Art Icebreaker Questions

One card before the brushes come out: read it out and go round the table.

Art Icebreaker Questions

Black paper or white paper?

Read the card out and go round the table. Press Next card.

1 of 80

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How it works

These art icebreaker questions are for an art class, an art club or a paint night. They ask about making and looking, never about talent: no card asks anyone to rate their own skill, and none names an artist.

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One card while the supplies go round

Read the card out as paper and brushes are handed along, and take one answer each. For a big class, press Set, choose Multiple choice and count hands: "Pencil, paint, clay or camera?" Then press Next card.

Sets for the studio and the gallery

Making and Colors and materials fit a studio day: "Which color do you use up first?" Looking needs no supplies at all. Save Museums and galleries for the ride to a gallery: "Do you read the label first or look first?"

Tips
  • Turn an answer into a warm-up: after "What color is today?", everyone paints one swatch of their answer.

Questions and answers

What are good art icebreaker questions for a first class?

Ones with no wrong answer and no skill on show: Big paper or small paper? What do you doodle when your mind wanders? A beginner and a confident painter answer them just as easily.

Do the cards ask students to draw?

No. These are questions to answer out loud. A teacher can turn one into a sketch prompt, but every card works with hands in laps, before a single supply is on the table.

Why is no artist or artwork named?

So nobody needs to know any art history to join in. The cards ask what you notice, like and make, and a class that has studied a painter can bring that name into the answer.

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All 80 questions

Making 16

  • Big paper or small paper?
  • Do you give your pictures titles?
  • Do you keep what you make or give it away?
  • Do you like to make things alone or side by side with someone?
  • Do you sign your work?
  • Do you start in the middle of the page or in a corner?
  • How do you know when a piece is finished?
  • Sketch first, or go straight in?
  • Straight lines or wobbly lines?
  • What did you make most recently that you decided to keep?
  • What do you do with a drawing that goes wrong?
  • What do you doodle when your mind wanders?
  • What do you find yourself drawing over and over?
  • What is the messiest thing you have ever made?
  • What would you build out of a stack of cardboard boxes?
  • What would you make with a whole day and every supply in the room?

Looking 16

  • Art that looks real or art that looks like a dream?
  • Bright pictures or dark pictures?
  • Do you look at the frame as well as the picture?
  • Photographs or drawings?
  • Pictures of people, places or things: which do you like best?
  • Up close or from across the room?
  • What can you see from the nearest window that would make a good painting?
  • What do you look at first in a picture: the colors, the faces or the corners?
  • What is the best pattern you have seen on a floor, a fence or a wall?
  • What makes you look at a picture twice?
  • What ordinary thing looks like art to you?
  • What shapes do you see in clouds, puddles or shadows?
  • What would you want a stranger to notice in a picture you made?
  • Which picture book has art you still remember?
  • Which picture on a wall near you do you know by heart?
  • Would you rather look at a painting or a sculpture?

Colors and materials 16

  • Black paper or white paper?
  • Crayons, markers or colored pencils?
  • Scissors and glue, or pen and ink?
  • Sharp pencil or soft pencil?
  • Shiny or matte?
  • Thick brush or thin brush?
  • Wet paint or dry pastel?
  • What color is today?
  • What color would you add to the rainbow, and what would you call it?
  • What does your favorite color remind you of?
  • What would you make out of clay first?
  • Which color do you almost never use, and why?
  • Which color do you use up first?
  • Which material is the most fun to get on your hands?
  • Which thing from the recycling bin makes the best art supply?
  • Which two colors do you like side by side?

Museums and galleries 16

  • A sculpture garden or a room of paintings?
  • Do you like to sketch what you see on display?
  • Do you read the label first or look first?
  • Do you sit on the bench in the middle of the room?
  • Gift shop first or last?
  • If you could borrow one museum object for a day, what kind of thing would it be?
  • Old art or new art?
  • Quiet gallery or busy gallery?
  • What is the strangest thing you have seen on display anywhere?
  • What rule would you make for a museum of your own?
  • What should every art show have by the door?
  • What would you hang in the school hallway?
  • What would you name a gallery filled with your own work?
  • What would you put in a museum about this school?
  • Which room would you run to first: paintings, statues, masks or dinosaurs?
  • Would you rather walk around alone or with a guide?

Multiple choice 16

  • Best place to draw: a desk, the floor, outside or the bus?
  • Chalk on the sidewalk: hopscotch, a giant animal, your name or a road for toy cars?
  • Pencil, paint, clay or camera?
  • Pick a frame: gold, wood, bright plastic or no frame at all?
  • Pick a palette: warm colors, cool colors, black and white or every color at once?
  • Pick a paper: lined, plain, graph or scrap?
  • Pick a picture for your wall: mountains, ocean, city or outer space?
  • Pick a studio job: mix the colors, wash the brushes, hang the show or sweep up?
  • What should the class make together: a mural, a quilt, a sculpture or a comic?
  • What would you draw first: an animal, a person, a place or a pattern?
  • Which art supply would you be: an eraser, a sharpener, a glue stick or a paintbrush?
  • Which tool: ruler, compass, stencil or freehand?
  • Which would you carve: soap, a pumpkin, a potato stamp or wet sand?
  • Which would you paint on: canvas, a rock, a wall or a T-shirt?
  • Which would you try: weaving, printmaking, pottery or collage?
  • Whose portrait would you draw: a pet, a friend, a tree or your own shoe?
How this list was compiled

Own work: questions written by the Game Night Generator editors for this page in September 2026, about making and looking at art. No list was copied. No card names an artist, an artwork, a museum or a brand of supplies, and none asks anyone to rate their own skill. Nothing here is offered as therapy. The Multiple choice cards carry their four answers. Every card was compared by script on 2026-09-30 with every other list on this site: none is repeated word for word, and cards whose idea already sat on another page were rewritten. Licence: own work