Pearl Home Art Challenge
Challenge yourself with these art-making prompts, designed for all ages and skill levels!
Share your results on social media using #pearlartchallenge, or share directly with us by emailing your photos to education@pearlmfa.org.
Have fun drawing with pencil and creating portraits of those in your household in this Pearl Home Art Challenge! Experiment with pencil techniques. Play with incorporating more or less details for a realistic, minimalist, or abstract composition. Enjoy the process of having your subject sit for you or of working from a photograph you have taken.
Need a tip or two for this challenge? Study the distinctive shapes of the features before starting to draw them, and take note of the proportions for their placement. You may find it helpful to consider the following approximate proportions: eyes are located halfway down the head, and they are separated by the length of one eye; the head is five eye-lengths wide; and the face is three times the length of the nose.
To determine the nose and mouth shape and placement, look to see where the outer edges of the nostrils and of the lips line up with your subject's eyes. Of course for an abstract composition, you can always create your own proportions. Make the experience more fun by having members of the household draw each other!
Need a tip or two for this challenge? Study the distinctive shapes of the features before starting to draw them, and take note of the proportions for their placement. You may find it helpful to consider the following approximate proportions: eyes are located halfway down the head, and they are separated by the length of one eye; the head is five eye-lengths wide; and the face is three times the length of the nose.
To determine the nose and mouth shape and placement, look to see where the outer edges of the nostrils and of the lips line up with your subject's eyes. Of course for an abstract composition, you can always create your own proportions. Make the experience more fun by having members of the household draw each other!
A portrait by Hans Schwarz (German), ca. 1516, 9 x 7 inches, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Create a portrait of your home in this Pearl Home Art Challenge! Honor this sanctuary, where you have been spending so much time lately, by portraying an outdoor or indoor view of it. Make a painting or drawing in any medium, directly or from a photograph you take. Have fun creating this work of art of your abode and then displaying the depiction right there in your home sweet home!
Travelers at a Village, copy after Joos van Liere (Flemish), ca. 1570–1629, pen and brown ink with gray wash, 6 x 8 1/4 inches, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
You can draw anything with a pencil or pastel and a piece of paper, so let's do it! For this Pearl Home Art Challenge, take a moment to have a good look at something that strikes your fancy—the beautiful shape and reflections of a cut crystal bowl, the stack of art books on your coffee table, or a beloved pet resting in a sunlit spot, as depicted here. Study the details you see. Notice the shapes, shadows, and textures. Pick up a pencil or pastel and translate your observations into a drawing that will become a reminder of what you saw. It doesn't have to be an exact or realistic portrayal. Think of it as your impression of the subject, and put in as many or as few details as you wish. Anything goes!
Study of a Sleeping Cat, ca. 1650, attributed to Jan Miel (Flemish), black chalk on paper, sheet 3 1/4 x 3 3/4 inches
Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Look what we found growing in the Pearl's garden! Use these gorgeous flowers glowing with their saturated colors as inspiration for this Home Art Challenge. Make a work of art that captures an intensity of color, as seen in these or other images that wow you! Give it a try, by cutting loose and letting the color fly!
Calling all artists! Branch out with this Pearl Home Art Challenge about trees! Look to the great outdoors or simply the view from your window to create a drawing or painting of an interesting tree you see. Take ten minutes or ten hours using any medium, and make some art as simple or as complex as you like.
Just a beginner? Tap into your inner artist by taking a break from the daily hustle and bustle, and quiet your thoughts, to focus on the beauty, shapes, and colors in the majesty of trees. Grab some paper and a pencil, and you are good to go. Be inspired by the trees with tiny green buds that Betty Busby painted into her art quilt. Let's, everyone, make some art!
Just a beginner? Tap into your inner artist by taking a break from the daily hustle and bustle, and quiet your thoughts, to focus on the beauty, shapes, and colors in the majesty of trees. Grab some paper and a pencil, and you are good to go. Be inspired by the trees with tiny green buds that Betty Busby painted into her art quilt. Let's, everyone, make some art!
Betty Busby, Sandia Mountain Spring (detail), 2010
On loan from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Featured in our current exhibition, Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection
On loan from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Featured in our current exhibition, Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection
This Pearl Home Art Challenge celebrates Texas wildflowers! The bluebonnets this Spring were spectacular, and we have some still in full regalia in the museum's galleries! Get inspired by these lovelies sewn into the art quilt by Mary Huntington. Make a drawing, painting, or textile art piece of a floral bloom you find precious!
Mary Huntington, The Mighty Oak (detail), 2005
On loan from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Featured in our current exhibition, Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection
On loan from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Featured in our current exhibition, Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection
This week's Pearl Home Art Challenge has us thinking about baskets full of candy, eggs, and flowers. Make a colorful depiction of a bountiful basket you see or imagine — and don't forget your option to add a bunny or chick to the scene! Graphic artist Leopoldine Kolbe was one of Vienna's earliest Modernists. Let her charming take on the subject inspire your inner artist!
Leopoldine Kolbe, "Basket of Flowers," 1907, lithograph
Spring into action in your garden for this Pearl Home Art Challenge! Claude Monet used his prized gardens as inspiration and subject matter for paintings throughout his life. Murals of his cherished water-lily garden became national treasures of France and are housed in specially constructed museums. Create your own art treasure from a garden view you dig at your house!
Make a drawing or painting? Yes and yes!
Make a drawing or painting? Yes and yes!
Claude Monet, Nympheas, 1897-1898, oil on canvas
For this Pearl Home Art Challenge, be inspired by this "crazy quilt" detail from the Pearl's current quilt exhibition to make a "crazy collage" at home. Crazy quilts are a fun patchwork of all sorts of materials and embellishments, including textured fabrics, embroidery, and appliqué. Layer and piece together your "crazy collage" from interesting things you find at your house, such as buttons and ribbon, colorful paper and fabric, candy wrappers, photos, and so much more. Get crazy with it!
Mary Huntington, The Mighty Oak (detail), 2005
On loan from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Featured in Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection
On loan from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Featured in Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection
Spring has sprung! Enjoy this Pearl Home Art Challenge by using the glorious burst of nature as your inspiration to create a work of art at home. Look for any Spring subject in your home or garden to make a drawing, painting, or whatever media moves you. This can be as simple as a sketch of a flower in your backyard, and the sky is the limit!
In offering alternatives from home, we invite you to visit us online and take part in our "Home Art Challenge," with fun and easy art-making at home for all ages and skill levels! Our first "Home Art Challenge" is as simple or as complicated as can be:
Set up a still life on your kitchen table and make a painting or drawing of it.
Set up a still life on your kitchen table and make a painting or drawing of it.
