4th Grade Sunflowers in the style of Van Gogh

I attempted to teach a really awesome lesson on Vincent Van Gogh's sunflowers. I even showed a clip of Doctor Who's "Vincent and the Doctor" (which is pretty awesome, by the way). My students seemed really into it!!

...but...well, this lesson kind of flopped. I think my students got too bored with it. I was REALLY discouraged, but then a few students really pulled through! I mean, these sunflowers are gorgeous!!

I had asked the students to color in their pictures using dots only. I realized a little too late that the papers were a little big for that. It would have been easier (maybe) to use paint, but I only have this class for 25 minutes!! At my other school, I tried using paint and oil pastels, but the classes that used crayons honestly turned out much better than the other ones. Trial and error. I really like this first one (^) and how the white spaces make it look even more like Van Gogh's style!

Another one that turned out well! This student colored in, then added dots on top. A great approach really.

Many of my students decided to stop doing dots after the petals were done. I ended up having to grade these differently than I had originally planned. This lesson definitely needs some adjustment. Feel free to post any suggestions for future reference!

6th Grade Graphic Flowers (Georgia O'Keeffe)

My sixth graders created bright, expressive flowers! Here are the steps we took for each class.

Day 1: Observe Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers and practice drawing our own large flowers. I asked students to make their flowers so big that the petals ran off the page.

Day 2: Background time! I had students choose either warm or cool colors. Students drew circles inside of circles on a sheet of 12x14 paper for the background (reference the final results). Students then did a watercolor wash over the top of their background. If students used warm colors, than the color they chose was warm.

Day 3: Students drew large flowers and put different patterns inside the petals, leaves, etc.

Day 4: Students traced over their lines with oil pastels. With a smaller class, I would have had the students use oil pastels right away. Some of my students used crayons. The next time I do this lesson, I will have everyone use crayons. They just work so much better!

Day 5: Students used watercolor to make their flowers look awesome!

Day 6: Students cut out their flowers. Students folded strips of paper accordian style and glue them to the back of the flower and to the front of the background. This make the flowers POP off of the page. Voila!

Don't these look awesome!?