National Gallery of Canada
My Abstraction
What makes a color warm, and what makes a color cool? Explore colors and abstract art through an observation activity and an art assignment. Learners look at images and talk about colors before making their own compositions with...
Curated OER
Discovering Art-Huntington Gallery Shape
Students study geometric, naturalistic, and abstract shapes. They discuss how various shapes are used in art. They study The Young Fortune Teller by Joshua Reynolds to find various shapes.
Curated OER
Center for Northwestern Art: Featured Objects
Each of the slides in this presentation provide learners with an image found at a northwestern art museum and a critical analysis of what can be seen in each piece. Learners can view this prior to a museum trip in order to build...
Curated OER
Lesson: Lisa Signal: Altering Perspectives
Kids make big artistic gestures, just like the abstract artist, Lisa Signal. They use her work as inspiration for making simplistic, abstract, statements in an artistic way. They analyze her work, then walk through an unfamiliar...
Curated OER
Tempera Paint Lesson Ideas
Pupils create an abstract, non-objective paintings. Students use the various lesson plans to create abstract paintings that include an art with text lesson, a sand textured paint lesson, and a radiating design lesson.
Curated OER
Geometric Abstraction
Learners create an abstract work of art that is made by repeating geometric shapes and lines, write concise instructions to reproduce the work of art and reproduce someone else's artwork via written instructions.
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
6th Grade Art
Sixth graders create "macquette" sculptures, which would be models for larger playground pieces.
Dick Blick Art Materials
EZ-Grout Mosaics
Young artists create 2-D art using air-dry clay and acrylic paint in this mosaic-making activity. Kids trace their design sketch on a clay slab, cut out the pieces, and after drying, paint and mount their tile design.
US Holocaust Museum
The Art and Politics of Arthur Szyk
Have you ever listened to a song that had a deeper political meaning to it? Every examined a work of art with layers of meaning? Pupils analyze the drawings of Arthur Szyk. They research the deeper meaning of several artistic cartoons...
Curated OER
Art: 1950s Art
Students explore art of the 1950s. For this art history lesson, students examine works by Kofman, Groky, deKooning, Indiana, Hamilson, and Warhol as they identify the attributes of Abstract Impressionism and pop art. Students sketch...
Curated OER
Asking Questions
Young scholars examine a painting that depicts a scene from the Underground Railroad. They discuss the painting and write journal entries and poems in response to the painting's themes and their impressions.
Curated OER
Taming the Frontier
Students 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.
University of Minnesota
Beautiful Brain: Do You See What I See?
Can art play tricks on your eyes, and can a still painting really appear to vibrate? The second lesson in a four-part series discusses the way our beautiful brains translate visual images. It highlights the style of optical art and...
Curated OER
Technology as a Design Tool for Abstract Artwork
Students manipulate pictures using Adobe Photoshop and digital cameras to produce unique abstract works. This lesson can be modified to include a painting/mixed media element. State standards are addressed in this lesson.
Curated OER
Finding Polygons in Cubist Art
Fourth graders explore geometric properties and relationships in a two-dimensional work of art. They first search for and identify polygons in a Cubist painting and then use polygons to create their own Cubist portrait of a classmate.
Curated OER
Insoluble Paintings
Use this art lesson to study insolubility and density. Combining water-based paint and mineral oil will cause a fun and interactive painting. This is a great art project to incorporate during a science unit.
Curated OER
Hands-On Ways to Engage Students during Youth Art Month
Enjoy an artful departure from spring fever through creative art lessons.
Curated OER
ABSTRACT EX[RESSIONISM DE KOONING STYLE
Learners view and discuss the work of Elaine de Kooning and then the students create a painting in the Abstract Expressionist style.
Sargent Art
Picasso and Beyond!
After reviewing the life and art of Pablo Picasso, learners set out to create abstract, cubist, relief portraits. They'll draw, color, paint, and cut out portraits just like the ones Picasso created. The instructional activity is...
Curated OER
Lesson: Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone
Kids consider the pure abstraction and minimalism found in Mary Heilmann's work. They analyze several of her pieces through critical discussion and then think about her use of a song title as the title of her exhibit. Learners then use a...
Curated OER
Blick Liquid Watercolor
Introduce this abstract art to your class; they must chose ordinary classroom objects and shapes to paint with watercolors. The overlapping effect will create a fun, abstract piece of art!
Curated OER
Free Form Sculpture
Tenth graders explore abstract and non-representational art forms through research and artistic expression. They research a free form artist, their work, and abstract sculpture. They then work with pantyhose, chicken wire, plaster, and...
Curated OER
Pastel Drawing like Vincent Van Gogh
Learners discuss the elements of art and design found in a series of flower paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. They explore art, shading, and color as they create mirrored representations of the master's art, using oil pastel.