Blick Lesson Plans: hundreds of free, original ideas for Art Education!

When life gives you lemons, paint a still life! In this advanced painting lesson, students will gain a deeper understanding of color theory by creating two still lifes of a lemon. The first focuses on the natural color of an object as perceived by the eye. The second focuses on invented color, which can be any color of the artists’ choosing.

Contemporary portrait artist Kehinde Wiley creates multi-layered, modern portraits by using dense, elaborate, wallpaper-like patterning mixed with art historical compositions to heighten the personality and presence of his subject. In this lesson, students can recreate the feeling and energy of a Wiley portrait, without having to hand-paint every element. Printmaking is combined with drawing and watercolor painting, making this project both accessible and engaging for students.

Featured with Updated Content! Quilt-making spans multiple centuries and cultures. It can teach math skills, record history, recycle cast-off materials and encourage cooperative efforts within a group...just for a few ideas! This lesson looks at the story quilts of Faith Ringgold. She surrounds her narrative paintings with a quilted border, creating stories in color, texture, and pattern. Students select their own story to illustrate, then paint fabric using watersoluble pastels and watercolor pencils.

What's left behind in a rear view mirror offers a lesson on one-point perspective. Create a three-dimensional rear view mirror using self adhesive mounting board, mirror board and markers.

Featured with updated content! This project is a simple, tidy way to create the look of pulp painting without the mess of a blender or even the use of adhesive. Non-bleeding tissue paper is combined with water and agitated (torn) so that the paper fibers separate and make a rough pulp. Pressing the paper onto an absorbent (canvas) surface causes the fibers to re-bond with one another and, when dry, form a thicker, stronger paper.

Featured with updated content! Explore the beauty of batik fabric without the danger of hot wax or dyes. Simply trace a design onto muslin with washable glue and add brilliant permanent color with Marabu Fashion Spray.

Reimagine plastic bottles and cups as textural, painted containers perfect for plants and flowers. New, updated content!

Featured with new content! Late in his career, artist Marc Chagall produced a number of paintings in glass with colorful, dream-like images symbolizing peace, love, tolerance and faith. In reality, Marc Chagall’s life was filled with tragic events and the world he lived in was anything but peaceful. In light of this fact, students can begin to understand an artist’s ability to share healing, inspiration and encouragement, using “peace” as a theme.

A coloring game inspired by postmodern artist Sol LeWitt. LeWitt produced approximately 1,350 “Wall Drawings,” but rarely painted one himself. He provided the concept, then collaborated with others to actually produce the work. In this simple game, students receive the exact same set of instructions and materials, but execute them according to their own interpretations.

Combine painting with weaving for a fresh mixed media textile experience! "Found" materials — scraps of felt and fabric, ribbons, cotton yarn, and canvas — can be enhanced with opaque watercolor, providing shading and color gradations.

Responding to rapid changes in culture and technology, Jackson Pollock's “action painting” expressed a new, modern way of making art. Experience the fun and spontenaity of painting without the use of brushes, then seek out and explore the positive and negative spaces between drips and splashes, defining them with ink lines.

Add an extra layer of surprise to a piqué weaving by using clay coils instead of cording. Crayola Model Magic provides an excellent raised surface, and when adhered directly to the warp of a weaving, creates raised patterns on the woven surface.

In this lesson, students will explore the use of texture in painting while reflecting on the significance of our impact as humans on the landscape through our production of waste materials. The collected objects collaged onto the canvas can be used in an illustrative way through their unique textures. To enhance this effect, color is added in the form of acrylic paint, and Chroma Molten Metals adds a luminosity to the finished piece.

Transform a rock into fiber art with the help of a common button. A simple, four-sided design known to many as "God's Eye," can be created with cords knotted around a rock and threaded through the holes of a button to hold secure and keep appropriately spaced.

Students create a modern-day totem pole with hand-formed clay animals positioned on a wooden dowel.

Students create a dimensional line drawing out of flexible wire then cover it with assorted papers and tissues for a whimsical, lightweight sculpture.

Aboriginal "Bark" Painting

The stenciled hand print and aboriginal style drawings help children to relate to the man from the Australian Aboriginal Culture, while helping them to understand the use of line in art.

Students will create a small scale model that will teach them to design a free-standing object considering both structural and design components

Easily teach the concept of a horizon line while making a beautiful symmetrical pressed landscape. Fold paper in half, then transfer paints and pigments in a method similar to the Rorschach prints. After printing, add detail using markers. The process is customizable based on age. Just press for younger students, or add sophisticated details at older ages.

Transform a single line of text into a dimensional work of art!

This project utilizes acrylic paint, but in a totally unique way...dried! Acrylic paint "skins" are easily created just by brushing paint on a non-stick palette or baker's parchment and letting it dry. You can use this plastic, flexible paint in a number of ways to create mosaics, mixed media collage, stained glass-like effects, jewelry, book covers and more!

A whole new perspective on the landscape! Create map-like art using readily-available satellite imagery.

Studying the rich history of maskmaking in Africa is a perfect way for students to experience the relationship between the process of creating a piece of art, and appreciating the significance it carries

By making an animal shaped box out of clay, students honor both the vast diversity of Africa’s animal world, and also create a functional work of art! After choosing a favorite African animal, students will hand build a clay box with lid.