Curated OER
Shaping the View: Symmetry and Balance
Students explore the symmetry and balance in the composition of a variety of art works and note how the viewer's eye is guided to the important components of the image. How these elements affect the tone of the painting and communicate...
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...
Sargent Art
Kandinsky - Inspired by Music
Who is Wassily Kandinsky? Introduce your young artists to the wonders of abstract nonobjective art through music. They'll listen to music as they cut, paste, and paint emotional works of art. The activity suggests the use of soothing...
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...
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.
Curated OER
Shaping the View: Composition Basics
Students examine the elements of composition in various artworks. They analyze and discuss paintings, explore "The National Gallery of Art" website, identify the shape of compositions in paintings, and draw a diagram.
Curated OER
Shaping the View: Symmetry and Balance
High schoolers examine how artists structure their compositions to convey a sense of symmetry and balance. They analyze various paintings, identify objects and figures in the paintings, conduct Internet research, and evaluate paintings.
Curated OER
Doodle Splash
Learners navigate Doodle Splash to create a painting. In this doodle splash instructional activity, students explain their splash painting relationship to a piece of literature.
Curated OER
Power of Color on Emotion
Fifth graders utilize resources to select, analyze, and journal about a particular artist's expression of mood and feelings. They produce paintings that demonstrate the use of color mixing and schemes that show a variety of emotions.
Curated OER
Emotion in Art & Poetry
Fourth graders are introduced to famous works of art and begin to discuss the artist's work. Use art to explain and reflect their own emotions. The write about feelings in a work of art and make connections between art and other...
Curated OER
Everything in its right place: An Introduction to Composition in Painting
Pupils investigate the meaning of a composition in the realm of the visual arts. The elements of an image are taught in order for students to answer the guiding questions that are presented.
Curated OER
Solving an Original Character's Problem With Voice and Emotion
Students read the story A Bad Case of the Stripes and then write their own story conveying a lot of emotion. In this writing lesson plan, students select a title, an emotion, brainstorm, and then start writing.
Curated OER
Gesture Drawing
Students investigate the use of proportion using gesture drawing as the subject matter. They create a painting using the elements of art and principles of design.
Curated OER
How Do you Feel?
Learners discover how moods and perceptions can be affected by colors. As a class, they create their own color wheel and identify primary and secondary colors. They draw their own cool and warm color mosaic and discuss how each one of...
Curated OER
Constructing a Building
Young scholars work with big boxes to connect big ideas. In this early childhood problem solving lesson, students develop social, language, math, creative-thinking, and problem-solving skills as they work together to plan and design a...
Curated OER
Follow the Leader: Line in the Visual Arts
Students identify line in the composition of a number of art works. They explain how the artist's compositional choices guide the viewer's eye to important components of the image. Students identify sight lines in several paintings and...
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.
Curated OER
Let's Paint!
Students read "Frida" and "Miranda's Smile" and discuss these artists styles. They practice painting and compare it to what they have been taught about the drawings. Students are shown how to use tempera or watercolor paints. They are...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Expressionism: What's the Deal With These Strange Colors?
Students examine and discuss examples of Expressionist artwork. They create their own expressionistic oil paintings.
Curated OER
Huichol Yarn Painting
Sixth graders study the Huichol Indians and the art of yarn painting. They create their own yarn paintings in the Huichol style.
Curated OER
Spookley the Square Pumpkin
Students complete activities with the story Spookley the Square Pumpkin. In this holiday instructional activity, students listen to the story and create their own Spookley pumpkin with Popsicle sticks and paints. They use their character...
Curated OER
Shaping the View: Symmetry and Balance
Students view an image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and identify the focal point of the painting. They discuss symmetry and balance as it pertains to the images. Students use the Student LaunchPad (linked to this instructional...
Curated OER
Repeat After Me: Repetition in the Visual Arts
High schoolers identify repetition in the composition of a variety of art works, and how it is used to create a unified composition. They discuss compositional structure of a painting.
Curated OER
Art as Therapy
Students explore how they connect with artwork on an emotional level through writing and the creation of an original piece of art.