Create a colorful Peter Max inspired art project using bold colors, simple shapes, stars, planets, faces, and repeating patterns. This bright, mixed-media-style activity is an easy way to introduce kids to Pop Art while giving them plenty of freedom to create their own imaginative designs.
Use the printable elements to build the artwork, or let kids draw their own shapes and symbols. There is no single finished design to copy—the goal is to layer color, shapes, and recognizable images into one energetic composition.
Peter Max Inspired Art Printable
Grades: 2–6
Art Focus: Pop Art, color, shape, pattern, composition
Elements of Art: Color, shape, line, space
This project is inspired by Peter Max’s Cosmic Art period, especially works such as Different Drummer and The Profile, which combine bold color, profile faces, stars, planets, clouds, and imaginative space-inspired imagery.
The printable for this project includes a colorful, radiating background, along with individual elements that kids can cut, color, arrange, and layer. There are both outlined and colored versions of the elements, so you can choose how much coloring and designing you want kids to do.
Supplies
- Peter Max inspired art printable (below)
- White cardstock or heavyweight paper
- Colored pencils, markers, crayons, or oil pastels
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Optional black marker
How to Make Peter Max Inspired Art
STEP 1: Choose your background. Use the colorful radiating printable background, or create your own by drawing lines that spread outward from a central point.
STEP 2: Add bold color. Peter Max’s artwork is known for vivid color combinations, so encourage kids to experiment with bright pinks, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and purples.
💡 If you are using the black-and-white printable pieces, color them before cutting them out.
STEP 3: Cut out several art elements. Choose from the faces, clouds, circles, stars, planets, or other shapes. You do not need to use every piece.
STEP 4: Experiment with the arrangement before gluing. Try placing one large element near the center and surrounding it with smaller shapes.
💡 Overlap some of the pieces. Turn others sideways or let shapes extend partially off the edge of the page.
STEP 5: Glue the larger pieces in place first.
STEP 6: Fill the remaining spaces with smaller stars, dots, circles, planets, and repeated shapes.
🎨 The finished printable example combines a central face with layered cloud shapes, stars, planets, circles, and the radiating rainbow background.
STEP 7: Add your own details. Draw extra lines, dots, stars, patterns, or shapes with a black marker or additional art supplies.
Free Peter Max Inspired Art Printable
Want an easy way to get started? Grab the free Peter Max Inspired Art Printable to use with this project. Use the printable as a starting point, or mix the pieces with your own hand-drawn shapes and designs.
👉 GET YOUR FREE PETER MAX INSPIRED ART PRINTABLE HERE
Make Your Own Peter Max Inspired Art
You do not need the printable to make this project. Kids can create their own Peter Max inspired composition from scratch using simple shapes, bold colors, and repeated symbols.
🎨 Start with a piece of white paper or cardstock. Draw several lines radiating outward from one point to create a sunburst-style background. Color each section with bright, contrasting colors. Use oil pastels for blending if desired.
Next, add a large focal image in the center. This could be:
- A face
- A flower
- A heart
- A sun
- A cloud
- An animal
- A favorite object
Then fill the surrounding space with smaller shapes and symbols such as stars, circles, dots, rainbows, planets, flowers, or simple patterns. Dollar store star and dot stickers would be a fun addition!
Encourage kids to repeat shapes, overlap elements, and use unexpected color combinations. The goal is not to copy one specific Peter Max artwork, but to explore his use of bold color, graphic shapes, repetition, and energetic compositions.
🎨 For an extra challenge, have students create all their elements by drawing and cutting them from colored paper, then arrange them in a collage before gluing everything in place.
Who Was Peter Max?
Peter Max is an American artist known for his colorful Pop Art style. His artwork became especially recognizable during the 1960s and 1970s and often included bright rainbow colors, stars, planets, faces, clouds, hearts, and bold graphic shapes.
His work combined popular culture with imaginative, almost dreamlike imagery. Instead of trying to make everything look realistic, Max often filled his artwork with intense colors, repeated symbols, and unexpected combinations.
For this project, kids can explore some of those same ideas while creating an original piece of art rather than copying one specific artwork.
Explore the Elements of Art
Color: Color is one of the strongest features of this project. Instead of choosing realistic colors, kids can select colors based on how they look together.
Shape: This artwork uses both geometric and organic shapes. Circles and stars are easy-to-recognize geometric shapes, while the clouds and flowing forms have softer, irregular edges. Have kids look for different types of shapes in their finished artwork.
Line: The lines radiating outward from the center of the background create a sense of movement. Kids can add even more lines by outlining shapes, drawing patterns, or creating additional rays.
Space: One of the most interesting parts of collage-style artwork is deciding how to fill the page. Kids can overlap shapes, leave some areas open, or fill nearly every bit of space.
👉 Learn more about the 7 Elements of Art here.
Try a Color Challenge
For another version of the project, give kids a limited color palette. Then compare how changing the colors affects the artwork’s feeling.
- Warm colors only
- Cool colors only
- Complementary colors
- Rainbow colors
- Three colors plus black and white
Art Questions for Kids
Use these questions before, during, or after the project:
- Where does your eye look first?
- Which shape did you repeat the most?
- Where did you use overlapping shapes?
- Which colors create the strongest contrast?
- Does your artwork feel calm or energetic? Why?
- If you made another version, what would you change?
Turn It Into a Pop Art Lesson
Peter Max can also be a starting point for exploring Pop Art.
Pop artists often used images, symbols, bold colors, and ideas connected to popular culture. Some artists repeated familiar objects, while others transformed ordinary images using unexpected colors or graphic designs.
Compare this project with artwork by other Pop artists and ask students to notice what they have in common.
💡 Then challenge kids to invent a Pop Art composition using symbols from their own lives. They might include books, sports equipment, flowers, pets, music notes, game pieces, food packages, or favorite objects.
👉 Learn more about the Pop Art Movement and Pop Art Artists.
More Famous Artist Projects
Continue exploring art with hands-on projects inspired by famous artists.
- Try a Yayoi Kusama art project for repeating dots and patterns
- Explore bold shapes with Henri Matisse cut-paper art
- Create colorful Andy Warhol-inspired Pop Art
- Experiment with shapes and color inspired by Wassily Kandinsky.
👉 For even more ready-to-use artist activities, explore our Famous Artists Art Projects print-and-go collection and printable art resources.
Looking for more ways to explore ART?
Explore our Art Project Bundle; it’s filled with hands-on art activities inspired by well-known artists. Plus, you’ll find extras for collage, mixed media, printmaking, watercolor, and the 7 Elements!
