Van Gogh Art Project for 5th Grade: Swirling Skies
Van Gogh Swirling Skies
5th grade students love looking at Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night and creating their own personalized version. Students learn about emphasis, movement, silhouette, and warm/cool colors in this fun art project!
Introducing Vincent van Gogh
Before the lesson begins, we use my van Gogh slideshow to look at Vincent van Gogh’s artwork, with a special focus on The Starry Night. I have yet to meet a student who had never seen The Starry Night before. Learning about an artwork that is already familiar to students helps them to feel more connected to the art world.
Day 1: Discussing The Starry Night and Drawing Landscape Silhouettes
We start with a class discussion of The Starry Night. What makes it unique? What is the focal point? (The swirling sky!) How would you describe the landscape? (Low, small, and dark.) How would you describe the sky? (Big, bright, and swirly.) I like to write the answers on the board in a quick brainstorming session.
That contrast is the key to the whole project: to create emphasis on that awesome sky, the landscape needs to stay low and dark. We discuss what a silhouette is, and how the backlighting of a bright sky makes a landscape look like a dark shadow. Then we brainstorm possibilities for unique landscapes, and students choose their own: real or imagined.
My full lesson includes a landscape reference page with some ideas, and students can use it to practice their landscape idea and color it black to make sure it will read well as a silhouette. (Landscape templates are an easy modification for students who need them.) Once students settle on an idea, they draw their final landscape low on their drawing paper, then color it either black or a very dark shade of another color, layering black with other colors for a rich, deep silhouette. If the landscapes aren’t fully colored by the end of class, no problem: students can finish them after they create their skies.
Day 2: Creating Movement and Rhythm
Day 2 is all about color theory and two principles of art: movement and rhythm. We review that cool-toned color schemes include greens, blues, and purples, while warm-toned schemes include reds, oranges, and yellows, and we discuss why each scheme suits different landscape scenes. A warm-toned sky can glow like a sunset, while a cool-toned sky feels like a frosty night.
Then we look back at van Gogh’s sky. The movement that flows through The Starry Night is based off two main swirls, and the rhythm is created by the stripey paint strokes echoing those swirls and shapes across the sky. Students practice drawing 2–3 basic swirls and adding rhythm lines that build off them, until a whole practice sky fills up with swirling stripes.
Students then decide: warm-toned sky or cool-toned sky? They draw their 2–3 swirls of movement on their final paper with colored pencil, orange for warm skies or blue for cool skies, and build off those initial swirls with more rhythm stripes until the entire sky is full. (For efficiency’s sake, I recommend sticking to just one color while drawing the stripes. The wider variety of colors comes later, when the coloring begins!)
Day 3: Warm-Toned or Cool-Toned Skies
Once the skies are full of swirling stripes, we review which colors are considered warm (reds, oranges, and yellows) and which are considered cool (blues, greens, and purples). Students begin coloring inside their stripes, varying the colors within their chosen scheme and pressing firmly to achieve rich, opaque hues. Remind students to color in between their landscape elements too! It helps to have every student pull a selection of warm or cool colors out of the crayon, colored pencil, and marker boxes ahead of time, so they can stick with their theme without hunting for colors mid-stripe.
I have also created an easy-to-follow project instruction handout, so students can complete the project independently. This is very handy if there is a sub, if a student was absent on day 1 or 2, or if I just need the kids to work more independently so I can get things ready for our art show!
Day 4: Coloring Day
The final day of the project is for coloring: finishing the swirling stripes of the skies and the dark landscapes underneath them. As the stripes fill in, the movement really starts to show. Their skies end up swirling with movement, just like Vincent van Gogh’s! Each sky comes out unique, and warm-toned and cool-toned skies displayed side by side make a stunning hallway display.
Everything for this lesson is bundled in my Vincent van Gogh PowerPoint and Art Lesson: the van Gogh slideshow, the full step-by-step lesson plan, the landscape reference page and templates, the warm/cool and Movement & Rhythm practice worksheets, and the project instruction handout. There is also a van Gogh coloring page and word search in the bundle, which is exactly what my early finishers reach for on coloring day. It’s the whole project, ready to teach without building a single material yourself. And if you prefer to shop on Classful or Made By Teachers, this lesson is available on those sites as well.
If you teach younger grades too, students can meet van Gogh again in my Mosaic Flower Vases project for K–2.
If famous artists are a regular part of your curriculum, my free Artist Reference Guide keeps 200 of them organized in one place. It lists each artist’s name, dates, nationality, style, and medium, with a notes column for jotting down when and where you taught them. Subscribe to the All About Art newsletter below and I’ll send the guide straight to your inbox.
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