Halloween Art Ideas!

Halloween is a 'spooktacular' ART-making time of year! 

At the Art Center, we focus on spooky art projects throughout the entire month of October, so this year we are sharing a few of our favorites for you to make at home!

Halloween Block Heads. These are made from wood scraps! We used 2 x 4 wood scraps with other scraps, like triangles scraps for cat ears and witch's hats. Also craft wood shapes work well for witch's warts and such. Glue together each character, paint (use acrylic craft paint), and glue on embellishments like googly eyes and pipe cleaners. See more ideas here.

Black Cats... lots of them! A great recycling project made from saved up cardboard rolls. Simply cut them to different lengths and paint them black! Then press the tops down a bit to form ears. Glue on googly eyes and draw on the whiskers, nose, and mouth (metallic Sharpies work great!). Glue on a collar and add a cute little pipe cleaner tail. 

Black Cat in oil pastel. You'll need a set of oil pastels, a pencil, and a piece of black construction paper for this one. You'll first want to carefully observe a black cat or pictures of black cats.  Notice the silver and grey colors that define the shape of the cat and the texture of its fur. Select a photo you like, and draw it lightly with pencil, then fill it in with mostly grey colors! Only the darkest areas will be black! Lastly, add details like the pink in the ears, the yellow or green eyes, the claws, and the whiskers.

Folk Art Black Cat. This is one of our favorite "cat art" projects! Folk art is art that is created by untrained adult artists. First, you'll draw the cat step-by-step, then trace it with crayon or oil pastel (press hard!), adding patterns and a border. Then paint over everything with watercolor: your drawing will show through the paint!

Halloween Spider in a Web. First, you will tape a piece of watercolor or very heavy paper to a board or the table to keep it flat (use masking tape). Then cover the paper with yellow and red acrylic craft paint and let it dry. Draw the web right over the dry paint with white oil pastel. Then construct your spider with whatever spider-making materials you have handy. We used black fun foam and pipe cleaners. You can use good old black construction paper to create your spider as well, like this.

Wacky Witch's Legs. Aren't these witch's legs a kick??? This is a mixed media project that we have done with 6-year-olds and up (including adults!) First you'll paint a stripey background. Then you'll cut out her skinny legs, her matching witch shoes, and the bottom portion of her dress. The fun part is adding all sorts of embellishments: stripes, buttons, ribbons, sequins, lace, glitter, or whatever you you can find! Here are the step-by-step directions. 

This one is a lot of fun!!!

Owl in the Night Sky. This is an easy mixed media project for young artists. You'll need heavy black construction paper or card stock, white and black tempera paint, a white pencil, and an assortment of blue oil pastels. You will also make a round moon template from a piece of cardboard and you will need a sponge to paint it with, as well as a paint brush for the tree and owl. Here is the full lesson on a printable handout  (scroll down when you get there!) as well as an awesome step-by-step video. 

Spooky Charcoal Jack O' Lantern.  This is a great Halloween project for older kids who are learning to tint and shade with charcoal. All you need are a piece of charcoal, a charcoal pencil, a soft white eraser, and a soft paper towel. You will work on white drawing paper or white construction paper. We have already posted the instructions for this one on our weblog right here.

Owl in Oil Pastels. This is one of our very favorite art projects! All you need is a piece of black construction paper and a set of oil pastels. Some artists also lay in the shapes with a pencil, and some don't. Learn how to create these awesome Hooty Owls in Oil Pastel by checking out our earlier weblog post. Also try We Love Owls! and our home schoolers' Owl Art.

Cosmic Halloween watercolor painting. This is simply a wet-on-wet watercolor painting, using spooky-night colors with a splattering of white tempera. Once it dries, a solid black mixture of watercolor is used to create an eerie silhouette right over it. See how we did it in our previous post about cosmic Halloween watercolors. 

Spooky Forest Jack. Another big favorite; we do this one every year! It's 11" or 11" square, mounted on a piece of black poster board or mat board one inch larger. You can see several more samples of these on our previous Spooky Forest Jack post. You can also download (and print) a step-by-step handout with full instructions to create this spooky little painting. 

Picasso Monsters. We LOVED this project! Learn about Pablo Picasso and make an awesome Halloween-inspired monster too!

You'll need colored construction paper, scissors, markers, and glue. Also you'll need to look at some of Picasso's abstract portraits. Take a look at our previously published weblog post to learn how to complete your own 'monstrous' art, at If Picasso Made Monsters.

Halloween Inchies. These "inchies" are very tiny works of Halloween-themed art. Only 3 or 4 inches square, each piece of art is different from the next. You can use collage, pastels, watercolor, or whatever you want for each piece. Use your imagination! They can then be arranged into a square collage using 4 inchies or 9 inchies or even 16 inchies! See some of these collages and directions for making them on our previous post, Halloween Mini-Art Collages. Hint: You can make Fall or Christmas or Valentine or any other themed inchies too!

Next up: some of our favorite Thanksgiving Art Projects you can do at home!