Art Sub Lesson Plan - How to Draw a Monster

How to Draw Doodle Monsters

This is the time of year that kids are most intrigued by monsters. They're everywhere you look in the stores and on TV! At school though, you don't want your students to work on grisly, bloody creatures. So, I like to teach them how to draw doodle monsters.

Doodle monsters are friendly looking and not at all scary. Drawing a doodle monster lets kids be creative and draw as crazy a creature as they can imagine.

Step-by-Step for Drawing a Monster

When I have kids drawing doodle monsters, I like to have lots of visuals around. Having examples of cartoon eyes, noses, mouths, ears, hair, arms, bodies, and legs is key. Examples give kids a good jumping off point. They are less likely to have  artist's block when they can see so many options.

Doodle monsters are made of such simple shapes, anyone can draw them. 

Let me show you how to draw a super simple one.

Step 1.  Draw a simple shape for the monster's body. Using a variety of lines makes it look interesting.

Step 2.  Draw simple eye shapes. It can be one eye, or many.

Step 3. Draw a mouth. It might be toothy or not.

Step 4.  Color in the monster. Start by outlining the shape.

Step 5. Color in the shape neatly.  To make it look more three dimensional, color more heavily around the edges.

One monster, DONE!

They can fill a whole sheet with these simple creatures. Varying the shapes, lines, patterns and colors will make the drawing more interesting. The more examples you have around to inspire the students, the better.

Get the Lesson Plan and Visuals

I love teaching how to draw these monsters, so I have created lesson plans for teaching doodle monsters during the different seasons. They were written for a sub, so they are fully scripted; use simple materials; and have lots of examples.

Here are some visuals from the one I created for Halloween. I have made versions for kids who want to draw Halloween monsters and another for kids who want to draw fall monsters. (Not all students are allowed, nor want to, draw Halloween imagery, so I have taken this into account.)

Here's where you can find my lesson and all the visuals:  Art Sub Lesson - Doodle Monsters at Halloween. It's only $4.00 and will save you hours and hours of time.

Blog Posts about Doodle Monsters

Check out these blog posts about Doodle Monsters at other seasons:

Doodle Monsters at Christmas and Winter

Doodle Monsters at Valentines Day

9 Halloween Art Sub Lessons

9 Halloween Art Lesson Plans Easy Enough for a Sub

Here are some fun lessons for October. I’ll add some that can be adapted for those kids who cannot use Halloween imagery for religious or personal reasons.

First, here’s one I just created. Kids love drawing “doodle monsters.” They are easy shapes to draw and there are so many options for adding fun details. 

In this art lesson, I gave examples of doodle monster drawings that are either Halloween focused, with mummies, ghosts, witches, and the likes plus an example of one with none of that. It has footballs, fall trees, hot cocoa, and warm clothes. Kids will appreciate that options are given for either direction.

You can find that lesson in my TpT shop:  Doodle Monsters at Halloween.

At the Mrs Art Teacher Lady blog. you can find a directed drawing. "Halloween Bats and Frankenstein Monsters" is a lesson that both upper and lower elementary kids will have fun drawing. It uses simple materials, so would be great for a substitute teacher.

The TpT shop, "Cool Classroom Stuff" has an activity that would be super easy for your sub to teach. This one is focused on Mexican Sugar Skulls. Your kids will be engaged and happy to work on this one.

Here's another one at "Cool Classroom Stuff." This is a fall themed one and would be good for fourth grade through middle school. 

This radial symmetry lesson has templates and sample templates to help kids out.

Amy, at Makes and Takes, gives step-by-step instructions and many visuals for this lesson. She used black paper and oil pastel, but this could easily be done with crayons on lighter paper.

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At Panicked Teacher, Susie gives you step by step instructions on how to make this patterned pumpkin.  I believe she is a classroom teacher who has to supplement art instruction in her class for most of the school year.

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This lesson, at ArtfulNest, was written for middle school.  You could write it up as a fifth-grade lesson or a sixth-grade one.  You could also bring it down to the upper primary grades with a change of media.  Leave your subs some good visuals.  They could teach this!           

 

This Halloween art lesson is fun for students and easy to teach. The prep for this is minimal. Students will need paper; one black crayon per student; and assorted other crayon colors. I call it a “print and go” lesson as that is all you need to do.

It includes full instructions and visuals. You could even post it as an art learning center in the classroom.

“Creating Silly Monsters” is a fun lesson about monsters that you could use in an art center; as a regular art lesson; or for an art sub. It is super easy to teach and kids will love it. Check it out at TPT Shop: Centers and Early Finishers  It would be timely around Halloween but could be taught any time.

This lesson was posted on a blog called, “Clown and Poodle.” It appears that it no longer exists. However, I had written a blog post inspired by the original, and that still exists. You can see that complete lesson in my blog post here: Purple People Eater

Back to School Art Sub Plan Name People

 Back to School Art Sub Plan - Name Parade

Art lessons based on names are popular for the beginning of the school year. If you have emergency leave then, there are some name art sub lessons that will work well for you also.

Inspiration for this Idea

This first lesson was an art activity that I stumbled across over at Artsonia. Click here to check it out:  Name Parade That's where you can find a description of the lesson and lots of samples.

It was posted by Old Post Road Elementary School
E. Walpole, Massachusetts 
(This is an example that I created based on the posted drawings.)

Here is another one  I made as a sample.

You can totally figure out the directions for yourself and your sub. If you would like this similar idea written out as a fully formed art sub plan though, you can visit my TPT Shop here:  Name People

Update to my Art Sub Plan, "Wacky Hats"

 Update to Art Sub Lesson "Wacky Hats"

Updated TpT Lessons

Did you know that sellers on TpT improve and update their products? And if it is something you have already purchased, you can download the improved product for FREE???  

I don't know how often people find out about updated items, so I'll start posting my updates here in the blog.

Latest Updated Lesson in my TpT Shop

This week I updated one the first lessons in my TpT shop. I looked at the first version that I made in 2013. I was going to post a photo here from that version, but I am too embarrassed. YIKES! So trust me. This is an improvement.

How I Improved It

One of the main reasons I went in to improve it, though, was because all the slides had a blue background. It occurred to me that the folks who wanted to print a copy of it, were going to be using a lot of printer ink on just the background. So, I made the backgrounds white.

There are improved graphics. The lesson texts are editable. I think it is just overall a way better lesson. 

SO if you already purchased my lesson called, "Wacky Hats," please go into my TpT shop and download the new version for free.

5 Back to School Art Sub Plans - Name Designs

Five Art Sub Plans for Back to School - Name Designs

Preparing for the first week of school can feel like the pits. I will admit to being someone who often waited until rather late to start doing those back to school lesson plans. And if you have to write art sub lessons for that first week back, that's just the worst!

I've looked around for some lessons online to help you with that. And I looked for ones where the planning has mostly been done for you.

Name designs are some of the first lessons I like to do because they can be used on the cover of student portfolios or hung as bulletin boards.

1.  Fully Prepared Art Sub Plan in my TpT Shop  

I'll start with an art sub plan that I have just finished creating for my TpT shop. 

It has all the instructions, visuals, dialog, and examples that you need to print out and hand right to a sub. It'd also be a good one to put right in your emergency sub plan folder.

There are options for how the students may complete it. They can do it in black and white with patterns.

They can do it in color with patterns.

For differentiation or for primary grades, you might choose to do it just with color and no patterns.

Here's where you find this lesson:  TpT Shop: Art Sub Lessons - Name Designs

2.  YouTube Lesson for 6th Grade 

Now, if you prefer to have your older kids, maybe 6th graders, watch a video lesson, check out this one from Mrs. Thiele.  Here's the address for that one:  6th Grade Portfolio Cover Name Design

She has them use Zentangle type patterns in their name design.

3.  Easy Lessons that Need a Few More Instructions

The Incredible Art Dept. has multiple ideas for name design lessons. They are a little thin on the written instructions, but you could probably write them up without too much trouble.

Here are some other blog posts that I have written about name design lessons that you could use with a sub. 

Name People is a lesson that I found on Artsonia, for third graders.

4.  Middle School Abstract Name Design

This one is an abstract name design for middle school students.  Abstract Name Designs as Middle School Art Sub Plans

5.  Radial Name Design 

This blog post shows you a little about a radial design for names. 

This one, at the Seoul Mates blog, also shows the idea of a name written in a radial design, but a little differently.

Again, if you want to just buy one that is already prepared and ready to hand to a sub, check this one out at my TpT shop.  Back to School Name Design. 

One Day Art Lesson - Fourth Grade

One Day Art Lesson

Jessica Young used this plan initially as an art sub lesson for fourth grade. When she needed a quick art lesson for herself, she pulled this one out and used it for other grades as well.
You can check out Jessica's blog here:  Miss Young's Art Room. 

She says that her students stayed engaged for the whole class time with this. She also gave ideas for those few early finishers and those who took it a little too slow to finish in art. 


The materials she used were markers and paper. With subs, I am careful about leaving markers. If I know the sub and trust them to emphasize using the markers with care, I would leave markers. Otherwise, crayons would work just fine.


Miss Young demonstrated how to draw a "criss cross" star with her kids and then showed them how to repeat the lines in and around that star. I think you could also provide students with templates of other shapes for this. Basic shapes? Animal shapes? 

After that, the same shape is repeated to smaller and smaller shapes.

Check out her blog to see other examples.


If you would like to use masterpieces from art history to introduce the lesson, here is an idea that might work well.




in public domain

This is Kandinsky's Color Study, Squares with Concentric Circles from 1913.  


Here's another lesson plan that you could use to create a lead in for this lesson: "Kandinsky Squares with Concentric Circles,"at the blog, Art Prep has a good, meaty description of Kandinsky and his work.


They talk about Kandinsky choosing to switch to from using subjects in his paintings to focusing on line and color. This is great information for your lesson.




If you would like to use an art sub plan that is fully formed and ready to hand to a sub, check out this one in my TPT shop: Art Sub Lessons. It is no prep and fully scripted. It can be taught by anyone.

This elementary and middle school art sub lesson includes slides about the artist and two projects for the students to draw. It is great for teaching elementary students about abstract art and the artist, Bruce Gray.

Written for a sub, it may also be taught by classroom teachers, art teachers, and homeschool teachers.

Supplies needed for the art lesson are pencils, paper, markers or crayons, rulers and circles of various sizes.

Matisse Goldfish Art Sub Lesson Plan

Art Sub Lesson | Matisse's Goldfish

The blog, Art with Mrs. Smith, has a lesson that you could adapt as a sub lesson. She shows you step by step how to do the drawing. There are plenty of visuals and directions. 

You could adapt it to marker or crayon for a sub.

Art with Mrs. Smith

 This is a good opportunity for students to learn about the art of Henri Matisse. Admired for his use of color and his fluid line, his paintings have a quality that is almost childlike. This is one reason that children are drawn to his work.

Silly Sandwich Art Lesson

Silly Sandwich Art Sub Lesson

This lesson idea has been around for a while and it is still as good as ever. Kids love "silly" and fun anything and this is no exception.  You can load anything you want on a silly sandwich. Food, toys, the kitchen sink. It's all good. 

If you have time, cutting 12” x 18” paper into 6” x 9” makes for a fun size.  This size really exaggerates how silly and big this sandwich is.

If you want to save yourself some time, I have this lesson fully formed in a PowerPoint in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  There are photos of real silly sandwiches and student samples.

It works great as a lesson to leave with your substitute teachers. All your sub needs to do is read the script and follow the directions. Classroom teachers and art teachers can teach it too, but subs love this one. The kids stay engaged doing it.

Oh! And I added a word find puzzle about sandwiches for those early finishers.  You can check it out here:  Art Sub Lesson - Silly Sandwich

Easy Elementary Art Sub Plan

"The worst part of my job is preparing for a sub." That is a statement we can probably all agree with. You need to spend tons of time to describe even the tiniest of directions. That quote is from "Art Project Girl." She made it a little bit easier for you though, by posting this art sub plan. 

It has written instructions, visuals, and uses simple materials. 

It works well as a lesson to use in February as it uses warm and cool hearts as the subject.

Wayne Thiebaud Art Sub Plan

One Day Art Lessons for Substitutes - Wayne Thiebaud

The blog,  The Elementary Art Room, shared a Wayne Thiebaud lesson she says would work great for a sub. She has included the visuals that she used in her lesson.

Here is a link to another post about Wayne Thiebaud art sub lessons and videos.  Wayne Thiebaud Art Sub Plans.

If you’d like to teach using a free video that I created as an art sub lesson, you can check it out on YouTube here:   The Delicious Paintings of Wayne Thiebaud

Art Sub Plan - Shoeprint Designs

Shoeprint Design Art Sub Plan for Middle School and Elementary

Inspiration for an art lesson can be as close as on your feet.  Kids can trace a shoe; notice the tread on the bottom; draw a tread pattern of their own; and color it in.

Originally, I posted a link for this lesson over at Raising Arizon Kids, however their blog is no longer available. So, I looked up "shoe print art" and found some other great ideas.  Check out this lesson on the blog Kinderart. They use shoe shapes to inspire other things. 

Here are also some cool images of footprints on Flickr. 

by Bryce Bradford

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

by Siddhu 2020

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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If you like that lesson, you might also like this one from my shop on TeachersPayTeachers.

Art Sub Plan - Wayne Thiebaud

This is a video lesson I created 7 years ago.  ....Wow....7 years ago...... Anyway, if you can download this from YouTube, great!  Or, if you have access to YouTube, great as well.  All you or your sub needs to do is to play and project.  All the information and instructions are right in the video.  You pause when the video directs you too.  It is free too!  Yippee!

The lesson starts off with a bit of a biography of the artist and then goes into the directions for the drawing.   Check it out here:  Wayne Thiebaud Art Sub Lesson

Art Sub Plan - Hands with Pattern

Elementary and Middle School Art Sub Lesson Idea

Art sub plans could nicely be made from this lesson.

Looks like this is in Dutch, but I think you can decipher it pretty easily.

Click here:  Handen met patronen (I'm guessing, "hands with pattern.")

It seems to me that basically you fill a page with pattern. Then you trace your hands on top of the pattern. Lastly, you color in the shapes inside the hand shapes. They appeared to use small tipped pens or markers. I like that look. Lovely.

Art Sub Lesson - Warm and Cool

Warm and Cool Art Lesson

Here's an easy one from Art Project Girl.  The main part of the lesson is about warm and cool colors.  She gives samples and a few simple instructions. A sub could easily teach this one.

Here is another post about using warm and cool colors for an art sub lesson:  Kindergarten Art Sub Plan - Klee’s “Cat and Bird”

Fifth Grade Art Lesson - Coat of Arms

Here is a complete lesson plan with samples from Mr Mint Art  

This upper elementary and middle school art sub lesson was created exactly as a sub lesson.  There are directions written for a sub and plenty of visuals. This is about as much as you can hope for when you are looking for a free sub lesson online. Don’t miss it.

This is one of those lessons you can just print out, leave in your sub tub, and know that you have something ready to hand to a sub.

Art Sub Lesson Plan “Picasso Meets Grant Wood"

Free Art Sub Plan “Picasso Meets Grant Wood”

I recently went through all of my old sub plans and took photos of them to share with you.  I found this lesson plan on Artsonia years ago.  It was posted by Jennifer Barretto, Rhodes Elementary, San Antonio, Texas.

Here are the visuals that I left for my sub and some of the kids' work.

Since not all of our subs are comfortable with working the computer and projector, I mounted these images and words on large paper so that the sub would know exactly what to say as she was showing the visuals.