Gahh! These pumpkins are just SO stinkin’ cute! I LOOoove how they turned out, and my students did too! So proud of their hard work and effort. 2 out of my 8 classes finished so far. Here’s some of their finished work- and photos and details on how we made them!
BTW— Please be sure to read some important information at the bottom of this post!
I love all the different facial expressions!
But students didn’t have to include a face in their pumpkin if they didn’t want to
This was a 4 day lesson (40 minutes each art). My YouTube tutorial is posted below the artwork / steps for the lesson.
DAY 1:
This lesson was inspired by “The Starry Night” —Kindergarten and 1st grade students learned about the life and artwork of Vincent van Gogh.
After learning about Vincent van Gogh, I showed students step-by-step under the document camera, how to draw the pumpkin on a 12×12” sheet of 80# white drawing paper. I began with drawing a large “C” on the left side of the paper. Then drawing a backwards “C” on the right side- leaving a little space in between. We then connected the two C’s at the top with a slight curving line, then connected the bottom.
Then we drew the pumpkin’s stem, adding a few bumps at the top and lines inside for texture. After that, we drew a straight line down the middle of the pumpkin, and then curving lines on either side to create more texture, and to make our pumpkins look more rounded. Then students drew the face (if they wanted one) and added a zig-line for the grass (making sure to go OVER the bottom of the pumpkin a little bit to show overlapping).
Then we erased the parts of the pumpkin that was below the zig-zag line. For the final step of day 1, we drew a moon in the sky.
DAY 2:
Students traced over ALL pencil lines with a black crayon making sure to press real hard as they traced. Then students filled in their pumpkin’s eyes and mouth with a black crayon; pressing hard. Students then drew stars in the sky using a yellow crayon (also making sure to press really hard, and to fill in the circles completely).
DAY 3:
Students then painted their sky using black watercolors, creating a crayon-wax resist technique. It never gets old seeing students watch in awe as the paint glides right over the crayon and doesn’t cover it up! Then they painted their grass, pumpkin, stem and moon.
DAY 4:
On the final day, we looked at Vincent’s Starry Night painting again and talked about all the short dashed lines in his work- particularly around each of the stars, and how it made them look like they were twinkling, and how it created a lot of texture throughout.
Students drew short dashed lines in the grass with a dark green crayon, dashed lines with a red-orange crayon inside the pumpkin, and white dashed lines all around the stars; making sure to press down hard as they drew.
Learning Goals:
- Students can identify and create various types of line
- Students can define texture and show texture within their artwork
- Students can define overlapping and show overlapping in their artwork
- Students can define and create a crayon-wax resist painting
- Students can identify artwork by Vincent van Gogh
I just added 9 NEW Resources (printable PDF sheets for various art lessons) in my TpT store (11/5/25) link is https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/art-with-mrs-filmore
These are the 9 new resources, in case you might be interested!
- Fill in the blank sheets of questions for my abstract self-portrait lesson– 2nd grade
- Woodland Creatures Step-by-Step Drawing Sheets
- Airplane drawing template
- Leaf templates/Tracers (FREE!)
- Sandra Silberzweig art lesson resource
- Artist Statement / Reflection sheet
- Mixing Primary Colors Sheet
- “I Am” Statements resource sheet
- “Finish The Picture” sheets
Please check out my previous most recent posts —
- 1 point Perspective Cityscapes
- Mixed-Media Leaf Impressions
- Dotted Leaf Paintings
- Art on a Cart
You can also copy the title of any lesson listed above and paste it into my search bar HERE to go to that post.
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