Curated OER
What's in a Picture? An Introduction to Subject in the Visual Art
Learners discuss the subject and meaning of examples of visual art. They analyze various paintings found on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website, answer discussion questions, complete online interactive activities, and write an essay.
Curated OER
Exploring Weather Conditions Through Painting
Your advanced class will paint a picture of a particular weather condition. In this painting lesson students describe elements of art in pieces of artwork. They analyze the weather and seasons in the artwork. The students use paper,...
Curated OER
Portraits, Pears, And Perfect Landscapes: Investigating Genre in the Visual Arts
Differentiate between the various genres in the visual arts world, particularly in Western painting. Your class can view and discuss, in small groups, paintings published on the National Galleries website. Then each student individually...
Curated OER
Visual Arts - Mexican Indian Yarn Painting
Have you ever seen a Mexican yarn painting? They're beautiful! Create a Mexican yarn painting with your class using this activity. Start by discussing Mexico's culture and viewing different yarn paintings. After reading about important...
Curated OER
Realistic Impressions: Investigating Movements in the Visual Arts
You and your high school class can examine the idea of artistic movements with this lesson. Explore various websites, compare/contrast paintings, after which the assignments are to complete a chart, and write an essay.
Dick Blick Art Materials
“Decalcomania” Glue Paint Symmetry Prints
Who knew you could paint with glue? After first adding liquid water color paints to bottles of white Elmer's glue and applying them to paper, students of all ages are then challenged to use their imagination and creativity to draw in...
Google
Art: Paint with Tera
Here's a creative resource that definitely isn't paint by numbers. As the fourth in and eight-part Art series, learners create a paint program using the Scratch block code. By completing the activity, class members come to understand the...
Curated OER
Follow the Leader: Line in the Visual Arts
Students explore line in painting and drawing and examine how it is defined in the visual arts. Recognizing line in the composition of a number of art works and how it affects these works of art is the focus of this lesson.
Dick Blick Art Materials
Painted Story Quilt
Creating story quilts is a great way to combine art, social studies and literature. Kids select a story, a published one or one of their own, to illustrate, paint on a canvas square, embellish, and mount on a felt backing.
Curated OER
Rhythm and Art: Painting
Students make connections between music and visual art. In this integrated arts lesson, students design paintings that challenge them to examine the relationship between art elements and principles.
Curated OER
Repeat After Me: Repetition in the Visual Arts
Students explore one of the techniques artists often use to highlight important elements within a painting's composition and to move a viewer's eye around the canvass from highpoint to highpoint.
Dick Blick Art Materials
No-Blender Pulp Painting
Like finger painting, this project is very tactile. Kids tear tissue paper into small pieces, add water, and mix up a pulp that can be pressed onto a canvas to create a colorful, textured painting.
Google
Art: Interactive Art
What would the Mona Lisa say if she could talk? Scholars create a digital story within the Scratch block-based coding program. They make famous paintings talk and move when viewers click on them to complete the third of eight parts in...
Curated OER
Let's Talk About Painting
Discuss art and read Matthew's Dream. In this visual arts lesson, learners recognize that there are different styles of art, each with its own techniques. Use simple techniques to understand art and work at stations to complete a style...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Historical Context: Discovering a Painting
Class members are presented with the image of a painting and asked to record their first impressions and analysis. They then research the time period in which it was painted and discuss how their research impacted their first impression...
Incredible Art
Painting with Dots - Kirkland Style
Pointillism is the focus of a lesson that asks young artists to compare Vance Kirkland's painting style with aboriginal dot art, and then to produce their own piece of dot art.
Curated OER
Portraits, Pears, and Perfect Landscapes: Investigating Genre in the Visual Arts
Young scholars define genre in the visual arts, particularly in Western painting and explain the differences between subject and genre. The genre of a variety of works of art is identified.
Curated OER
Realistic Impressions: Investigating Movements in the Visual Arts
Young scholars explore the idea of movements in the visual arts and differentiate between some of the most well known movements in Western art. The lesson focuses on what makes a painting an example of a particular movement.
Curated OER
Painting Faces: Interpreting Portraits
Over the course of four sessions, upper elementary learners explore the elements of visual art and portraiture and the work of Canadian painter Robert Harris (links included). (Paintings by any portrait artist will fit the plan; choose...
National Endowment for the Humanities
“House by the Railroad”: A Painting and a Poem for the Common Core
Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading of the two...
Dick Blick Art Materials
Insoluble Paintings
Insolubility and density? Yup, it's art class, of course. To create insoluble paintings that continually move and change, kids mix water-based paint with mineral oil and seal the mixture in laminating pouches.
Curated OER
When Art's a Craft
What would it be like to restore modern works of art? By acting as modern art conservators, learners assess the first-hand difficulties faced in restoration efforts. In addition, they create modern art pieces from random materials. Then,...
Curated OER
An Introduction to the Relationship Between Composition and Content in the Visual Arts
Young scholars investigate how artists create a story that provides a message or provokes emotions in a single image. The ways in which the composition of a painting contributes to telling the story or conveying the message is examined...
Dick Blick Art Materials
Glue Paint Symmetry Prints
Add watercolors to white glue, paint onto clear film paper, fold, open, and voila, a butterfly! This art project, designed for special education classes, but perfect for any classroom, is sure to engage your young artists.