Vincent van Gogh<br/>
<em>A wheatfield, with cypresses</em> early September 1889 Saint-Rémy<br/>
oil on canvas<br/>
72.1 x 90.9 cm<br/>
F 615, JH 1755 <br/>
National Gallery, London<br/>
Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1923 (NG3861)<br/>
© The National Gallery, London<br/>
Photo: The National Gallery, London

Year 3 to Year 8

The Hour of Code™ is a nationwide initiative by Computer Science Education Week and Code.org to introduce millions of students to one hour of computer science and computer programming. NGV is proud to support the Hour of Code™ and this year has developed a resource for all teachers and students to use in their classrooms.

We believe coding is a great platform to introduce new ways for students to understand and respond to art – as well as create their own masterpieces with 21st-century digital technologies.

In our Hour of Code™ lesson we have taken inspiration from artist Vincent Van Gogh and his painting A wheatfield, with cypresses early September 1889 Saint-Rémy

Using Scratchwe will be doing some digital sculpting. Starting with some modelling dough, you will create some of the elements seen in Van Gogh’s artworks such as trees, clouds and wheat fields. You will then capture these real world creations and turn them into animated sprites and make your work of digital art come alive.

From here, with a little bit of code and creativity, you will be able to interact with your artwork in a completely new way using MaKey MaKey – blow a gust of air to make the clouds animate and move across the screen, squish some dough to make the trees wiggle and warp, draw and paint lines on paper to change the way the sky looks and more.

Use the links below to download the resource and access the working program in Scratch for you to learn from and remix. Note, to add some interactive elements to this program we are using a MaKey MaKey kit but you can create and run this session without it.

To find out more about coding in the Gallery, see our Digital Creatives program here.