@The Arts Unit Creative Classes
@The Arts Unit Creative Classes
Student visual arts resource developed by The Arts Unit
Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 visual arts
You will:
explore the colours and shapes of a sunset
create an artwork representing a Wild West landscape.
Are you ready to get creative?
You'll need:
paper towel or old newspaper to protect the table
a large sheet of paper (could be white, yellow or blue)
paint, a paintbrush and a cup of water
black paper or black paint for the cactus
safety scissors and glue
a paint smock or old shirt to protect your clothes.
Here are 9 pictures of sunsets.
What can you describe?
What colours you can see?
What shapes are dark?
What shapes are light?
What does the sky look like?
Cowboys and cowgirls often live in the desert where it is hot and dry.
Cacti grow well in the desert because they love the hot weather and don't need much water. The Saguaro cactus can grow as tall as a house!
You will be creating a desert sunset with hills and cacti.
A very tall Saguaro cactus in the desert.
Today we are creating a sunset desert landscape using paint and paper.
Step 1
Cover your table with newspaper or paper towel.
Set up your paper, paints and brushes.
Step 2
Paint lines across the paper to make the sunset.
You can use red, orange and yellow or any colours you like!
Mix colours and see what new ones you can make.
Step 3
Cover the whole page in sunset colours.
Step 4
Using black paper, cut out a big cactus and a small cactus.
If you don't have black paper, you can paint or colour your cactus in black.
You can print and trace this cactus template.
Step 5
Using the black paper, cut out the desert land that will cover the bottom of the page.
These are the hills of the desert.
Your hills can be flat, curved or pointy.
Step 6
Glue your desert hills on top of the paint, at the bottom of page.
Next, glue on your big cactus and little cactus on top of the desert hills.
Great job on creating a beautiful artwork of a desert sunset!
Share your artwork with your teacher and display for all to see.
Well done cowboys and cowgirls!
Thank you for being creative with us today!
Desert sunset artwork tutorial images, 2020, created by Catherine Gilholme.