Forget looking at tiny dotty pictures of artwork in books and low resolution images from a Google Image search. Click over and have a look at Google Art Project. It lets you zoom right into the painting to see the tiny cracks and lets you walk around any museum in the world that’s actually worth paying a huge plane fair to go visit. Amazing. I wish they had this stuff when I was a kid…
Pyskopaint is a great flash website that lets you upload your own photos and paint over the top of them in many different artist styles such as Munch, Renoir and Monet. I haven’t had much time with it yet, though the introduction and the samples have already blown me away. There’s also great tutorial videos to train you up too. If you give it a try and produce anything good from it, I’d love to see your efforts.
I’ve been working on a nice set of artist/painter table numbers for my classroom. Table numbers help pupils remember where they first sit when starting a new class, they also help when allocating materials (especially dangerous items like sharp scissors or scalpels). Table numbers help keep the classroom organised, help you learn pupil’s names and help teachers, who may have to take over your class when you are off, allocate materials and be aware of where pupils are suppose to sit.
These table numbers will not only brighten up a classroom, but they can also be used for quizzes about the artists, a resource for the artist, the style or elements of the work and will help pupils become familiar with each artist name/style/image.
I advise printing the images out full size (A4) and in full colour. I would trim each artist number square out, leaving whatever space around you desire and then laminate the squares in fours leaving space around each. Trimming and then laminating will seal the edges and corners of the number for longer lasting life. Numbers should then either be temporarily blu-taced to the tables or fixed more permanently with double sided sticky tape.
The table number sheets can be downloaded from ‘The Box’ app which is featured at the bottom of the right-hand column.
The Art Classroom has been featured on the front page of Teaching News today. I’d like to welcome the new readers and say a big thank you to Teachingnews.co.uk and Mark Warner for the post. Teaching news is a great resource for what is happening in teaching, especially in the UK, although it’s not just confined to the UK and has a lot of ideas and material for global visitors. It’s a great springboard to guide teachers onto other sites and ideas.
Teaching News is twinned with Teaching Ideas a marvelous website (over ten years old believe it or not?!) with a never ending list of resource ideas and inspiration for all subjects and all age ranges.
Continuing with our week of resource freebies, below you will see a studies exam for S1 & S2 (aged 11-13) based around Mexican traditions and art. The assessment is split into two parts; general comprehension and cultural knowledge. Each question is labeled with a maximum point rating in brackets.
As with all resources given away this week, download the file from the ‘Box’ (bottom right-hand column).
This was a very successful resource to use with S1 pupils (aged 10-12) when leaf drawing. The examples can be mixed to form any number of different styles and types of foliage.
Download it below in the ‘Box’ (bottom right-hand column).
A very late but interesting activity resource today. Pupils cut out the jigsaw shapes of the dragon fly to copy the small image on the lower left. When cutting out the insect parts I would advise that pupils leave a halo of white, approximately 2mm around the parts when cutting. Parts should be glued down with a glue stick (i.e. Pritt Stick). One issue I’ve had with this sheet is when pupils trim out the parts they often cut their name and class from the top of the form. Just be aware of this if it happens. For future cutting activities I have made sure the name and class are very close to the working area.
Remember when teaching pupils to cut with scissors that they should use the whole scissor length, long slow cuts and move the paper not the scissors.
When completed, pupils should leave the insect to dry and work on colouring the background using tone. This should leave enough time for the insect to crisp up and be dry enough to be coloured itself.
I use this resource for S1-S3 (pupils aged 11-14)
The jpeg resource can be downloaded below from the ‘Box’ (bottom right-hand column).
Today’s free resource (the third of seven for this week) is for S1 classes. For those that don’t use the ‘P & S’ system, that’s for children around the age of 10-12. This sheet was created as absent teacher cover when I had been off during my CD Cover Design unit. The activity requests the pupil to do three tasks; colour with tone, name the areas of the package and then show their music knowledge on the back of the sheet. This will fill a period (50 minutes) quite easily and I even had pupils asking to return to it to guess more artists later on in the project.
As with all my down-loadable resources, you’ll find the link below in the ‘Box’ (bottom of the right hand column).
As promised, down below you will find another resource (double page PDF), today it’s for Coco Chanel and should be used when teaching Historical Fashion Design. Fashion is not my strong point, though taking over an S4 class it was important to compliment the fashion designer they had already studied; Galliano.
Chanel’s life is such an interesting and strained one. I find that when the artist/designer has lived an interesting life, it helps pupils remember their time-line details.
You can find the resource below for download in the Box (lower right hand column).
Yes, you’re right, I am too generous. I have decided to upload my Art Studies resources so that you may use them, change them, be influenced by them or laugh at them… your choice. I will upload one resource a day for the next week.
Today’s resource is for Intermediate Art though I’m sure it could quite easily be used for any class (age 13-18). A double page study of Braque’s life and technique, the resource should be used for Historical Expressive study. I have found it to be very successful due to it’s easy to learn time-line, it’s heavily worded, though easily explained word banks and its appealing layout.
Braque is an extremely interesting character, much more interesting than Picasso. It feels like Braque was the Picasso that could have been, the unlucky Picasso. It also amazes me that when it comes to Cubism, Picasso is the first artist who comes to mind, though Braque plays just as important a role in its creation.
The full two page PDF file can be downloaded from the Box section on the right and can be printed in colour or black and white, though colour would benefit the study of the painting; ‘Violin & Palette’.
A note: When teaching with this resource, I find it very helpful to get pupils to draw out the painting in their books, replicating each line and shape as closely as possible, them ask the class to identify what each item is. It’s strange how pupils fail to notice objects on first impression though after copying the painting, they start to notice the musical score, the curtain, the nail and the bow.
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