Learning Resources for Families

Discover art making and learning activities curated for young families that are inspired by artworks in our collection. Find the activity that suits your style and interest. Some are fun to do together or on one's own; others offer a means to enjoy colour and mark making at one's own skill level; and others will provide new insights into familiar and less familiar work themed to children and families. Enjoy and share your work with us in the gallery below! Also check out Learning Resources for Teachers and Everyone.

COLOURING CARDS

ACTIVITY CARDS & BOOKS

ART MAKING VIDEOS

LEARNING RESOURCES

COLOURING CARDS

Here is a selection of line drawing interpretations of artworks in the AGO collection. Use your imagination to reinterpret these works with new colours of your own.

line drawing of Tim Pitsiulak's Canadrill

Mighty Machines

Design your own machine.

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Shades of Blue

Draw (or colour) your own favourite space.

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Line drawing of La Soupe by Pablo Picasso

Sharing a Bowl of Soup

Draw or colour your favourite meal!

This artwork is part of the exhibition Pablo Picasso: Painting the Blue Period (on view until January 16, 2022). While sketching is not permitted in the exhibition, please enjoy this activity card before or after you visit.

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line drawing of Blue Bedroom (or “Bedroom”) by Kim Ondaatje

Your Secret Room

Draw (or colour) your secret room

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Caribbean Vista

Draw (or colour) your own vibrant landscape.

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AGO Outside: Grange Park

We invite you to explore a drawing card inspired by Grange Park.

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AGO Inside: Walker Court

We invite you to explore a drawing card inspired by Walker Court.

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Shuvinai Ashoona, Curiosity, line drawing

Bird's Eye View

We invite you to explore a drawing card inspired by the drawings of Shuvinai Ashoona.

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line drawing of Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom

Dress Up!

We invite you to explore a drawing card inspired by the painting, Lady with the Orange Blossom.

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Arthur Shilling, Self Portrait, line drawing

The Perfect Subject: Your Self

We invite you to explore a drawing card inspired by Arthur Shilling's self-portrait.

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Line drawing of Ceux qui ne demandent rien by Valérie Blass

Shoes Are Sculptures, Too!

Make a still-life drawing of your shoe, or photograph it.

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line drawing of Wardell Milan's Michael Ross

New Ways of Seeing

Collage a self-portrait from a variety of techniques!

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Line drawing of Haegue Yang's Woven Currents

Parallel Lines, Colourful Shapes

This artwork fills an architectural space with colour.

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Line drawing of William Kurelek's Reminiscences of Youth

Dreaming in Winter

Create your own winter dreamscape

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Line drawing of Brian Jungen's Prototype for New Understanding #6

A Material Transformation

Design (or colour) your transformed object

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Mary E. Wrinch, Green and Gold, 1928-1929. Colour linocut on paper. Gift of Mary Wrinch Reid, 1969. © Art Gallery of Ontario 69/221.

A Colour for All Seasons

Design (or colour) your own block print!

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Paulassie Pootoogook, Tommy Hunter with Guitar and Microphone

Musical Artistry

Draw (or colour) your own musical instrument

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Denyse Thomasos, Metropolis, 2007. Acrylic, charcoal, marker on canvas. Courtesy the Denise Thomasos Estate and Olga Korper Gallery. 2007/241.

Summer in the City

Drawing activity suitable for all ages.

Adrián Villar Rojas, Today We Reboot the Planet, 2013. Glass and steel shelves containing sculptures of mixed media. Purchase, with funds from the Modern and Contemporary Curatorial Committee, the Michael and Diane Hasley Fund, the Janet and Michael Scott Fund, the David Yuile and Mary Elizabeth Hodgson Fund, the Richard Ivey Foundation Contemporary Art Fund, the Contemporary Circle Fund, the Jay Smith and Laura Rapp Fund, and the Elcy Wallace Fund, 2016. © Adrián Villar Rojas.

Our Human Legacy

Draw (or colour) objects for the shelf

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Vincent Van Gogh, A woman with a spade, seen from behind

Essential Workers

Draw everything that’s around you!

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It's Your Pick

Draw (or colour) your own field of flowers

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Animal Instincts

Draw (or colour) your favourite local animal

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Family Matters

Which family members would you include in a painting that people might see at the AGO?

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Flower Power

Find art in your own backyard (and inside your home)!

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ART MAKING ACTIVITIES

These activities inspire us to dance, strike a pose, draw, paint, make and reimagine our landscapes and urbanscapes through direct observation.

Nanaimo bar collage by artist Meech Boakye

Food as Art

Join Madelyne Beckles, the AGO Curatorial Assistant, Youth & Engagement, and artist Meech Boakye for a conversation about food as art in celebration of the launch of Meech's recipe for great New Year's Eve Nanaimo bars!

WATCH THE VIDEO

Shuvinai Ashoona, Composition (Cube), 2009. Coloured pencil, black porous-point pen on paper. Overall: 41.9 x 39.4 x 39.4 cm. Purchased with the assistance of the Joan Chalmers Inuit Art Purchase Fund, 2009. © Shuvinai Ashoona / Courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts 2009/925180.

Three Dimensional Landscape

Shuvinai Ashoona’s artwork challenges us to create our own three dimensional landscape that is both a flat drawing and voluminous structure all in one project!

SEE THE ACTIVITIES

Drawing of My Grandmother's Glasses by Annie Pootoogook

Drawing Larger Than Life

Learn more about Annie Pootoogook and get inspired to draw BIG and make all kinds of meta art, which is artwork that features you - the artist!

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Beatrix Potter, Study of the head of a bat, full face

Like a Bat!

Let’s get inspired by Beatrix Potter’s striking watercolour Study of the head of a bat, full face and learn how to make watercolour mask and a hanging wire sculpture!

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Play

Learn how to play with printmaking, challenge yourself with a “spot the difference” game, stretch yourself like artist Evan Penny, make Surrealist Artist Trading Cards, transform a cardboard box, build your own playground and so much more!

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Found

Look around you and get inspired by what you find! These awesome activities are all about transforming things that may not seem like art materials...but add a bit of creativity and wow! Use your body to make a sculpture (strike a pose!), build structures big and small using unconventional materials and more!

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Land

Go beyond the traditional and invent new ways of seeing the land around us. Capture sidewalk shadows, make maps of smells and sounds, create paper flowers, collage, make art using land as your canvas and so much more!

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drawing of mouse on the left and elephant on the right

Opposites

When opposites combine you get a burst of new and exciting ideas! Let's make art that's fast and slow, big and small, light and dark, inside and outside!

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Marian Dale Scott, Tenants, 1939–1940. Oil on board, 63.6 x 42 cm. Gift from the J.S. McLean Collection, by Canada Packers Inc., 1990. © Art Gallery of Ontario. 89/920.

Up, Up and Away

Have you heard of cityscapes?

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Kenojuak Ashevak, Owl, unknown. White Andrew Gordon Bay marble, Overall: 41.7 x 44.5 x 26.3 cm, 58.1 kg.Gift of Samuel and Esther Sarick, Toronto, 2001. © Estate of Kenojuak Ashevak, courtesy Dorset Fine Arts. 2001/301.

Take Flight!

What kind of owl do you think this is?

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Pauta Saila, Dancing Bear, 1984. Mottled dark grey stone, ivory, 51.2 x 38.8 x 22.8 cm. Gift of Samuel and Esther Sarick, Toronto, 2001. © Estate of Pauta Saila, courtesy Dorset Fine Arts. 2001/331.

Let's Dance

Strike a pose.

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Johannes Pietersz Fabritius, Still Life: Fish, 17th century. Oil on canvas, 110.5 x 150.5 cm. Purchase, Laidlaw Foundation, 1966. © Art Gallery of Ontario. 65/55.

Something Fishy?

It doesn’t have to smell fishy!

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Mary Ann Alabaster’s The Artist’s Painting-Room

It's a Super Selfie!

This is a self-portrait of the artist.

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Kathleen Jean Munn, Untitled (Cows on a Hillside)

Wow, a Cow!

What animals live in your neighbourhood?

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Neighbourhood Explorations

The Paintings of Lawren Harris Activity Guide takes you on an artistic exploration of a unique Toronto neighbourhood.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF

ART MAKING VIDEOS

AGO Makes: Inspired by the AGO Collection

Amanda Arcuri is leading an art-making activity with camouflage

Camouflage like animals do!

Calling all cape-loving friends: join AGO art instructor Amanda Arcuri on an art-making mission to hide in plain view using nature-inspired colours.
(3 minute video)

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Black and white photographic work by Sandra Brewster

Semi-transparent collage

Inspired by Sandra Brewster’s Blur wall work, AGO artist/instructor Amanda Arcuri invites you to create your own composition using a simple layering technique with see-through components.
(6 minute video)

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Valérie Blass, Ceux qui ne demandent rien

Composition of Shoes

Inspired by Valérie Blass’s sculptural artwork, follow AGO artist/instructor Jim Hake and create your own composition using an array of shoes.
(7 minute video)

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Boxes, Boxes, Boxes!

Watch illustrator Kim Smith bring characters to life as she reads from her book, Boxitects, and shows us how boxes of all shapes and sizes can lead to many creative adventures.
(49 minute video)

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Folding Mobile Art

Inspired by Haegue Yang’s installation, Woven Currents – Confluence of Parallels (2020) at the AGO, artist-instructor Amanda Arcuri shows us how to create a hanging mobile that fills any room with movement, colour, pizazz, and a great conversation about art in intimate rooms or spaces.
(4 minute video)

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AGO art instructor Amanda Arcuri with her disco ball creation

Disco Ball Inspired by Studio 54

No disco ball? No problem. AGO art instructor Amanda Arcuri has created a step-by-step guide to making your own!
(5 minute video)

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3D Landscape

Watch AGO artist/instructor Melissa Pauw create a 3D landscape, inspired by Shuvinai Ashoona’s artwork called Composition (Cube). Grab a box, container, white gesso or paint, and your pencil crayons to make your own sculptural landscape.
(5 minute video)

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Drawing Larger Than Life

Watch AGO Artist Instructor Amanda Arcuri create a drawing inspired by Annie Pootoogooks drawing Composition (Drawing of My Grandmother's Glasses). Find an object at home, grab a BIG sheet of paper and try drawing larger than life!
(5 minute video)

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animal masks made of paper, watercolour and pastels

Watercolour Masks

Watch AGO Artist Instructor Amanda Arcuri create masks inspired by Beatrix Potter's stunning watercolour study of a bat. Grab some oil pastels or crayons, watercolour paints, get creative and transform yourself!
(6 minute video)

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Tiny Floating Worlds

Watch AGO Artist Instructor Melissa Pauw create teeny tiny floating worlds using nothing but a plate, dry erase markers and some water. Create your own tiny drawings and watch them come to life!
(6 minute video)

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Land Art

Get outside and use the land around you to create an awesome work of art! Sticks, rocks and fallen leaves become your materials and the land is your canvas. Watch AGO Artist Instructor Amanda Arcuri make land art in a park and at the beach. Where will you make your land art?
(6 minute video)

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Hanging Flower Garden

Watch AGO Artist Instructor Melissa Pauw use strips of paper to create a beautiful hanging garden. Make loops, teardrops, swirls and zigzags. You can keep it simple, or go WILD and fill your home with flowers!
(4 minute video)

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Body Sculpture

Get moving and turn your body into a living sculpture! Watch AGO Artist Instructor Amanda Arcuri use household objects to create sculptures that only exist while you get creative and strike a pose.
(5 minute video)

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Play with Printmaking

Who likes stamps? We do! And we bet you'll love playing with printmaking too. Watch AGO Artist Instructor Melissa Pauw use household objects to create your very own art prints with your family and friends.
(9 minute video)

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Stream-of-Consciousness Writing

Inspired by Paul Klee's Hard and Soft drawing, Paola Poetto, Director of Engagement & Learning takes a moment to relax her mind with a simple writing exercise using pencil on paper.
(2 minute video)

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Shadow Puppets

Watch Tiana Roebuck, AGO Associate Curator, Learning & Studio Programs, make paper-cut shadow puppets using recycled materials found at home.
(19 minute video)

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Soft Sculpture

Watch Tiana Roebuck, AGO Associate Curator, Learning & Studio Programs, make her own soft sculpture inspired by Claes Oldenburg's Floor Burger.
(13 minute video)

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Tonal Painting

Watch AGO Manager of Strategic Projects Deborah Nolan make her own tonal painting inside a grid, using the colours blue and red inspired by Agnes Martin's The Rose.
(2 minute video)

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Learning to See Through Drawing

Watch Tiana Roebuck, AGO Associate Curator, Learning and Studio Programs, show you how to make a blind contour drawing.
(6 minute video)

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Tiana talks about monochromatic compositions

One Colour

Create monochromatic compositions using everyday objects.
(3 minute video)

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LEARNING RESOURCES

Additional resources for families.

Book cover for It Feels Good to be Yourself

AGO PLAY 2025

Check out the AGO PLAY activity booklet! This fun-packed booklet features loads of art-making challenges, gallery scavenger hunts, quizzes, and games.

Download the English AGO PLAY activity booklet (49.27 MB)

Download the French AGO PLAY activity booklet (49.28 MB)

#AGOmakes

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