Art teachers often struggle finding supplemental resources for art history lessons. Luckily free printable art history pages can be used as resources for both elementary and secondary art lessons. These printable pages vary from extremely intricate and challenging to simple and fun.
Mona Lisa and American Gothic – Most Famous Artwork
The About art history page features a small collection of the most famous artworks from DaVinci's Mona Lisa to Van Gogh's Starry Night. These high-quality pages feature some of the most recognizable artworks. The pages are free to print and color, but are subject to copyright. As such, they must only be used for educational or personal use.
Francisco Goya and Auguste Renoir – A Wider Selection of Art Printables
The Best of Kids website provides links to a large selection of historical artworks. They provide links to two French websites that provide a wide variety of free art history coloring pages. The printable sheets on these links provides a more obscure collection of artwork that could be used in a secondary level classroom as well as in an elementary classroom.
The first site Best of Kids links to is entitled Hugo l'Escargot, or Hugo the Snail. This site features over 15 different printable works from Auguste Renoir to Paul Gauguin. The free coloring sheets are high-quality, printable line drawings that can be colored or painted.
Best of Kids also links to Momes.net. This French website contains a list of over 70 different artworks by over 60 different artists. The links are printed in French, but the artist's name appears in each link. Simply click on the artist's name and you will be taken to a coloring sheet version of that artist's painting.
How to Use Art History Coloring Sheets in an Art Classroom
Art history coloring sheets can provide a useful resource for both art educators and art students.
In an elementary classroom, coloring sheets can be given to students who finish their projects early. They can also be used to enhance a project. For instance, students learning about portraits, might be given a coloring sheet of the Mona Lisa along with a blank sheet of paper. The students could draw themselves on the blank sheet of paper and color the Mona Lisa. They could then hang both images and talk about the differences between the two portraits. In this way, the students would be learning about art history and art criticism.
In a secondary classroom, printable coloring sheets can be used when studying color schemes. The students can color artwork using complementary, analogous and triadic color schemes to see how the colors change the look of the work. Secondary students can also add art coloring sheets to a collage or artist book. Students can also use four copies of an artwork like the Mona Lisa, colored with differing bright colors, to create Pop Art similar to that of Andy Warhol.
Art Coloring Sheets Provide a Variety of Options
Art history coloring sheets allow teachers to enhance their art history lessons. Many of these resources are free and available to print and color immediately. By using these artwork coloring sheets, teachers enhance lessons on both art history and production.
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