"Jingle Bells" Santa Holiday Art Lesson for Kids

Santa painting

A holiday art lesson featuring Santa Claus!

Materials:

Faber-Castell Tempera Paint

Faber-Castell Construction paper

White drawing paper

Paper plate (for palette)

Round soft paint brush

Pencil, glue, scissors

Vinyl tablecloth or newspaper

The book, “Jingle Bells” by Kathleen N. Daley

Vocabulary:

Oval
Color mixing
Tint
Dimension
Texture
Depth

Make an example of the art:

Besides creating an example to inspire your child, taking the 30 minutes to follow the simple steps and make the art yourself allows you to experience the art
processes and any potential pitfalls. It will enable you to guide your child through the project with confidence and experience, easing any complications or stress, thus creating a successful experience for both of you.

Set up:

Prepare your kitchen table for an art project! An old re-usable vinyl table cloth works best for protecting the surface and providing a water-proof background. It can later be wiped clean, or left dirty (with dried paint), and folded up. Old newspaper will also do, although it can slip around, and paint or water can soak through. Set out all of the materials for the art project.

Jingle Bells book cover

Reading:

Establish a comfortable place for reading and read aloud, “Jingle Bells” to your child. Share the charming illustrations and discuss the fun of a sleighful of animals helping Santa deliver presents when his reindeer get sick with a cold!

 An oval sketch

1. Let’s draw Santa!

Show your child how to draw a basic oval on the 9 x 12 white paper. Be sure to help him or her to position the oval on the upper half of the paper- the Santa’s body is to follow below this shape.

Sant outline

Show your child how to continue the drawing by making Santa’s middle shape as shown, then the half circle for Santa’s face.

Santa outline

Finally, show your child how to complete the Santa drawing by adding the hat, arms, toy bag, fur line on the suit, and boots. The drawing may not look
exactly like this, but it will be funny and charming!

Santa painting

2. Painting Santa

This snazzy Santa suit is painted with a combination of red, yellow, and white, and the colors you get by mixing them. Introduce the concept of color mixing and tints to your child in this very simple and fun way.

Using a paper plate as a palette, make three pools of paint—red, yellow and white. Show your child that by adding different amounts of red to yellow, you will get shades of orange. Show how to make tints by adding different amounts of white to orange to get peach, or white to red to get pink, or white to yellow to get pale yellow. Have your child paint Santa’s face a light peach.

Show your child how to paint the suit and hat loosely with the new colors.

Show your child how to add dimension and interest to Santa’s beard and fur by adding a small amounts of blue to white. Use a smaller brush to loosely paint short strokes here and there to get a texture effect on the white.
Finally, have your child paint Santa’s toy bag green.

Santa painting

3. Outline Santa

Show your child how to outline the Santa and his toy bag with a black oil pastel or crayon. Color in the boots and make buttons. When drawing his face, a fine black marker will work better for the small detail. Add pink cheeks with an oil pastel or crayon. Cut out Santa’s moustache out of white paper and glue down. Add fat white eye brows.

Blue background with snow

4. Making the background

Have your child paint the white, snowy ground on a piece of light blue
Construction paper. Show how to add depth and interest by painting in a swirling motion with some of the blue paper showing through.

Painting of Santa in the snow

5. Assembling

Finally, show your child how to cut out Santa and glue him into position on the blue paper background. Cut closely to, not on, the black outline.

Add branches by piecing together thin strips of cut paper. A bird can be cut out of red paper or drawn directly onto the background. Red berries look good too!

Finally, have your child paint the falling snow!

Download the entire lesson plan, here!

 

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