Curated OER
Paint Property Experiments
Students identify various kinds of paints by using the scientific method. In this solvents instructional activity students collect data and identify paint samples while working in teams.
National Gallery of Art
Van Gogh’s Self-Portraits
Scholars get to know famous Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh, as an artist as well as a person. After reading personal letters and analyzing paintings, participants paint two self-portraits that represent their personality. Then, write a...
Curated OER
Step into the Painting: Social Studies, Literature, and Art
Travel back in American history to the era of slavery and abolition. After reading about the Underground Railroad, young historians examine a painting depicting the event, and write a narrative from the point of view of a person in the...
Curated OER
Toco Toucan - Oil Pastels
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...
Sargent Art
Protect Our Marine Life
Encourage water conservation and boost art skills with a hands-on activity that challenges young painters to create a scene highlighting marine life. Using oil pastels, scholars draw an underwater scene and write a tip for viewers to...
Curated OER
Glue Fish
Get out the glue and those oil pastels its time for an art project. The class explores shape, art, and color as they draw fish with glue, let them dry, and then color them as they wish. This project would be wonderful after discussing...
Memorial Art Gallery
Learning to Look, Looking to Learn - Peeling Onions
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 color and...
Curated OER
Still-Life Painting: Arranging Nature
Students examine and paint still life paintings. In this still life painting lesson, students look at pictures of European still life paintings and determine the characteristics when using an opaque medium. They use an opaque medium to...
Curated OER
Let's Talk About Painting
Second graders identify the elements of the arts. In this visual arts lesson, 2nd graders read the book Matthew's Dream and discuss the elements of the arts. Students create their own paintings according to the style of specific artists.
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
A Study of Warm And Cool Colors
Second graders create a multimedia painting using warm or cool colors expressively. They demonstrate multimedia techniques in a drawing using pencil, oil pastel and tempera paints. They recognize and discuss mood created by warm and cool...
Memorial Art Gallery
Art Alive! - Beach at Blue Point
And then what happened? Class members engage in a series of activities that model for them how to read the story in a painting. Participants respond to questions that ask them to closely examine the elements in William Glackens' "Beach...
Memorial Art Gallery
Art Alive! - Towing a Boat, Honfleur
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...
Curated OER
Lascaux Cave Art on Ceramic Stones
Here is a great way to incorporate art into your next unit on prehistoric people. The class makes stones out of ceramic clay and then creates paintings like those found in the Lascaux Caves in France. A video link, full day-by-day...
Curated OER
Pump It Up
Learners use water in a flask to simulate how oil is pumped or forced out of the Earth by pressure from natural gas or human machinery. For this oil lesson plan, students complete a lab packet and work in groups.
Arts Ed Washington
Art Lessons in the Classroom: Our Family
Blend art and family into one lesson with an activity involving oil pastels and watercolors. After viewing a few famous portraits of families, learners create masterpieces that represent their own families.
Curated OER
Still-Life Painting: Arranging Nature Lesson 3
Students identify and analyze the characteristics of European still-life paintings. They paint still-life arrangements using various opaque medium techniques.
Curated OER
Subway Drawings
Students create oil pastel paintings where they cover the whole paper with oil pastels and outline and smear with black. In this oil pastels lesson plan, students first study the Subway Drawings done by Keith Haring.
Curated OER
The Lost Works of Vincent van Gogh
Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge about the life and works of Vincent van Gogh. They will also become aquainted with the use of oil paints and will be able to better identify with real artists by using their medium
Curated OER
What's Outside the Window
What do your learners see when they look outside the window? This project lets their imagination go wild, and lets you see what kind of daydreaming they do best. They each draw, paint, and color an image of what they imagine as they are...
Polk Bros Foundation
American Presidents
Emanuel Leutze's painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Alexander Gardner's photograph of Abraham Lincoln. What do these works of art tell us about the character of these American Presidents? After examining the techniques the...
Curated OER
A Ride for Liberty
For this American Civil War worksheet, students examine a Eastman Johnson painting titled "A Ride for Liberty," and then respond to 2 short answer questions based on their analysis of the painting.
Curated OER
Periodic Pigment
Students make paint using the ingredients from recipes from the 17th century. In this paint making lesson plan, students follow a recipe with vegetable oil, eggs, pigment, paintbrushes, and more to make their paint.