Hobart Cluster Art project 2025
“Sunflowers” by Vincent Van Gough
In 1888 the artist Vincent Van Gough painted one of his most famous works of art. Sunflowers, one of a series of paintings, now hangs in the National Gallery in London. This summer schools in the Hobart cluster have used the painting as inspiration for their own art work.
Below is our own Hobart Cluster gallery of Sunflower inspired art. Children have used a whole range of different techniques; water colour, oil paint, mixed media and collage. Some children produced their own creation, whilst others collaborated to make a whole school art work.
The results are stunning! We hope you enjoy exploring our gallery.
Sunflower seeds
The children decorate sunflower seeds. They can be easily coloured in using felt tip pens or have tiny words added in fine liner or handwriting pen. If you are feeling brave you can dye them using watercolour paint and leave them to dry!
Once you have a big collection, put them into a tough tray. Add words or pictures for inspiration and sheets of different colour sugar paper to use as a background. Allow individuals or groups to create artwork from the sunflowers seeds. Photograph their art before muddling up and repeating!
Exploring colour
Van Gough’s painting is famous for his use of yellow. It is thought that the colour was inspired by the light and feel of the South of France, compared to the cold and grey of the part of Holland Van Gogh grew up in.
What colours inspire you?
Choose a subject – it could be flowers in season, a place or self portrait.
Practice mixing different shades and tones of a single colour.
Challenge the children to paint a picture using only one colour that inspires them.
Multi media
Van Gogh used thick oil paint to create texture in his pictures. Have a go at creating texture using multi media and paint.
Choose a flower. Use tissue, straws, newspaper, raffia, string or wool etc to create the shape on paper. Then add paint over the top. You could combine this with the above colour project as the multi media will absorb the paint differently, creating unexpected tones and shades. These pictures could be done individually, or groups could work on larger scale pictures.
Self portraits
Van Gogh is thought to have used still life pictures as self portraits. Another example is the picture of the chair (see link below). Van Gogh Painted his own chair, and the chair of his friend and artist Paul Gauguin.
If the sunflowers is a self portrait, what does it tell us about the artist? How was he feeling? What might he have been thinking about? If the Sunflowers could talk, what would they say? There are other Sunflower paintings – do they all tell the same story about the artist?
Have a whole range of flowers, real or pictures, available for the children to explore, paint and draw.
Create an artwork of yourself as a flower – paint, pastels, crayons, collage – however you like.
Have a discussion about the finished artwork – what can we tell about the artists from the pictures? Do we know whose is whose without checking the names?