After a decade of teaching high school art, I’ve recently moved to teaching middle school art. It’s a blast and there is truly NEVER a dull moment. Through some trial and error, I’ve learned that some projects are more engaging than others. Below are some of my favorite middle school art projects that have yielded engagement and great visual end products! The ideas below use a variety of art media and include a range of 2d and 3d art projects. I hope you enjoy! Feel free to comment below if you’d like to share some of your personal idea for successful middle school art projects.
#1- 3D Shadowbox Collages
Student goal: Use found collage images to create layers of depth inside a 3D foam core shadowbox. Click here for the full lesson of this 3d shadowbox collage project.
#2- Colored Light Self Portraits
Student goal: Use colored pencils on toned paper to draw a self portrait of yourself photographed with a colored light source (we used 3 light sources- red, blue and green bulbs). Click here for more information about this lesson using colored light sources.
A variation with a cropped composition on expressive eyes.
#3- Vortex Drawings
Student goal: Use a media of your choice to draw a vortex that shows depth, rhythm and movement. Click here for a full lesson on how to draw a variety of vortexes.
#4- Alien Point of View Perspective Drawings
Student goal: Use paint stix, oil pastels, or colored pencils to render an exaggerated “alien’s point of view” space drawing. Click here for free lesson a guided worksheet of this fun, alien perspective drawing.
#5- 1/2 Cartoon Face Digital Portraits
Student goal: With a photographed portrait, creatively divide the face in half and use digital drawing methods to stylize one side as a cartoon. Click here for free guided steps on how to do the 1/2 cartoon face portrait.
*This project was inspired by a viral challenge called #cartoonme. Lots of cool inspiration photos online!
#6- Plaster Masks
Student goal: Using plaster strips upon a cardboard armature, create a wearable 3d mask. **In my class, we connected this to Hispanic heritage month and created Sugar Skull and Alebrije masks. We used this free template to create the armature for the mask.
#7- Elements of Art Project
Student goal: Divide one subject into seven sections. In each section, illustrate each of the elements of art using a variety of materials. For more information on this lesson including step by step directions, click here.
#8- Monochromatic Posterized Portrait Paintings
Student goal: Using a portrait of your choice, create a monochromatic, posterized portrait. **We used this method (with the free webpased program Pixlr) to digitally posterize our photo references prior to drawing and painting them on canvas.
#9 Limited Color Scheme Landscapes
Student goal: Using a random color scheme of only 5 colors, create a composition of a landscape that shows a sense of space with foreground, mid ground and background. **Click here to check out how I randomly assign students their 5 colors and their landscape setting. There is also a free guided video to show students how to begin this project.
#10 Surreal Collage Perspective Rooms
Student goal: Draw a room with accurate 1 point perspective techniques and add color to all sides of the room. Then, creatively incorporate surreal collage images into the room. Click here to check out my FREE guided step by step instructions on how to draw a 1 point perspective room interior.
#11- Open ended art challenges
Student goal: Using a random art challenge prompt (such as the #blendartchallenge), artists will use a style and medium of their choice to compose a solution.
#12-Monster Dolls (inspired by kid drawings)
Student goal: Using a drawing of a monster from a young child for inspiration, create a hand sewn stuffed animal. Use a variety of materials including felt, cloth, yarn, buttons, and more!
#13- Wire Stocking Sculptures
Student goal: Using a block of wood as your base and a nylon stocking stretched over a manipulated wire hanger, create an interesting 3d form. Use acrylic paint to create a gradient of at least 3 colors.
This is a really popular project, if you are looking for step by step directions a quick google search of ‘wire stocking sculptures’ should get ya there!
#14- Dictionary Page Drawings
Student goal: Given a random dictionary page, find at last one word on the page to illustrate visually. Use a variety of art media to contrast your drawn image with the busy background. **For more info on this lesson, check out this link here.
#15- Geometric Creatures
Student goal: On a watercolor wash background, draw a silhouette of a creature. Break your creature into polygonal shapes and add color with marker.
#16- Collaborative School Logo “Quilt” Drawings
Student goal: Create a quilted tile section of the school logo. Use a material of your choice and a style of your choice to show your individual personality. **Note, the entire logo is visually connected by the black lines.
#17- Faux Lined Paper Illusion Drawings
Student goal: On a white piece of paper, create a “faux” lined piece of paper with bending blue lines over a shaded pencil drawing. **My students used this awesome website by Julianna Kunstler to aid in our drawings. It was very helpful.
#19 Linoleum block printing
Student goal: Create high contrast prints using a hand carved linoleum block.
#20-Oil Pastel Dragon Eyes
Student goal: Use oil pastels to create a colorful drawing of dragon eye. Imply the texture of the scales through use of blending gradients. **Note- I am definitely not the teacher who created this idea, it’s pretty popular and oh-so-fun! I would love to credit whoever originally got this going, so let me know! My students used this resource by Art by Ro to help us draw the dragon eyes.
#21- Line Drawing Landscapes-in-a-shape
Student goal: Create a landscape in a shape that shows a sense of depth. Explore a variety of line drawing techniques such as hatching and stippling to add texture and value. **Note, this lesson comes from this post from Cassie Stephens who was inspired by an artist named Jen Aranyi.
#22- ANYTHING op art!
Student goal: Choose from a choice board (I gave them lots of choices!), create an original op art drawing! **If you are interested in a fun op art drawing from Make a Mark Studios, check it out here! 🙂
#23 Art History Reproductions
Student goal: Analyzing the brushstrokes, colors, and composition, recreate a famous artwork. **We created ours on our ceiling tiles as our 8th grade legacy works. Click here for tips we learned along the way for painting on ceiling tiles.
#24 Non Objective Abstract Art
Student goal: Use sharpie to draw a non objective abstract artwork with a variety of lines and shapes. Using oil pastels, color in the composition fully.
#25 3D Creature Heads
Student goal: Use recyclables to build an armature of a 3d fictional creature head of your own imagination. Use paper mache or plaster strips to finalize your head. For full lesson on how to do this, check out my blog post here—
#26 Glowing Light Bulb Drawing
Student goal: Use colored pencils on black paper to create the illusion of a glowing light bulb. For step by step guided tutorial and video, check out my full post here.
#27 Watercolor Mosaic
Student goal: Create a mosaic using cut tiles from a painted watercolor background. Explore either random polygonal tile shapes or a geometric repeated shape. For full lesson, check out my blog post here.
#28 2 point perspective graffiti wall
Student goal: Create a personalized graffiti tag on an illustrated 2 point perspective brick wall. For a FREE full guided drawing lesson of how to do this, check out my blog post here.
#27 Bauhaus Geometric Shape Paper Collages
Student goal: Create an asymmetrically balanced, geometric Bauhaus-inspired paper collage. For more info on this creative shape challenge, check out my blog post here.
#28 Mixed Media Abstract Art with EMPHASIS
Student goal: Create a mixed media abstract artwork that employs the principle of design EMPHASIS to create a defined focal point. For more info on this lesson, check out my blog post here.
#29 Hand Sewn Pop Tart Plushies!!
Student goal: Hand sew a pop art plushie inspired by contemporary felt artist, Lucy Sparrow! Step by step tutorial for how to sew a pop tart can be found here!
#30- Primary color, Pop Art Inspired Onomatopoeia Compositions!
Student goal: Create a composition of an onomatopoeia inspired by the pop artists using techniques such as ben day dots, primary color schemes, bold outlines, and more! Click here for the lesson on how to complete this Pop art project..
#31- Color wheel in an Eye
Student goal: Using only 3 primary colors of paint, create a color of 12 analogous colors in an iris of an eye. Click here for a step by step tutorial of how to create a color wheel in an eye.
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-Stephanie Villiotis, creator of Make a Mark Studios
