Fifth Grade - Vincent Van Gogh - Collaborative Oil Pastel Grid Drawing

Van Gogh's Sunflowers 3ft x 4ft Oil Pastel Grid Drawing

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This year our school has chosen Vincent Van Gogh as our focus artist. This means I get to create a lesson for each grade with Van Gogh in mind. These works need to be art show quality as well! For my fifth graders I struggled to pick a lesson. This is a very talented artistic group which struggle behaviorally. In the end I went with a grid drawing recreation of Van Gogh's Sunflowers and HOLLLLY COW did they knock it out of the park! 

For the weeks prior to this lesson my 5th graders had been learning about line, specifically contour lines. They had also done a few small grid drawing studies with the idea of line incorporated into it so they had a fairly strong knowledge of using line and grid drawing to create a work.

Day 1 we spent entirely on an artwork critic of Van Gogh's Sunflower work. We learned more about his life and how it can play a roll in how we interpret art. We also talked about Van Gogh's work stylistically. It was a lot for one day but very necessary for students understanding of the work.

Day 2 students got their portion of the grid paper and, using pencil, sketched out the lines in their piece. There was a LOT of attention given to being exact or else the full image would not match up. 

Day 3 We spent half this class just looking at the work again. Studying the colors in the work. The second half of the class was spent practicing color matching with oil pastels. If students achieved an accurate color match they were then told they could begin adding color to their grid piece.

Day 4 Work day. Get these grid pieces finished accurately! 

*Problem solving: This lesson did have a few hiccups. One was the odd student who struggled to create a grid piece that match. I had a few students who really could not get an accurate piece drawn. For these kiddos I had them switch out to an easier section. I then had my more advanced artist work on the more difficult pieces. I did have to tailor the grid piece to the students ability. I also found out one of my students is severely color deficient (colorblind). While trying to get him to tell me where he saw green undertones I came to the realization he couldn't do that! I had him take a quick vision test on my computer to confirm my suspicions and sure enough he cannot differentiate between reds/greens and blues/oranges making this project on color matching nearly impossible! I ended up giving him a lot of individualized attention to get him through the lesson.

At the end of the final day I began putting the pieces together. I was AMAZED with how beautifully it came together! Both myself and my 5th graders were shookith when we saw the final work glued down!

3ft x 4ft oil pastel on drawing paper

Process photo of how this masterpiece came together. The student work and the image they were referencing side by side.