Our free resource art site, MakingArtFun.com, features the biographies of our major artists, along with a collection of printable resources and lesson ideas that make learning fun!

Need a few ideas to teach your kids about the life and art of French modern artist Henri Matisse. We’ve got ‘em. Start by reading the biography to get acquainted with Henri Matisse, and then click and print these fun and free lesson resources.

Biography
Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambresis in Northern France. His parents, Emile Matisse and Heloise Gerars, owned a general store where they sold household goods and seed. Henri was their first son. As a young man, Henri traveled to Paris to study law. In 1889 he returned home to work in a law office as a clerk. It was around this time that he had an attack of appendicitis, which required surgery. To make the long recovery more enjoyable his mother gave him a paint box. It was then, at the age of 21, that Matisse discovered painting and decided to become an artist…

Read more on MakingArtFun.com

Matisse Word Search Worksheet
Try a free printable word search worksheet that is actually designed to help your kids read better.

Henri Matisse Word Search on MakingArtFun.com

Color a Matisse Masterpiece
Print and color a free coloring page of Matisse’s Woman with a Hat (1905).

Woman with a Hat from MakingArtFun.com

Draw a Matisse Masterpiece
Add a drawing project to your lesson plans. This line drawing is easy to recreate, and a great way to get connected to the artist. Don’t worry… it’s easy. Just click, read the directions, and draw.

La Pompadour: Drawing Lesson on MakingArtFun.com

Art Masterpiece Cookie
Try making an art Masterpiece cookie. Art has never been this delicious!

Henri Matisse | Cookie Masterpiece lesson on MakingArtFun.com

Materials
4″ Sugar Cookies
Cookie Frosting
Food Coloring
Popsicle Sticks

Meet the Artist Job Application
This free printable artist worksheet is a fact-based worksheet in the form of a job application that your students can fill out for the artist of your choice. It’s a great alternative the a study guide.

“Meet the Artist” Job Application | Worksheet

Desktop Wallpaper
Download a desktop wallpaper for Henri Matisse’s Woman with a Hat from MakingArtFun.com.  Every trip to the compuer will be like a visit to the art museum.

Woman with a Hat Desktop Wallpaper from MakingArtFun.com

Our free resource art site, MakingArtFun.com, features the biographies of our major artists, along with a collection of printable resources and lesson ideas that make learning fun!

I’ve just added three colored pencil lessons that help kids build basic skills.

Colored Pencil Lessons

10 Tippy Top Colored Pencils Tips for Beginners
Here’s a few basic colored pencil techniques that will help you to dazzle your friends and family (and yourself) right from the beginning. They will help you to make your colored pencil drawings vibrant and beautiful…

Colored Pencil Techniques for Beginners
Now that you have developed a few basic drawing skills, let’s try a lesson on colored pencil technique. This lesson will teach you the basic stuff about how to color your flowers, bunnies, or pickles with colored pencils in an artsy sort of way. As you read, try each one of these techniques on a piece of drawing paper…

5 Tips for Blending Colored Pencils
Learning how to blend your colored pencil strokes can add a wonderful richness to your colored pencil art projects. Each of these blending techniques are easy to learn, and will create wonderful effects…

Have Fun!

Our free resource art site, MakingArtFun.com, features the biographies of our major artists, along with a collection of printable resources and lesson ideas that make learning fun!

I’ve just added three art lesson plans on perspective drawing.

Perspective Drawing
The first lesson begins with bigger/smaller aspect of objects when we consider them in perspective. The first big idea about all perspective drawing that’s introduced is:

If it’s close, it’s bigger. If it’s far away, it’s smaller.

Lessons two and three introduce one-point and two-point perspective.

Lesson 1: Bigger and Smaller
Lesson 2: One-Point Perspective
Lesson 3: Two-Point Perspective

Our free resource art site, MakingArtFun.com, features the biographies of our major artists, along with a collection of printable resources and lesson ideas that make learning fun!

We’ve just added two free art terms word search worksheets for the elementary art classroom of homeschool art student. Teach the terms, and then let the students pair up to complete the worksheet.

Drawing Terms
12 words/phrases including: COMPOSITION, CONTOUR, EDGE, FORM, HATCHING, LINE, NEGATIVESPACE, PERSPECTIVE, POSITIVESPACE, TEXTURE, VALUE, VANISHINGPOINT

Drawing Terms | Free Word Search Worksheet

Watercolor Terms
12 words/phrases including: BLOTTING, BRUSH, COMPOSITION, DRYBRUSH, EASEL, PALLET, PAN, PIGMENT, TEXTURE, VALUE, WASH, WETONWET

Watercolor Terms | Word Search Worksheet

This collection of free printable word search worksheets are available for you to print and enjoy in high quality PDF format - the best choice for a clean and crisp copy.

There’s an artist in all of us. Unfortunately, by age ten the excitement for coloring and drawing pictures diminishes, you became frustrated and gave up. Our left brain, the one that does all the stuff at school, begins to dominate everything we do. The problem is that right brain, the one that is “right” for drawing has given way to the left, and the left brain isn’t any good at drawing.

The goal of the following drawing lessons is to give the right brain an chance to emerge. To develop a “shift” in thinking, from the left brain to the right. To let the left brain know that its time is over, and begin draw in a way you never have before.

Our free resource site, MakingArtFun.net, features a easy-to-follow drawing lessons that are sure to make you the artist you always wanted to be.

Drawing Contours

Lesson 1: Optical Illusion Vase

Lesson 2: Fraggle Monster Vase

Lesson 3: Picasso’s The Dog

Lesson 4: Picasso’s The Butterfly

Lesson 5: Matisse’s La Pompadour

Lesson 6: Soda Pop Straws

Lesson 7: Does Negative Space Have a Shape?

Lesson 8: Pure Contour Drawing

Lesson 9: Draw a Face

Lesson 10: Draw Johann Sebastian Bach

Construction Drawing

Lesson 1: The Basic Shapes of Everything