I love all of the bright fresh colors of spring and this shamrock art is just the thing to put you in a spring mood. The perfect St. Patrick’s Day art project that is easy enough for even younger kids to do without much assistance. This is also a great project to talk about positive and negative space!
Chalk pastels are so fun for kids to explore, and with some simple techniques, you can get some pretty cool results. I love how this smudging method looks, especially on black paper which makes the pastels extra bright, they almost look like they are glowing!
Take a look at my collection of chalk pastel art for more creative ideas kids will love.
For this project, I created a shamrock template to make this craft even easier for you. This template is available to my email subscribers as part of my free printable resource library. Sign up to my email list below to gain instant access.
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Create your own shamrock art with chalk pastels
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Supplies
- Shamrock printable (scroll to bottom of post)
- White cardstock
- Black pastel paper or black construction paper (I cut ours to 8.5 x 11 inches)
- Chalk pastels
- Q-tips or pastel blending stick (optional)
- Spray fixative (optional)
Instructions
1. First, print out your shamrock template (scroll down to get your template). I found that using cardstock makes the template easier for kids to use. Cut out the shamrock, younger kids will need help with this step.
2. Get your black pastel paper or construction paper and chalk pastels ready. We used pastel paper for this project (cut to 8.5 x 11 inches), but construction paper would also work since it has a bit of a texture to it.
Related: Easy Rainbow Shamrock Craft with Oil Pastels
My daughter planned out her colors first to make sure she had enough to go around the shamrock. She did a rainbow shamrock and I did one using different shades of green and yellow. Both look great!
Related: Canada Day Chalk Pastel Art Project for Kids
3. Place your shamrock in the middle of your black paper and using one color at a time, color around the edge of the shamrock. You want each color to be quite thick like in the photo above, this will make the next step a lot easier and give more of a dramatic effect to the finished project.
4. Once you are done tracing, using a pastel smudge tool, a q-tip or your fingers (my favorite method!) smudge the pastels outward away from your shamrock. Remind kids to go slow and smudge right to the edges of their paper.
Lift the template off to reveal your gorgeous shamrock art!
You can choose to spray the artwork with a workable fixative to preserve and keep the pastels from smudging (this is completely optional). This step should only be done by an adult, outside in a well-ventilated area.
Related: 4th of July Chalk Pastel Art for Kids
This was such a fun St. Patrick’s Day project. I love that you only need a couple of simple supplies to create this shamrock art. The black paper really makes the chalk pastels extra bright and gives more of a dramatic effect.
We love creating and exploring with different art supplies and techniques. If you are looking for more art projects to try, take a look at our ultimate collection of amazing art projects for kids!
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More pastel projects kids will love
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I love this art
Thank you Debbie!
Is a m looking forward to the art projects!!!
I subscribed to your nesletter confirmed through my email and was not able to view the free prints. Says to enter a password. I never got one
Hi Izabela,
I just send you an email with all of the printable details. 🙂
Great idea, except for the fact that this is not a shamrock! A shamrock has 3 sections not 4. This is a four leaf clover, which has nothing to do with St. Patrick.
Hi Gill,
Yes, I have since learned the difference between a four leaf clover and a shamrock. 🙂
Look and thanks for all the ideas for my grsndchildren
Could you use regular chalk for this project? I am doing an at project with 30 kids and thought this would be perfect, but I don’t want to have to buy that many sets of pastels.
Hi Hilary,
It’s certainly worth a try! I would do a sample first to see how it looks. Depending on the type of chalk you use it might not be as bright or it might not smudge as much.