Learners 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 in this...

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...

Students explore the basic color wheel and the ways that artists use color to guide the viewer's attention through a painting's composition. A creation of a sense of depth in a two dimensional space and the effect of color on mood and...

Examine social strife in art. Class members first observe some pieces, and then find an image to inspire their own art. They outline the picture, analyze the composition, make alterations, and color their work.

Students identify different kinds of narratives used in a number of art works, discuss artist's use of compositional elements to further the story and/or convey a message within a work of art, and explain relationship between composition...

The set for a play combines design elements (style, line, shape, mass, measure, position, color, and texture) and principles of composition (unity, harmony, contrast, variation, balance, proportion, and emphasis) to create a particular...

Students are introduced to the concept of composition in visual art. They examine various compositional structures and practice identifying the focus of various pieces of art.

You're never too young for a lesson in fine art. Explore the painting Deucalion and Pyrrha, based on the Greek myth of the same name, with your class. You'll look at color, composition, texture, and technique, which are easily outlined...

Students view images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site, and list the objects and figures in the image. They discuss the way their eyes move around the canvas and take note of where their eyes fall, follow and finish. Students...

Students discuss how the musical composition was created. They listen to "Pictures at an Exhibition." Students discuss how the Promenade in the beginning of the opus is based on Mussorgsky walking through the exhibit of paintings....

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.

Students explore composition and symmetry to create their own digital media piece. In this design composition lesson, students visit the online websites and examples of asymmetrical compositions and symmetry. Students sketch a...

Lilly Martin Spencer's "Peeling Onions" is the subject of a series of exercises that model for learners how to use the elements of art to read a painting. A series of worksheets focus viewers' attention on how Spencer uses...

Learners display the two still-life paintings they created along with their artist’s statement, write a review of a peer’s work, and discuss all of the paintings in a group critique. For this still life art lesson, students view the...

Young scholars compare and contrast modern life art in the works of Hilaire-Germain Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne. In this art analysis instructional activity, students compare and contrast the two paintings. Young scholars complete image...

Students are introduces to soil profile classification. They remember that classification of soils is an important aspect of studying soils as it aids in predicting how soils react to weathering, transport nutrients or pollution. ...

Students consider the nature of objectivity and subjectivity in photography as an art form by taking a class poll, discussing the results and writing a one-page paper.

The illustrations of Ezra Jack Keats in The Snowy Day inspire young artists to examine shapes in illustrations and to use these shapes to create their own watercolor resist painting.

Color, light and shadow, the placement and size of objects. These are some of the tools artists used to tell their stories. Model for learners how to read a painting by closely examining these features. The richly detailed packet...

Students create a picture of a toucan from the continent of South America using a pencil, marker, and oil pastels. Students identify the continent of South America and discuss the Toco Toucan. They follow teacher directions to create...

Young scholars examine paintings by Thomas Cole and Jasper Francis Cropsey as windows into American frontier life. They consider the pioneer's relationship with nature and the role of Native Americans in the pioneer's lives and settlements.

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 plan.

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...

Here is an art lesson that combines visual arts and language arts into one very nice package. In it, youngsters study a fascinating painting called Painting of Bear and Sun Dances. They begin to understand the importance of...