them to draw a still life.
❑ There are millions of fish in the sea! Create your own fish, give it a name and design its environment.
❑ Read the book "Little Cloud" by Eric Carle or watch a read-aloud on YouTube. Go outside and observe the clouds. Draw the shapes you see.
❑ Create marbled paper using shaving cream and food coloring. (Tutorial available at: https://youtu.be/65e5hKRPEnA). Once it is dry, create something out of it.
❑ Create a sculpture using items located around your home. (Ask your family for permission before using the items.)
❑ Design your dream home.
❑ Use magazines or other items around your home to create a color wheel.
❑ Cut out facial features from magazines. Arrange them into a funny face collage.
❑ Draw a llama skateboarding.
❑ Use your imagination. Create a drawing that combines features of three different animals.
❑ Design your own Baby Yoda meme.
❑ Visit artk12.com and complete the Starry Night Puzzle.
❑ Impressionist artists loved to participate in Plein Air painting, or painting outdoors. Grab your paints (or drawing supplies) and head outside to create an artwork of your choice.
❑ Head outside and collect a variety of leaves. Lay a sheet of paper over them and use the side of a peeled crayon to create leaf rubbings.
❑ Design a new mode of transportation
❑ Use Legos or blocks to build a structure that can hold a shoe.
