National Gallery of Canada
Build a City of the Future!
Tap into your pupils' imagination by asking them to design futuristic, ideal cities. They must discuss and take scale and size into account, looking at some model pieces of art for inspiration and analysis. The final product for each...
Curated OER
Coil Pots
Children learn by doing. Here, they discuss cultural uses of containers, coil and slab techniques, functional aesthetics, and the principles of art and design. The entire process for making a coil pot is fully described here to make the...
National Gallery of Canada
My Own Tree
Nature contains both symmetry and asymmetry. Have your young artists examine symmetry and asymmetry in their own surroundings. After viewing works of art, pupils find trees in their neighborhoods and determine if they are symmetrical or...
Curated OER
Abstract Planes in Paper Sculpture
High schoolers create maquettes of abstract sculptures utilizing the elements of art; line, shape, value, color, space and texture and the principles of design; balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm and movement, pattern and unity. These...
National Gallery of Canada
Emphasizing Prints
Focus on how an artist creates emphasis on certain areas of a work with an examination of several works of art and a printmaking project. Follow the discussion suggestions and step-by-step printmaking instructions to successfully...
National Gallery of Canada
A Cultural Portrait
Explore heritage and identity through an examination of art and a related project. The featured art, related to the African diaspora, includes several types of art created by different artists. Pupils consider their own backgrounds and...
Curated OER
Traveling Through Time and the Consideration of Design
Students develop a greater understanding of how societal and environmental effects existing during each period of time impacted the development of design styles. In this technology lesson plan, students develop an awareness of what those...
Curated OER
Copper Sheet Boxes: Artistic Engineering
Secondary artists create a metal box made from copper tooling foil and solid oil paint sticks (Shiva Paintstiks). The exacting design develops organizational principles and the painted finish allows for individual expression of...
Curated OER
Lesson: Communication Through Clothing
As we all know, some clothing has a way of letting us know a little something about the person wearing it. Kids explore the idea that clothing can be a form of communication and artistic expression. They analyze a Native American textile...
Curated OER
Interpreting Lao Design: Painting
Students examine Lao art techniques and practice replication and modification of Lao designs. Maintaining a symmetrical image, they embellish designs with imagery and background color. They discuss the students' works and note the...
Curated OER
Rhythm - Principle of Design
Young scholars demonstrate knowledge of the principles of design. They produce portfolio pages to show they know what rhythm is and demonstrate the elements of design and their relationship to the principle of rhythm. They explore the...
National Gallery of Canada
My Own Blanket
Invite your young artists to design blankets that express their own identities. Learners examine various pieces of art before brainstorming a few things that represent their identities. They use these ideas, in addition to symmetry and...
Curated OER
The American Wilderness? How 19th Century American Artists Viewed the Separation of Civilization and Nature
The attitudes of European settlers toward the American wilderness, as reflected in art and literature, is the focus of this resource packet designed for teachers. Included in the unit overview you will find lists or paintings and works...
Curated OER
Design a Resort: Italian Villa
Students work in a group to design a travel brochure and television commercial for an Italian resort. They role-play having inherited a large sum of money and buying an Italian villa to turn into a resort. Students research geography,...
Digital Wish
Illustration: Self Portrait in a Masterpiece
Technology and art combine in a creative instructional activity. Kids discuss portrait art and they search online and save a portrait created by one of their favorite artists. They have their picture taken exactly like their chosen...
Curated OER
Designing Carousels
Students design a carousel for an amusement park. In collaborative groups they conduct research, develop a presentation, write a descriptive paragraph, evaluate design features, and draw an artistic rendering of their carousel.
Curated OER
Design: Line
Students employ an analysis and exploration of line use, to understand line in terms of design, style, and functionality. The learners experiment with line design. Understanding dynamic and diverse use of line will broaden students'...
Curated OER
4-H Line and Design: Intermediate Activity Page
In this 4-H line and design worksheet, students will complete a variety of design related activities. Students will use colored pencils to draw in the missing pieces of artistic photographs. Next, they will find and circle 6 art words in...
Curated OER
Discovering Details: Shoebox Designs
Students investigate architectural art by creating an interior design for a box. In this art design instructional activity, students analyze modern artifacts such as doorknobs, brackets and mailboxes by using a Venn diagram to identify...
The Imagination Factory
Design a Postage Stamp for Black History Month
Learners create a postage stamp for Black History Month. In this U.S. History lesson, students discuss the contributions of African-Americans and design a postage stamp to celebrate their impact.
Curated OER
Artists Teach Us to See the World through Visual Symbols
Tenth graders analyze a biographical piece of art by Raymond Saunders. They identify shapes, symbols, and lines that are used, and how the piece relates to the artist's life and modern society. They design and create an original piece of...
Curated OER
Literature and Art Through Our Eyes: African-American Artists
Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of...
National Arts Centre
Scavenger Hunt
Young theatre artists engage in a scavenger hunt to acquaint themselves with set design. The challenge is to search the site and match a separate maquette with each of the 24 clues.
Curated OER
Artists, Architects, and Architecture
The study of art and architecture are the focus of this series of lessons. The images of Robert Harris are used in the lessons as examples for youngsters to looks at. A study of architecture in different time periods ensues, then...