Painting with and Learning From Art History - Extend the Composition

Budding artists study the history and significance behind ancient mosaics and mosaic murals. They study multiple examples of ancient mosaics, sketch a design, and use clay tiles to create thoughtful mosaics of their own. 

This activity provides a wonderful scaffold for those learning how to analyze art in a critical and thoughtful way. It describes what art historians do, then requires learners to view and analyze one of the listed works. Twelve questions...

Who knew you could paint with glue? After first adding liquid water color paints to bottles of white Elmer's glue and applying them to paper, students of all ages are then challenged to use their imagination and creativity to draw in...

Insolubility and density? Yup, it's art class, of course. To create insoluble paintings that continually move and change, kids mix water-based paint with mineral oil and seal the mixture in laminating pouches.

This is a terrific art analysis worksheet that has kids thinking critically about art, symbolism, and history. They answer several questions regarding basic art elements and then delve into a thoughtful analysis.

Aqueducts and amphitheatres, frescos and friezes, statues and stila. Etruscan, Roman, and Hellenistic art and architecture of the focus of a 154-slide presentation designed for AP art history and humanities classes. 

Pointillism is the focus of a lesson that asks young artists to compare Vance Kirkland's painting style with aboriginal dot art, and then to produce their own piece of dot art.

The painting Three Young Girls circa 1620, was believed to be painted after the death of the subjects' mother. Art enthusiasts analyze the image details to determine if they come to the same conclusion. They then use the sensory details...

Students investigate the use of soil, an important natural resource in artwork. They experiment by crushing soil particles and adding the different color samples to artist acrylic to create true "earth colors". Using this paint, they...

Where to begin? The art of the Italian Renaissance is such a rich topic, with new techniques, new styles, and an emphasis on new subject matter. Images created by the greats such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Botticelli are...