Van Gogh is a wonderful artist to study with children.  His use of vibrant colours and strong brush strokes (the ‘impasto’ technique) really engage them.  I often show children this You Tube clip to get them started  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw7XYhrhRqg . They love the fact that a child is the one doing the painting.

SUNFLOWERS

My Year 2 class created this large scale version of Van Gogh’s sunflowers last year. We were lucky enough to go and see the two Sunflower paintings at the National Gallery beforehand.  They drew the outline of one of the flowers onto cardboard and then painted it with thick marks using a large brush and a selection of yellows, whites and ochres.  Once their flower was dry and cut out they added to their impasto painting using macaroni, short strips of wool and thread and coloured sand.  A group of children worked on the vase.

I mounted the flowers and vase onto a large piece of canvas, which some of the children had painted using large decorating brushes.