Autumn Sunflower Craft with Oil Pastels

Bring the colors of fall indoors with this vibrant autumn sunflower craft! We planted autumn beauty sunflowers from seeds this year in May and by the end of August, they had grown to 7-8ft tall! And their colors are just so beautiful and vibrant, inspiring me to make this sunflower craft with my kids. We loved using all of the gorgeous Fall colors!

Our garden sunflowers

I also created a sunflower template for you to download if you want. Some children, depending on their age will prefer to draw their own and that’s totally fine!

Make your own Autumn Sunflower Craft

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Supplies

• • • Cardstock or scrapbook paper in various shades of orange (we used 3 different shades) plus blue and black paper
      
    • Oil pastels in fall colors (oranges, reds, yellows, browns)
      
    • Free printable sunflower template
      
    • Scissors
      
    • Glue
      

  
  

  Instructions

  1. Start by drawing your petals, either by using the template that you downloaded or draw your own. We used 3 different shades of orange scrapbook paper. Using a bit of a thicker paper works well when using oil pastels. We used 10 petals per sunflower. Next, draw the center of the sunflower using the template or have your kids draw their own on black paper.
  

  2. Cut out the petals and center of the flower.

  

  4. Draw on the petal shapes with oil pastels using autumn colors such as reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. Kids can explore the different ways to use oil pastels and try drawing with the whole pastel on the side, which is my son’s favorite way. You can also layer oil pastels, they don’t blend as easily as chalk pastels so you can layer the colors without worrying about making it look too muddy.

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  5. Once the petals are done, use a brown pastel to draw in the center of the flower. If you look closely at the center of a sunflower there is quite an intricate design as you can see from the pictures above. Older kids might enjoy trying to make a unique design in the center of their sunflower.

  

  6. Once the petals and centers are done, you can arrange them onto your blue background. This will make it a lot easier to glue if they are already placed down.

  7. I used a glue stick and gently lifted the petals a couple at a time to glue them down. Glue the center down and you’re done!

  

  These sunflower crafts look so bright and beautiful hanging on our art wall! They remind me of our sunflowers growing in our garden and all of the vibrant autumn colors that are coming with the fall season.

  Pastels are so much fun for kids to explore! Check out these stunning chalk pastel sunset paintings for more pastel project ideas. These fall suncatchers using seeds are a unique fall craft that kids love to make!  

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