Teaching Art Appreciation to Children: Creating a Picasso Pumpkin

You can do this project with one child at home, or with a whole classroom full of children. Children are very open to seeing and learning about art, and the more you expose them to all kinds of artists and varieties, the better. The best time to give a person this appreciation, is to begin when they are children. It also encourages them and shows them that art is not just one style, that what appeals to one person, may not to another and that is o.k.. Art, like music, is a medium friendly to subjective interpretation and appreciation. The more variety there is, the richer the world of art.

The best way to start is to ask before you begin, "Have you ever heard of Pablo Picasso" or "Can anyone tell me who Pablo Picasso is"? You might ask them to simply find out who he was and what he did before the next class or gathering. Then ask the question against the next class meeting and do the project then.

To begin this project, gather a few facts about Pablo Picasso, copies of a few of his works from books or online, and a little history about the artist. Make the information simple and concise. Include his national heritage and maybe even show the children where Picasso was born and raised on a map.

Ask them what they think of his work, how it makes them feel. Tell them there is no wrong or right in how they interpret it. You just want their reaction. After a very brief synopsis of who he was, what he did and the style of his work, the first art appreciation project is very simple and fun to do. This is even appropriate for younger children. This is an inexpensive project. Do one along with the children.

Supplies Needed:

A few precut stencils of pumpkins made of any colour construction paper. (If this is for a group of children, spilt them into smaller groups and make one stencil per group. For much smaller children, precut all the pumpkins ahead of time.)

One or two sheets of black construction paper per child. (One if you use the cut out method to follow or two if you glue cut out eyes, nose and mouth on the pumpkin. This second method is the best method for younger children.)

One sheet of orange construction paper per child. (Both the orange and black sheets of the same sized paper.)

A pencil for tracing the stencils

Scissors

Glue

Cut a pumpkin pattern out of any paper as long as it can be used as a pattern to trace. The pumpkin should be good sized, not a tiny one.

Use the pattern and pencil to trace a pumpkin onto the sheet of orange paper.

Cut out the pumpkin.

Have each child draw a simple face on their pumpkins, as if they were drawing one on a real pumpkin, to make a jack o' lantern face.

Then have them carefully cut out the eyes, nose and mouth out as if they were really cutting out the parts on a pumpkin. Be careful to keep inside each feature as it is cut, so it looks like a mask or carved jack o' lantern. (The second option is to precut out shapes for the facial feature, from black paper, and have the children glue them on. This method works better for younger children.)

Then with the pencil, lightly draw zig zag lines, from the top to the bottom, to divide the jack o' lantern into three or four pieces. Cut the pieces out following the zig zag lines, so that you end up with what looks like three or four jagged separate puzzle pieces.

Set the pieces on the black paper, in the correct order, but space each one apart so black shows between the jagged cuts. They can arrange them however far apart or close together as they want, as long as there is some space between each piece. This is their own creation.

Glue the pieces on the black paper. Voila, a masterpiece. A child's interpretation of a Picasso. A Picasso Pumpkin!

ALWAYS encourage a child to sign their artwork, the way a real artist does.

This is fun as part of an art appreciation project series, by itself or it is also fun to do for a Halloween decoration. For Halloween you could also do a black bat on orange paper, the same way, and call it a Batty Picasso.