Fourth grade art students are ready for new challenges, like trying out perspective or exploring tessellations. These projects are all well within their abilities but will also encourage your students to push themselves to create cool new works of art they’ll be proud to take home and show off!
Cassie Stephens
1. Go colorful with Fauve portraits
Artists of the Fauve school favored bright colors and bold lines, so their work really appeals to kids. Use bingo daubers to make the portraits, then oil pastels and liquid watercolors to create the colorful backgrounds.
Your fourth grade art students will be wowed by the illusion of this portrait project. They’ll create two different pictures of themselves on accordion-folded paper. When they unfold it, they’ll be able to see each portrait depending on the angle from which they look.
Teach your students terms like foreground, middle ground, and horizon as they create these patterned landscapes. They’ll also learn to use warm colors to make some elements pop and cool colors when they want something to recede into the background.
Students will have fun painting textured waves to back their fearsome construction paper pirate ships. Challenge them to personalize their sails with their own insignia too.
Munch’s The Scream is one of the most well-known pieces of art in the world. Learn more about the original painting, then have kids paint their own backgrounds. Finish it off by taking “Scream selfies” and pasting them on!
Dean Russo’s vivid pet portraits have become incredibly popular, and they’re exactly the kind of style that appeals to kids. This is another fourth grade art lesson that’s perfect for using bingo daubers to make the bold outlines.
These dreamy seahorses are made using bleeding tissue paper to achieve the soft watercolor effect. When you glue them onto black construction paper, the colored panels practically seem to glow.
Collect some old textbooks and turn them into bounding ocean waves! Dab the torn pages with watercolors, then add boats of various sizes to create the illusion of depth.
Art Is Basic
11. Try a toothpaste batik
The traditional batik process involves wax, but this version uses a surprise substitute: toothpaste! Learn how it works at the link.
Explore the concept of radial symmetry with this intriguing folded-paper project. Visit the link below to learn some basic folds, but don’t be afraid to try out creative shapes of your own.
Who’s ready for a pizza party? Let your creative juices (and taste buds!) run wild with this tasty fourth-grade art project that looks fun and delicious.
Japanese artist Hokusai is best known for his series of woodblock prints of Mount Fuji, including The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Fourth grade art students will enjoy mixing acrylic paints to get the proper shades to re-create this iconic marine scene.
Get ready to see your students’ eyes widen when you show them M.C. Escher’s mind-bending illustrations. Then challenge them to create their own tessellations, which are repeating patterns that cover a page with no gaps or overlaps. It’s tricky, but oh-so satisfying!
Fourth grade art students are ready to tackle some more advanced concepts, like foreshortening an object to produce the illusion of distance. These free-falling portraits emphasize hands and feet, creating an interesting, foreshortened perspective.
Make some time in your curriculum for graphic arts like typography. This self-portrait is a combination of poetry and art, and the results are truly special.
Dubuffet took great inspiration from watching kids create, eventually coining the term art brut, sometimes called outsider art. After looking at some of his work, ask kids to use paper to make a free-flowing abstract sculpture of their own.
Collaborative art projects give kids a chance to work together and share their creativity. For this one, each student creates one Kandinsky-inspired circle and cuts it into four pieces. Then kids mix and match with each other to put together unique compositions.
Use the magic of crystals and gems to inspire students for this watercolor project. Show them the basic steps, then let them compose their own valuable collections.
Everything’s better under the sea, including these gorgeous clay sculptures. Use photos of tide pools to inspire fourth grade students to mold starfish, urchins, seaweed, and more.
Here’s another lesson in perspective, this one focusing on the vanishing point. For a personalized twist on this idea, have kids sketch the letters of their name instead of using shapes.
One look at these paintings and you’ll feel like you’re sitting in a sunny meadow on a warm summer’s day. Kids use the wet-on-wet technique to create those soft misty backgrounds.
These donuts look yummy, but don’t be tempted to take a taste! Instead, drop by the link below for some donut art inspiration, then shape your own sweet treats from papier-mâché.
Viewed from the top, snowmen are just a series of concentric circles. Practice shading to add depth to each circle, then add a scarf, arms, and snowman features to finish it off.
Make this art lesson meaningful by learning why and how some Native American tribes make totems. Then have each student choose an animal that’s important to them and build their own class totem poles.
Here’s a project that’s likely different from anything kids have tried before. First, paint a design on burlap. Then, stitch on some embellishments with colored thread. The results are unique and awesome!
Turn recycling into a fun art lesson with DIY recycled Shrinky Dinks. This project allows students to repurpose plastic into vibrant, shrinkable art, teaching sustainability alongside creativity.
This project combines art fundamentals like concentric circles, contour lines, line variety, color blending, and watercolor control. Students start by sketching cacti and landscapes, then outline their drawings with permanent markers, filling it in with detailed doodles and color washes for a stunning effect.
Inspire students with the resilience of desert life. This project blends art with nature, as students study succulents and their adaptations to create beautiful, vivid artworks.
Dive into the action-packed world of abstract art with drip paintings inspired by Jackson Pollock. This project lets students splash, drizzle, and pour paint, embracing spontaneity and movement to create their own vibrant masterpieces.
Explore the beauty of nature with a twist by creating mixed-media leaf collages from photocopies. This project invites students to collect leaves, then use photocopies of these leaves as the basis for vibrant, layered art pieces. By adding paint, texture, and creativity, each collage turns into a stunning exploration of the natural world’s intricate patterns and shapes.
Brighten up the classroom with a colorful chalk pastel jellyfish art project. Using black paper, students will draw and color their own jellyfish, learning to blend colors and create light-and-shadow effects that make their art pop.
Introduce students to the world of weaving with an easy and colorful paper-weaving project. They’ll start by cutting slits in one piece of paper and weaving strips of different-colored paper through the slits. This project not only teaches basic weaving patterns but also allows for creativity in color and texture combinations.
Introduce students to perspective drawing with a landscape art project. They’ll learn how to create depth by drawing a road that narrows into the distance, along with trees that gradually decrease in size, resulting in a captivating scene that looks like it’s far away.
Create intricate 3D paper doodlebugs that spring to life on a leaf. This crafty project encourages students to design, color, and construct their own doodlebug using a printable template, fostering a blend of artistic creativity and scientific curiosity.
Capture the beauty of a sunset with bird silhouette art. This project encourages children to observe color changes in the sky, blend paints to create depth, and use templates for striking bird silhouettes against a vibrant background.
Dive into history and architecture by designing Victorian houses. Using colored pencils, students draw houses with detailed gables, turrets, and trim, learning about this historic style’s unique features.
Learn to draw half portraits with a step-by-step guide that simplifies facial features. This project encourages attention to detail in drawing one side of the face, making it perfect for understanding symmetry and proportions.
Unleash creativity by sketching mythical dragons, following a simple tutorial that breaks down the process into easy steps. This activity encourages students to play with shapes and details, creating their own dragon characters.
This project invites kids to draw and paint a vibrant watercolor flower garden. Starting with simple flower shapes drawn on watercolor paper, they outline their designs with a white crayon or oil pastel before painting over them with liquid watercolors, allowing for a beautiful resist effect.
Craft adorable bunny paper bag puppets using simple materials. This engaging project sparks creativity and provides a playful arts-and-crafts experience for kids.
Craft stunning Mexican sun-and-moon weavings, blending metal relief art with colorful yarn weaving. This project celebrates Mexican culture and introduces students to mixed-media art, combining sculpture, painting, and weaving techniques.
This project has students creating vibrant winter trees using Sharpies and watercolors, embodying folk art’s charm. A simple yet engaging activity perfect for exploring line, pattern, and color techniques during the chilly months.
Float into a world of laughter with funny balloon faces. With these adorable fourth grade art projects, kids explore their creativity by attaching colorful card-stock facial features to balloons to craft whimsical characters.
Explore papel picado–inspired snowflakes, merging this traditional Mexican art with a fun, wintry twist. Students create unique paper designs, enhancing their cutting skills and cultural appreciation.
