Scarecrow Art Project with Template - Fall Art Lesson for Kids -

A children's scarecrow art project display with a scarecrow book, a watercolor scarecrow drawing, crayons, and small pumpkins on a white background—perfect for a fall art lesson for kids.

A Perfect Scarecrow Art Project for Kids

Are you looking for a fantastic fall art project for your elementary art students? This is one of my favorites! I do this with my second grade classes. I looked through some of my old Artsonia archives and realized I have taught this project as early as 2007!! And I’ve never written about it on my blog. I was trying to remember where I got this project idea and I think it was passed along to me from one of my colleagues at my second job. I think it was my coworker Jeannie, but I’m not 100% sure, since it’s been so long.

To start the project, we read a fun fall book. This scarecrow book is one of my favorites: The Scarecrow, by Beth Ferry. (Amazon affiliate link at no extra cost to you, all earnings go to pay for this art teacher website and for books/art supplies.)

Book cover of "The Scarecrow" by Beth Ferry and the Fan Brothers, showing a scarecrow in a field with a bird perched on its arm—a charming inspiration for a kids scarecrow art project or fall art lesson.

Scarecrow Art Project Template

Scarecrow art template with shirt and pants outlines, labeled for tracing onto thicker tagboard—perfect for a fall art lesson with kids. Click the image to download.

To prep for this project: Download the template. Copy these on to thick tagboard paper or print and then trace on to thick cardstock. Make enough tracers for your class (I usually make half the amount of kids in the class, and then they can share.) You can save these tracers and reuse them for the rest of your teaching career. You will also need to cut out small pieces of fabric and/or corn husks.

Step One: Trace the shirt and pants on to your paper with pencil. We used 12″ x 18″ white construction paper. Add details to your scarecrow, such as buttons on the shirt, a head, a hat and other accessories as desired.

A pencil drawing of a scarecrow on white paper, colored paper cutouts, a pencil, and a completed colored scarecrow artwork are on a wooden table—perfect for a fun fall art lesson or creative scarecrow art project for kids.

Step Two: Draw hills in the background and behind the scarecrow.

A pencil sketch of a scarecrow with a hat and buttons stands in front of curved lines, with colored art pieces partially visible on either side—perfect for a fun Fall Art Lesson or Scarecrow Art Project for kids.

Step Three: Add objects on the ground and in the sky. Think pumpkins, animals, trees, bushes, barn, clouds, etc. The key to this step and to show depth in your picture is to make the objects in the foreground be larger than the objects way in the distance. Further down in this post is a diagram explaining this.

Two drawings of a scarecrow on a farm: perfect for a Fall Art Lesson or Scarecrow Art Project for kids. One is a pencil sketch outline, while the other is colored and decorated with fabric patches, pumpkins, a cat, bird, barns, and fields.

Step Four: Outline in black Sharpie.

Two sheets of paper display a scarecrow scene for kids; one is an outlined fall art lesson, while the other features completed Scarecrow art with colorful details and a bright blue sky.

Step Five: Add color using crayons (I love Crayolas) to all of the objects in your picture- the scarecrow, pumpkins, trees, etc. But leave the grass and sky white. In the diagram below, you can see how I colored in all of the objects. This diagram also shows how to make your background, middleground and foreground show depth by size differences.

A labeled diagram explains depth in a landscape for a fall art lesson, highlighting the background, middleground, and foreground with illustrated pumpkins and a scarecrow—perfect for kids' Scarecrow art projects.

Step Six: Paint the background and sky with watercolors. With kids, I use the Crayola EDUCATION watercolor sets (it has to say “education”). For my own art making, my favorite is the Grabie 100 color set.

Step Seven: Cut out square pieces of fabric scraps. I’ve gotten fabric donated. Cut out pieces of corn husks for the arms and legs that peak out of the clothing. (Ok, I think these are corn husks. I never bought them, but they were in the art room from a long time ago so I’ve just been using these.) Glue on the fabric and the corn husks. Talk with the kids about how you can show texture in an art project.