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”Pumpkin’s Starry Night” YouTube tutorial

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This crayon wax-resist painting lesson is inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”. It’s a 22 minute video and is suitable for grades K-3. I discuss his work briefly and also talk about various types of line, overlapping, texture, and crayon wax resist in the video.

I am currently teaching this lesson to my Kindergarten and 1st grade classes, and will be posting their artwork soon!

I’d love to hear your feedback on the video and hope that you can use it in your classroom soon!

Please check out my previous post below on another YouTube tutorial on Victorian architecture!

ALSO- I just added a NEW page titled “ART ROOM RULES AND ROUTINES” to my drop down menu on the main page.

UPDATE: Here are some of my K and 1 students artwork in progress! 2 of my classes got to paint on Thursday 10/23/25, and I LOOOOooove how they are coming out so far! It was Kindergartens FIRST time painting with me in art too!
They still need to add another layer of crayon details over their painting next week to complete them, but I couldn’t wait to share!

This lesson can still be created after Halloween (just don’t have your students draw a face!)

Look at these adorable pumpkins! My students really paid attention and erased the pumpkin bottoms where the grass is in order to show overlapping. I’m so proud of my Kindergarten and 1st grade students!

I will be posting their final artwork this Thursday evening 10/30/25! I can’t wait to share their beautiful artwork- they’ve been putting in a lot of hard work and effort into their Pumpkin’s Starry Night paintings!

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SPLATTER PAINTED GHOSTS/ BATS / PUMPKINS! 

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My first graders had so much fun creating these! It only took 2 (40 minute) art classes to make them too. 

Day 1 

First, I created these pumpkin, moon, and ghost template tracers made from heavyweight Manila tagboard. I created about 25 tracers each. 

Students chose their tracer and taped it with a masking tape loop (I helped with that step) on 3 areas of the back of the tracer onto a sheet of white 80# drawing paper. 

Then students splatter painted whatever colors they wanted on top of their paper using watercolors. I told them to cover their paper with a lot of splatterpaint, and to splatterpaint close to the edges of their tracer especially. This makes sure the image comes out clear once the tracer is removed. 

Once finished, the paintings were put into the drying rack. 

Day 2

I carefully took off the tracers on each paper (it’s a good idea to actually press the tape loops on a bit of cotton beforehand so the tape won’t be AS sticky and tear the paper) I learned that the hard way, as some of the tape loops tore their papers a tiny bit in some areas. 

We talked about positive / negative space. If a student chose a moon tracer, they cut out a bat from black paper (that they traced a bat on using my tracer) and glued it on their painting. 


Students then drew faces if they had a pumpkin or a ghost with a black sharpie marker to add final details!

Such a fun and quick lesson that my students LOVED! Lesson idea from @artsyblevs 

LEARNING GOALS: 

  • students can define and identify positive and negative space within their artwork
  • students can create artwork using various painting techniques

This was a lesson I did last October (2024) but I never added it to my website until now. The first 3 images from the top are my teacher examples, and the rest are by my students.

NEW artwork and lessons to come VERY soon!

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K and 1 FALL LEAVES

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My students in grades K and 1st created these beautifully vibrant leaves for the fall trees I made on my schools bulletin board recently! It took just 1 art class (40 minutes) to create.

I did this a couple years back and I’m always SO impressed at how bright and vivid the colors come out! And how rarely any leaves end up being brown or muddy!

We used Roylco brand diffusing leaves (you can purchase these on Amazon in packs of 80 leaves -3 different leaf varieties). I’ll also share a pic of how I did the bulletin board one year with the leaves as a wreath for the holiday season below.

Kids colored on their leaf (1 per student) with any colors of the rainbow they wanted (plus teal and pink) with bingo daubers until the entire leaf was colored in. Before they colored, we talked about colors and discussed what two primary colors make secondary colors. I was VERY impressed with my kindergarten students knowledge on this!!

Once they finished coloring, I sprayed their leaf (while on top of a messy mat) with a water spray bottle (about 4-5 sprays) about 12” away from their leaf. Students loved seeing the water spread the ink and watching their colors blend!

After letting the leaves dry in the drying rack black veins were added using oil pastel, then I stapled them on the 3 trees I created earlier. I made them out of crinkling brown construction paper strips and stapling them together.

I love how the trees came out and how it brightens up the hallway for fall!

I’m planning on using the remaining leaves that didn’t fit on the trees, to decorate the edges of my second bulletin board for other “fall” artwork soon!

Here’s a photo of how I used the leaves a couple years ago for the winter holiday!

Thank you SOO very much for following my blog and visiting my website! I know I haven’t been posting on the regular lately but I definitely plan on it this year!!

I have lots of new art lessons that my students are currently working on and I’m EXCITED to share them with you very soon, so be sure to check back and check your email for updates!

Also please be sure to visit my YouTube channel, and subscribe (I was just checking my videos this morning and was surprised and happy to see that my OpArt drawing tutorial video has over 185k views!!!) for more art video tutorials and read-a-loud stories! And you can follow me on Instagram @mammalovespeaches for additional art lessons and ideas!

Thank you so much

This is my 13th year teaching art! 12th year at my current district and 13th year overall!

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“The Big Orange Splot” READ-ALOUD

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I created a new page on this blog of my video read-alouds for kids (I’m calling it STORYTIME), and for teachers to use in their classrooms.

So far I’ve only recorded one book, but I am excited to add and share more very, very soon! I have a ton of books in my collection in my art room and I recently purchased 2 more children’s books!

If there are any short picture books that you would like for me to add to my videos, please let me know (you can email me under my contact page) Thank you! I hope you like it!

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RESEARCHING A CONTEMPORARY ARTIST – 5th Grade

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This lesson took about (4) 40 minute art classes to complete.

On day 1 I discussed with students the many different art careers out there available, then showed them a great video on all the different art related careers out there someone could do for inspiration for this lesson. I wish I could just post the video i showed my students for you here, but for some reason it wont let me embed the video from YouTube. If you search ”MHRD – Careers in Art” you can watch it there.

After the video students were shown a huge variety of various contemporary artists in my Google slides. Then, using their laptops, students logged into my art classroom in Google, and were able to review the slides of artists. Each slide showed 1-3 photos of their artwork, and a small description of the kind of artwork they created. I hyperlinked the photo of the artist to either their blog, their website, an article, or to Wikipedia about the artist.

From there, students took some time researching artists that intrigued them, then selected one artist to focus on.

Days 2-4 were spent thinking about that artists style, and/or what materials they used to create their art with and draw a picture related to and inspired by that artists work. Students looked at ceramicists, photographers, painters, illustrators, fashion designers, interior designers, architects, graphic designers, animators, installation artists, jewelers, video game designers, weavers etc. I also wanted to make sure I included just as many female artists as male artists and to include artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

Students then drew using pencil, colored pencils, markers and/or crayons.

On the final day, students filled out a sheet with questions on why they chose that artist and what facts they learned about their chosen artist. Students did such an amazing job on researching independently, and coming up with their own creations and drawing artwork inspired by their chosen artist! Students really enjoyed this lesson and I’m hoping doing this lesson will inspire them to research and learn about additional artists on their own time. I wish I took more photos of their artwork, but check out some of their work below!


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