4 Easy Art Starter Activities for Zoom

The ideas below are all easy art starter activities for zoom.  Many of us are zooming away every lesson and it’s good to have some new ideas to keep things fresh and students engaged.

Students Change their Background Picture

This first one is so simple. Your students will already know how to change their background image. You asked them to change the background image to an artwork that relates to your current topic. For example, I’ve recently been teaching my students colour theory. I asked them to change their background image to an artwork that uses harmonious colours. They reacted really positively to this simple task. I then took a screenshot of the class which was beautifully colourful and shared it with them. I’m sure you can see how simple this would be to adapt for many different projects. For example, ask them to change their background to a painting that reflects a movement or is by the artist that you are studying.  Or ask them to change it to an artwork that uses a particular type of media. So many possibilities!

Word Association

Why not get the lesson started by getting your student’s creative juices flowing by playing a game of word association. You as the teacher start it off and then you go through register order.  Your first word could be connected with what you are teaching and it is just fun to see where it leads.  I like that everyone in the class contributes to this simple activity.

Art Analysis

Another simple zoom art starter is to share your screen and show students an artwork and then question them about the artwork. I like to share the questions I am going to ask them first, then show them the painting, give them some thinking time, perhaps about a minute and then ask my questions starting with the easiest one.

Alternatively, after telling your students the questions and showing them the painting you could put them into breakout rooms. In the small groups in the breakout rooms, they could discuss the questions and then hopefully feel more confident contributing when you bring them back together.

Quick Draw

Give students four or five descriptive words and tell them they have five minutes to draw whatever has come into their head. They can do this at the back of the sketchbooks. Of course, this isn’t going to get you a quality, detailed, accurate drawing but it is going to be fun and many students enjoy sharing what their imagination has come up with on screen.

The words you choose can be linked to the topic you are teaching.  Alternatively, select an artwork by the artist you are studying with students to stimulate your word choice.  Then, after students have shared their creations, you show them the artwork that stimulated the five words that you chose.

If you are new to Zoom there is another article with some useful tips for managing lessons here.  Please comment below if you have some easy art starter activities for zoom.

The Arty Teacher

Sarah Crowther is The Arty Teacher. She is a high school art teacher in the North West of England. She strives to share her enthusiasm for art by providing art teachers around the globe with high-quality resources and by sharing her expertise through this blog.

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