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Why art is important

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Why art is important | Katerina Gregos | TEDxGhent

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Chagall

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Se7en Discover the Great Artists: Marc Chagall - se7en

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A Couple of weeks back I showed you how we studied art... We provided an outline post for covering the Great Artists with Leonardo Da Vinci. This week we learnt about Mark Chagall... What a wonderfully versatile artist... We had such fun exploring his art...

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Picasso

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We love doing kids art projects in the style of great artists for the bimonthly Kids Get Arty series. This month we had fun doing an easy Picasso for kids activity - cubist-style portraits!

We went online and studied lots of different portraits that Picasso had done. We talked about the differences between his work and portraits done by other artists and looked at other cubist style portaits to find similiarities. The 4 year old, 6 year old and I all practiced drawing faces with big lines, different shapes, and varied proportions.

Then tried their own! My 6 year old chose Picasso's Head of a Woman (1960) to copy. They used oil pastels and art canvas paper from CraftProjectIdeas.com. They both loved the effect of the oil pastels on the canvas paper, my daughter thought she was just like Picasso!

My 4 year old chose Picasso's Self Portrait (1907) to try.

While the kids both enjoyed the project it was interesting to see that my 4 year old felt much more comfortable drawing in this style than my 6 year old did. She wasn't as pleased with how hers turned out and had more trouble stepping out of her daily drawing comfort zone and trying something new. This is why I love the Kids Get Arty series so much, it is a great way for us (the kids and me) to take creative risks and expand our art knowledge. I definitely recommend doing it at your house too!

We displayed their art in these cool cardboard frames I had made for our front room. I drew whimsical frame shapes onto large pieces of cardboard with oil pastels, cut them out and colored them in, so easy! Then I used Command Poster Adhesive Value Pack, 48-Strip s to stick them to the wall. The kids art work is just taped on and can be changed out whenever they want. We love how they turned out!

There are lots of art projects already linked up so go and see what others did this month and then try some of your own! It's lots of fun!
Disclaimer: CraftProjectIdeas.com provided me with the art canvas paper for free, but all opinions are mine. This post also contains Amazon affiliate links.

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Picasso for Kids: Cubist Portraits | Coffee Cups and Crayons

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We love doing kids art projects in the style of great artists for the bimonthly Kids Get Arty series. This month we had fun doing an easy Picasso for kids activity-- cubist-style portraits! We went online and studied lots of different portraits that Picasso had done.

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Warhol

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Hooray, it is time for Kids Get Arty again - the bi monthly challenge to get you exploring Great Artists and their art with your children (read more about it and see our previous projects HERE). Please only link up ART PROJECTS today. Crafts will be back next week! This month we are looking at Andy Warhol Art. Andy Warhol, with his pop art in bright colours, has been on our Great Artist to do list right from the beginning. There are so many ways you can explore Andy Warhol Art with kids, and I am sure we will come back to him again in the future.
This article is now also available in German: Andy Warhol Erforschen.
RED TED ART TV

Personally, I remember learning about him at school (*cough* all those years ago) and just loving the symmetry and process of repeating images over and over again. It was the first time, I went home and created my "own artwork" outside the class room. Though, I know Andy Warhol's work is about much much more, the element that attracted me as a child was that the same image was used over and over again, but in different colours. I also liked that he took every day objects and made them into art.
Spot the 2nd flower picture from the left on the 2nd row... What is different about it?
So it is that element that we focussed on in this project. I picked Andy Warhol's Flowers, as I thought it would appeal to Pip Squeak too.

And now I am going to be super lazy and quote Gallery Warhol:

The simplicity of the image, bright and flat, meant that these instantly accessible paintings were easy to serialize. Warhol had declared his wish to be a machine and to remove himself as much as possible from the artistic process and from the work of art itself. Between June and July 1964, his "Factory" studio became an assembly line dedicated to the fabrication of Flowers. As photographs document, Warhol worked on the Large Flowers paintings himself, but he employed a legion of assistants to manufacture an estimated total of 900 smaller Flowers, finishing as many as eighty per day. "Friends come over to the Factory and do the work with me," Warhol said.
"Sometimes there'll be as many as fifteen people in the afternoon, filling in the colors and stretching the canvases." (Op. cit, p. 193).

Andy Warhol's Art Project with Kids - our process

1) I took one of Andy Warhol's Images from the internet and edited out all the colour. Ironically (?) or interestingly (?) this is something that Warhol did himself. He saw a photograph by Patricia Caulfield and copied it - she saw this and was not happy. A law suit ensued and he had to pay her a fee ( source). A cautionary tale in using original photos in your work. After that Warhol took many of his own photos.

Painting

2) As I was working with young children (=short attention spans), I thought the idea of Warhol's factory "workers" was ideal. We would ALL contribute to the finished artwork. We even had friends join in who visited. Pip Squeak straight away went for reds and pinks. We used tempera powder paint and are very much still learning how to use it! First we applied it to thickly.. and then later learned to make it more watery. It was a fun process for us all. The Englishman did 2, Pip Squeak did 2, Red Ted 4, I did 1. The next day a friend and did 2 and I did another. However, I had switched computers and for some reason the second day's print outs were marginally larger. So we created two collages with them, instead of one.

The arrangement is as important as the individual art pieces themselves.

3) I cut out all the paintings and discussed with Red Ted how to arrange them. We had noticed with Andy Warhol's flowers, how often one flower was "out of place" - i.e. turned by 90 degrees or printed in a different way. Red Ted liked this. So he put his four paintings together and turned them by 90 degrees relative to ours.

Our Andy Warhol Art inspired Art

4) And then we hung them up. One set is in our bedroom and another in the hallway. (Space issues more than anything else).

Lovely! We really did enjoy this "communal" project and how it took the pressure off the individual and still how much control we had over the finished artwork.

Also time to revisit our little Preschooler book on Andy Warhol (though it does NOT contain the Flowers artwork):

Andy Warhol's Colors By Susanna Rubin This is great little board book that will also appeal to toddlers. It is a nice child size and it has some wonderful Warhol reproductions in it. Like the Dog ( You Are So Little) and Cat. They are surprisingly child friendly drawings and with pop art brightness perfect for discussing and discovering colours. A very sweet book and one I can read with a 1 year old AND a 3 year old AND enjoy as an adult. Perfect! Because of it is clean simple pages, this would make a great book for exploration prior to an art project.

Check out more Art Books for Kids.

S o.. now it is your chance! We would love to see what Great Artists you have been exploring with your kids and how you approached your arty projects! Come link up. Kids Get Arty is co-hosted by The Imagination Tree, Imagination Soup, Creative with Kids, Tinkerlab and Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.

Disclaimer: by joining the Kids Get Arty linky - you give us permission to highlight any projects on Red Ted Art or share your art ideas on Pintrest - we will always link to your site! If you have been arty with your kid's please link up!
I can't wait to see what Art Projects for Kids you did!

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Hooray, it is time for Kids Get Arty again - the bi monthly challenge to get you exploring Great Artists and their art with your children (read more about it and see our previous projects HERE). Please only link up ART PROJECTS today. Crafts will be back next week!

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Seurat

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It's time for Kids Get Arty! My favourite series on the entire planet! For real! It's a time we get the smalls together and study a great artist that is new to us! It's a time where we can visit other blogs and see which artist they've been studying.

It's also a time when I call my big sister and her boy E. They are my sources of inspiration when it comes to "the greats."

This time, they suggested Georges Seurat. Um...who's that? Seriously, I had no idea! E said he was a Pointillist and that the smalls would be really good at it. So now I had two things to figure out...who Seurat was, and what the heck is a Pointillist?

Once I looked him up and viewed some of the images, I recognized his paintings. Especially this one... It's called Un Dimanche a la Grande Jatte, and it is painted entirely with little dots of paint. Which brings me to the answer to my second question...

What is Pointillism? So there you have it very simply. And now we'll get to our project and how I introduced it to the smalls.

We gathered around the computer and we viewed some of Seurat's paintings together. Here are some of their reactions...

"Holy moly! That looks REAL!"

"Those are all DOTS?"

"That must have taken a million years!"

Needless to say, they were impressed. We headed down to our art room to create our own paintings using the Pointillism technique.

I set up make-shift easels for the smalls out of cardboard boxes. This way, each child had their own space to paint and they would have a good view of what they were trying to create with tiny dots of paint... Most Pointillists will use oil paints, as they will not run and drip down the canvas. I just used tempera paint with very little water... Each artist was supplied with bright colours on a palette with q-tips for blending and applying to their paper... They wasted no time in getting started... We talked about some of the things that Georges Seurat believed about colours and the way they could make you feel... Even our smallest Pointillist enjoyed herself at this activity... The older kids worked and worked, blending colours and giggling as they surprised themselves with a new combination!

The two big kids worked on their Pointillism masterpieces for 2 whole hours... They were so proud of their work, they wanted to take it to school for Show and Tell.

Thank you for joining us for Kids Get Arty today! We'll be back for another artist 2 months from now! Can't wait! If you click on the Kids Get Arty badge below, it will take you to Red Ted Art, where you can learn more about this series and even join in the fun!

Thanks for stopping by!
~Arlee, Small Potatoes

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The Great Artist Georges Seurat... A Study in Pointillism

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"Some people say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science." ~Georges Seurat It's time for Kids Get Arty! My favourite series on the entire planet! For real! It's a time we get the smalls together and study a great artist that is new to us!

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Klee

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Well, this Kids Get Arty project, was driven by Red Ted's homework - he was "doing" Paul Klee at school, which came in rather handy for our Kids Get Arty session. I love Paul Klee myself (his Red and White Domes where one of the first "Art posters" I owned as a Teenager), I thought that all the patterns and colours he uses would really appeal to the children - Red Ted in particularly. I also thought it would be a great opportunity to try out different mediums and bring them together. This arty session ended up as a session of exploration and we tried out different things as we went along.

To start off with, we looked at some artwork of Paul Klee's online:

Twittering Machine

Watercolour & Pen & Ink Oil Transfer on Paper

RED TED ART TV

(I thought this my appeal to Red Ted, as he likes to draw with pencils)

Sinbad the Sailor - Paul Klee

(I thought Red Ted may enjoy the excitement of this picture and that it could possibly translate well into creating a creature of his imagination in patterns and colours)

Senecio - Oil on Gauze

(Red Ted mentioned that they had looked at this one in school... and it is a favourite in school cubism teachings)

As per our other Kids Get Arty projects, I asked Red Ted lots of questions - about the picture - what do you think it is about? What do you think it means? What do you like about it? What can you find? What can you see? What shapes are there? What colours? Which picture do you like best? How does it make you feel?

I confess, that compared to some or our previous projects, he was less than enthusiastic - maybe because this time it was part of his homework? I am not sure! We persevered and I think it was Pip Squeak who really enjoyed this art session.

I talked to the children about how Paul Klee:

Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a Swiss-German. He created many of his paintings at home on his kitchen table, which is why they are all relatively small. He is now considered one of the most inventive artist of the 20th Century. Paul Klee loved experimenting and exploring colours and loved using colour to express how he felt or tell a story in his paintings. He loved using watercolours, but tried out all sorts of different mediums - oil paints, ink, pastels, pen, etching - often combining them to see how they worked together. He love to experiment and was very inventive in his work (this bit rather appealed to Red Ted!). Paul Klee was also very musical.

As Paul Klee really enjoyed exploring colour - and how colours mix and blend into each other, as well as watercolours, I thought a simple "watercolour colour wheel" project was a good place to start - this would give the children a chance to use watercolours, see how they can mix and blend ON the paper, as well as experience the wonders of colour theory (one my favourite things ever):

I helped Pip Squeak with her circles, Red Ted did his own.

Then I wet the paper for them to help the water colours mix.

The children ONLY used red, yellow and blue from their water colour pallet.

I did have to help Pip Squeak a little to get the colours blending a little on paper. She then wanted to do a "black center" and also added a little man at the bottom of her work!

It was great practice in using watercolours too - we do get them out every so often, but the children had to practice to load the brush properly with pigments and were still learning that "adding lots of pressure" to the brush to do so, wasn't necessarily the best way of doing it.

Don't you just love how the same art activity results in such different results?!

We then looked at Paul Klee's pictures again. And had several different goes at them. My favourite by far (mainly because of Pip Squeak's enthusiams) was her go at "faces" (or Senecio shared above). We used tempera paint, instead of watercolours, as the "large sheet of paper" was intimidating to Red Ted. A shame though, as the effect of oil pastels and water colours are far more striking than oil pastels and tempera paints!

Pip Squeak ADORED having a go. She even stood up on her chair for a lot of her painting to really reach out. I think it was a great experience for her and Paul Klee's "child like" art really appealed to her. She had great fun with this session and it was wonderful to paint and draw and use large pieces of good quality paper.

Red Ted, worked on his more reluctantly. But interestingly incorporated details from different pieces of Paul Klee art - on the right you have one of the fish, whilst on the left a "Paul Klee Face". I think Red Ted's art would have benefited from focusing on water colours, as they would have worked better with the oil pastels, but he was frustrated by the "slow progress" of water colour on such a large sheet of paper. I still think it was a valuable experience in different mediums and it has made me think about using "big pieces of paper" more with him.

S o.. now it is your chance! We would love to see what Great Artists you have been exploring with your kids and how you approached your arty projects! Come link up. Kids Get Arty is co-hosted with Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.

Disclaimer: by joining the Kids Get Arty linky - you give us permission to highlight any projects on Red Ted Art or share your art ideas on Pintrest - we will always link to your site! If you have been arty with your kid's please link up!
I can't wait to see what Art Projects for Kids you did!

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Kids Get Arty: Paul Klee for Kids - Red Ted Art's Blog

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Well, this Kids Get Arty project, was driven by Red Ted's homework - he was "doing" Paul Klee at school, which came in rather handy for our Kids Get Arty session. I love Paul Klee myself (his Red and White Domes where one of the first "Art posters" I owned as a Teenager), I thought that ...

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Matisse

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Kid's Get Arty Link-up is a bi-monthly linky, all about exploring art and the great artists, having fun together and there are no right or wrongs - perfect! It's hosted by some fabulous blogs Red Ted Art,and Mom 2 Posh Lil Divas, and we're very excited to be joining in. Do stop by some of these blogs and see some amazing and creative ideas linked up.

Shoeshine currently loves cutting with scissors so I thought it would be perfect for us to explore the 20th century artist Matisse and his technique of creating art with paper cutting, often described as "Drawing with scissors". Although much of Matisse's great works were painting, his later life was marked by an enthusiasm for creating art with paper cut outs, instead of using a paintbrush or pencil he did his drawing with scissors. He is also regarded as one of great artists of the twentieth century for his use of bold and vibrant colours. He said; Instead of drawing the outline and putting the colour inside it... I draw straight into the colour'. The colours he used were so strong that he was advised by his doctor to wear dark glasses!

Matisse (top from left) La Gerbe (1953), The Sorrows of the King (1952).
(bottom from left) The The Snail (1953), Icarus (Jazz) (1947) and Snow Flowers (1951)

Together we had a look at some of his works of paper cutting, as Shoeshine is only 2 years 10 months we focussed on looking at mainly about different colours and shapes (currently we're working on not every colour being named pink!) Each picture he created was around a theme and interestingly Matisse usually worked with only 2 or 3 colours and used tints (white added) and shades (black added) of those colours to compose his pictures. Also his use of both positive and negative shapes is notable, as Matisse often used both the cut out shape and the remaining scraps of paper for his collages.

I gave Shoeshine a selection of coloured paper, scissors and glue and she got busy creating a collage of cut outs.

Using scissors is a brilliant activity for developing their fine motor skills.

It's good to encourage them to put the glue on the back on the shapes rather than all over the paper.

Although I wasn't always listened too and sometimes! We talked as she cut and glued about the colours and what other colours she might like to add.

As Little Chick is older (4.5 years) we talked about using the same colours but different shades and tints and we looked at what some of his pictures were about, the snail and the snow flowers. She found it really difficult to grasp that you could create a picture that didn't actually look like a real life version of what is was meant to be. She also found it really hard to have a go at 'drawing with scissors', she wanted to draw with a pencil and then cut out, she also wanted to create exact copies of some of his works.

To take a different angle I got our vase of tulips, as she particularly like Matisse's La Gerbe. I don't usually go for still life stuff at this age, as they can freeze and feel that their picture doesn't look 'real' enough for them, so we mainly talked about the flowers, I encouraged her to look at their shapes and the colours and describe them to me to encourage her to create her own picture using her scissors. I got some more shades of the colours she had chosen and sat with her doing a picture myself and talking as we did it together. She started some cutting out some shapes but didn't really want to do it then, so we left it all out for her to come back to over the rest of the week. Which she did and here's her picture of a vase with a tulip in a garden with butterflies and daffodils. I left out the paper, glue and scissors on a small table so they could return to it any time they wanted and over the week there have also been numerous other paper and glue shapes and mini pictures produced as spin offs from this activity (and lots of bits of colured paper round the house!), as Chick and Shoeshine have incorporated some of the ideas into their play and art in their free play time.

And here is my attempt at paper cutting art of the tulips (after reading all about Matisse's art I couldn't resist having a go myself!)

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Kid's Get Arty Link-up is a bi-monthly linky, all about exploring art and the great artists, having fun together and there are no right or wrongs - perfect! It's hosted by some fabulous blogs Red Ted Art,and Mom 2 Posh Lil Divas, and we're very excited to be joining in.

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Klimt

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Welcome to the first of "Kids Get Arty" series. This were Red Ted and I start exploring The Great Artists together. It is a way for me to "rediscover" art and for Red Ted to see and explore art. I have put together some Arty Resources for you, from other art projects to art picture books to tips, to help you on your journey.

MORE Art Project for kids here!

I decided that we would explore Klimt as our "first Great Artist" project with Red Ted (4). I thought that all the gold and beautiful colours, as well as shapes and patterns would appeal to Red Ted.

RED TED ART TV

I have two books to support our session (affiliate links added for convenience).

Klimt and His Cat, by Berenice Capatti (US/ UK) and Gustav Klimt, a Painted Fairy Tale (US/ UK). I am not sure I would recommend that you bought either - gettng them from the library would be better. But we enjoyed reading them, looking at the pictures and combined they were really good for this project. Klimt and His Cat - is more a picture book telling us the story of Klimts life and a little bit about what he was like (generous, loving life and art), whilst The Painted Fairy Tale, was great for its reproductions of key works. It is a book for an older child doing an art project on Klimt.

The Art Project

We focussed on Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1, as well as The Kiss - they are both richly golden and full of intricat patterns - which I thought would appeal to Red Ted. The next time however, I will let him choose the painting to focus on. It took Klimt 3 years to complete this painting - a fact that really fascinated Red Ted and helped us in our "3 session" approach. What we also "enjoyed" reading about, is that Klimt played with Adele's initianals and hid "B"s and "A"s in the painting. A great way for us to explore the painting - especially as Red Ted is now really interested in the alphabet (see all our Handprint Art!!)

The Project

Our approach can be summed up with:

We used a view finder

Asking lots of questions

We decided on making this a PRINT PROJECT (potato prints & corks)

Creating three layers - revisiting the project 3 times over several weeks

To help Red Ted, I cut out a crude "view finder" - a square of card, with another square cut out. What I found, aged 4 (or any age), is that he is overwhelmed by a "whole picture" - "where do you start?" - "Mummy, I can't paint this" etc.. A view finder, helps you focus on details of the painting. So we were able to look at the painting as a whole, but also bit by bit.
The Questions
1) Shapes can you see?

2) What colours are there? Are there any more? Which is your favourite colour?

3) Show me where you can see it?
Red Ted particularly liked the shapes - the ovals, triangles and circles, as well as the rectangles. He was less bothered by the squares.
Klimt Art Project - Materials

DIY Viewfinder,

gold, silver, black, burnt sienna acrylics,

Layer 1: potatoes - cut into triangles, rectangles, squares and circles.

Layer 2: cork printing

Layer 3 - sharpie pens

Klimt Art Project - What we did

1) I cut the potato shapes - after asking Red Ted what shapes he would like.

2) Get printing. The downside of potatoes, is that they are a little slippery and if you don't get the surface totally flat, they don't always give you a nice even print. I don't mind this, but Red Ted did. So you may want to experiment - be it with potatoes, or foam, wood block pieces anything you can find around the home, that could make a good stamp!

3) After completing one layer, we put it aside to dry.

Whilst painting, Red Ted asked me:

Why does Klimt like painting?

Why does like gold so much?

How did Klimt learn to paint?

How old is Klimt?

Why does Klimt like cats?

Why did it take him 3 years to paint this?

How do you get that shiney bit [in the background]?

Needless to say, I didn't have half the answers... sometimes I asked him back "Why do you think...?", I came up with guesses ("Maybe he liked gold, because it is so shiny" "Maybe he had cats as a child?") and sometimes I said a simple "I don't know, but doesn't that make Klimt even more interesting?". We then revisited the story book. Whilst Red Ted used up all the colour in whatever way he felt like.

He said of the painting Portraite of Emilie Floge "Mummy that is like you, you have curly hair too". I asked "is it a pretty painting?" Red Ted "Yes"... (phew).

It was well over a week later before we sat down to work on our second layer - mainly due to time and other projects on the go - but also find, revisiting information over time, is a better way to reinforce it and hopefully some of this information will be stored on Red Ted's head somewhere for future use! I am sure are both learning about printing techniques!

When we came to do our second layer - we had an interesting discussion about "texture" - and how all our stamping created textures on our painting. Red Ted also asked why Klimt liked gold so much. I didn't have the answer, so asked Red Ted, whether he liked gold - to which I got "gold is my favourite colour". We also had the opportunity to talk about layering a picture. "Why does Klimt do that, Mummy?" my answer "Because it gives him the chance to add more detail and make the painting look more interesting".

We used the same basic shapes - circle, square, triangle - but made them a little smaller. I love how exploring Klimt gave us the chance to look at shapes again.

This time we also used a cork for circles - we found that potatoes can be so slippery.. but stuck with them on the squares and triangles. I think Red Ted enjoying printing with the cork the most this time round. But overall we found it easier!

Finally, when it was dry, we revisited the paintings and with a black pen added details, such as small dots, swirls and triangles.

What do you think? I think he did a great job and definitely knows a little more about Klimt (as do I!)

S o.. now it is your chance! We woould love to see what Great Artists you have been exploring with your kids and how you approached your arty projects! Come link up. Kids Get Arty is co-hosted by The Imagination Tree, Imagination Soup, Creative with Kidsand Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.

Disclaimer: by joining the Kids Get Crafty linky - you give us permission to highlight any projects on Red Ted Art and Creative with Kids or share your craft ideas on Pintrest - we will always link to your site! If you have been crafty with your kid's be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, please link up!

What Famous Artists do you love most - and have inspired you to create Art with Kids?

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Kids Get Arty: Exploring Klimt - Red Ted Art's Blog

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Welcome to the first of "Kids Get Arty" series. This were Red Ted and I start exploring The Great Artists together. It is a way for me to "rediscover" art and for Red Ted to see and explore art. I have put together some Arty Resources for you, from other art projects to art picture ...

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Lichtenstein

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Welcome back to our bi- monthly Kids Get Arty project! Every two months, we explore a Great Artists - today we have Lichtenstein - in a child friendly manner. We looked at Lichtensteins artwork and then had a go in "the style of".. remember, it isn't about copying the artwork, but exploring the technique and style of the artists. It is a great way to talk about real artists to children, talk to them about the process of art and introduce famous paintings to them. We started Kids Get Arty projects a bit over a year ago - with a Klimt for kids project and I am learning a lot about making the art project interesting for my children. If I do not "hit the right note", they just don't want to do it! Fair enough. I think the main thing, is to try different things, and discuss different artists to land on a project that they may want to do (I tried Kandinsky first.. but no.. little interest)!

Red Ted has this big "worry" about getting things "wrong". This is of course part of the whole "process vs product" debate and I do understand that some art projects can be restrictive if you say "first you have to do this, and then that". I do believe however, that sometimes it is good to put some structure around and art projects, so long as there is scope for creative freedom within it. Afterall, learning skills and techniques is still part of art. Because of this, I decided to show him Lichtensteins artwork as we went along with our project. I knew that if he saw it first, he would get frustrated with his own work. So we started our project, took a break and then researched Lichtenstein on the computer.
Materials: 2-3 large scale but relatively simple photographs of the family/ children, tracing paper and pen - we happened to have some acetate sheets and marker pens, but tracing paper should be just fine, ideally a photocopier to make copies, paint and in our case Qtips instead of brushes
RED TED ART TV

1) The aim of our art session was to break down our "normal picture" into a comic picture. Clearly my kids are two young to do this free hand. And to be honest, I am not sure I could do it either. So I thought it would work really well, if we used a large print out of one of their favourite photos and use that and tracing paper to draw the outlines.

I worked with Red Ted, holding the acetate in place for him and talking him through the process - "can you follow the line that makes the teddy's arm? and go round the nose and then the ears" etc. I think it really helped him, as he was a little nervous of doing this. And even tried to rub things out (which just made a big smudge). I reassured him along the way, that he was doing a great job and that small "mistakes" really don't matter but add to the final artwork. Though I think he found this step a little "stressful"... he actually asked to do another picture later in day and really enjoyed creating the outlines for the second picture - i.e. I think he felt he had learnt a new technique and felt much more confident about everything.

2) I then photocopied the outline to give us paper copies to work on - It was fun for him to see that we could now produce more than one picture this way and is a great way to reinforce part of how " Pop Art " is often about reproducing the same image over and over again. Pip Squeak also got a copy of Red Ted's work.

3) It was now time to get colour and paint. We went online to look at some of Lichtensteins Artwork. Below is our exploration of Lichtenstein art. But let me finish the project description for you first. We tried to only use primary colours, red, blue and yellow, as well as some white and black. Red Ted REALLY wanted to use a little green too, so I let him (well, it is HIS artwork afterall). I did discuss that when you print comics, in the old days it was done by overlaying different coloured tiny dots to achieve different colours. To get pink, you need to do tiny red dots on white etc. So, Red Ted using Q-tips dotted the face and arms and painted the rest (again with Q-tips, he loved using them as brushed). Pip Squeak also had a go.

The final result DOES look a little bit like an explosion of chicken pox. Clearly our dots are a little bit big, but we had fun doing it. Red Ted also made me take the painting "as far away as possible", so he could see if it started looking a little bit more pink....

4) The only thing that is "missing" would be a signature, tongue and cheek "speech bubble". We didn't get that far in our project (it was a sunny day), but I wonder if I can get Red Ted to think up of something simple and expressive to add in the coming days!

As mentioned above, an hour or so later, he asked if he could do another one and chose a favourite holiday snap to paint. Lovely.

Pip Squeak generally seemed less interested, (unusually so), I think she thought we were doing "homework" and left us to it!

Red Ted's "additional" project. Top Tip: if you are using acetate like us. MAYBE use a wipable marker, so that IF there is a mistake that really frustrates you child, they can wipe it away.

LICHTENSTEIN FOR KIDS

Roy Lichtenstein is an American Pop Artists (check out our Andy Warhol project from previous Kids Get Artys). Lichtenstein liked to represent emotional matters in an impersonal manner. He also based his artwork on existing comics, adverts or wrappers - and recreating small elements in a large (huge) scale.

Whaam! - Tate Modern - sadly on our visit to the Tate Modern, this piece wasn't currently on display! I do hope we get to see it in the future some time!

When we chose the photos above, we chose photos that meant something to Red Ted - one was of him with the school bear about a year ago. The other was a picture of him on our holiday last year. Lichtenstein simplifies the emotions in his artwork - so it is important for us to use pictures that mean something to us.

By tracing only Red Ted and his teddy, we are emphasising an highlighting the important part of the photo. The rest disappears and doesn't matter.

Looking at Lichtenstein's work, you can also see that he only uses primary colours (very occassionally you will see a little green in use), but in essence you are working with red, blue and yellow and of course white and black - this is mainly because Comic strips used to be printed in this fashion - overlaying different primary colours to achieve new colour combinations.

I asked Red Ted how you make "pink", he said with red and white (good boy!!). So to get a "pink" colour in a Lichtenstein painting - you need to red dots on a white background. Then if you step very far away, it starts to look pink. Well, in theory anyway! Our artwork looked a bit more like chicken pox, but still, it is all about the discussion.

Lichtenstein Make Up
Whilst researching different pieces of art, Red Ted was totally taken by this website -that recreated Lichtenstein artwork in "real life". I think it also made him feel differently about his own "chickenpox" paintings and think abut how the pictures were being created.

Roy Lichtenstein's Eye
"Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn't look like the painting of something, it looks like the thing itself" Roy Lichtenstein
Red Ted was fascinated by some of the details and also by the fact that Lichtenstein seemed to "do a lot of girls" and "not so many boys" (why, Mummy?!). I am hoping that we do get to see a real Lichtenstein soon, as I also want to show him how BIG they are. i.e. not A4 or A3 sheets of paper, but large scale paintings. I wonder if it would be easier for him to then see some of the "dots".

S o.. now it is your chance! We would love to see what Great Artists you have been exploring with your kids and how you approached your arty projects! Come link up.

Disclaimer: by joining the Kids Get Arty linky - you give us permission to highlight any projects on Red Ted Art or share your art ideas on Pintrest - we will always link to your site! If you have been arty with your kid's please link up!

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Kids Get Arty: Lichtenstein for Kids - Red Ted Art's Blog

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Welcome back to our bi- monthly Kids Get Arty project! Every two months, we explore a Great Artists - today we have Lichtenstein - in a child friendly manner. We looked at Lichtensteins artwork and then had a go in "the style of".. remember, it isn't about copying the artwork, but exploring the technique and ...

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Robert Rauschenberg

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Born in Port Arthur, Texas, Rauschenberg served in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1945 before studying art, first at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1947-48, then briefly in Paris, at the Académie Julian, in the summer of 1948.

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The J. Paul Getty Museum

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The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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LACMA's collections encompass the geographic world and virtually the entire history of art with more than 100,000 objects dating from ancient times to the present.

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Rijksmuseum

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Rijksmuseum, het museum van Nederland, in Amsterdam. Kunst en geschiedenis van de Middeleeuwen tot Mondriaan.

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Google Arts & Culture

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Nationa Gallery of Art

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Open Access Policy for Images of Works of Art Presumed in the Public Domain

With the launch of NGA Images, the National Gallery of Art implemented an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). Users do not need to contact the National Gallery for authorization to use these images. They are available for download on nga.gov object pages. See Policy Details below for specific instructions and notes for users.
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If an image of a work is not currently available under open access, it is for one or more of the following reasons:

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To inquire about image availability, please contact us at [email protected] , please include the accession number, artist name and title of the work of art in your e-mail.
Background
The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by welcoming all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity. In pursuing this mission, we make collection images and information available to scholars, educators, and the general public to support research, teaching, and personal enrichment; to promote interdisciplinary research; and to nurture an appreciation of all that inspires great works of art.

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Users may download and reproduce-free of charge and without seeking authorization from the National Gallery-any digital image of a work in our collection that the we believe is in the public domain. These digital images are being released by the National Gallery under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

If an image of a work of art is not currently available under open access, it is for one or more of the following reasons:

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To inquire about image availability, please contact us at [email protected] , and please include the accession number, artist name and title of the work of art in your e-mail.
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The British Library

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The J. Paul Getty Museum

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Marta de la Torre, Margaret G. H. MacLean, Randall Mason, David Myers

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Heritage Values in Site Management: Four

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Books in the fields of art, photography, archaeology, architecture, conservation, and the humanities for both general and specialized audiences.

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The Solomon R. Guggenheim

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the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum : Free Texts : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive

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As a vital part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's mission as an educational institution, the Guggenheim Museum's Publications Department publishes books and catalogues to document its exhibitions and collections.

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The Met Museum

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Books with Full-Text Online | MetPublications | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Over 450 full-text art books by The Metropolitan Museum of Art available to download and read online for free.

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The impact/s of using art in English language learning classes

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Art has always been an effective tool for teaching and learning among various classes of people. When combined with reading, writing, speaking and lis...

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The J. Paul Getty Museum

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Resources for the Classroom (Education at the Getty)

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Explore resources for the classroom, such as lesson plans for grades K-12 and adult ESL learners, lesson guides, and activities.

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U.S. Department of State

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The possibilities for drawing activities with English language learners are endless. Drawing can be done with very few materials and can be used to enhance a wide range of classroom topics, themes, or subjects. Drawing can reinforce vocabulary, provide practice for grammatical structures, and can offer a creative impetus for meaningful language use in oral conversation practice.

This section contains six lesson plans focusing on the simple present, simple past, information questions, imperatives, and prepositions of location focusing on beginner to intermediate proficiency levels.

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Create to Communicate: Art Activities for the EFL Classroom

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The possibilities for drawing activities with English language learners are endless. Drawing can be done with very few materials and can be used to enhance a wide range of classroom topics, themes, or subjects. Drawing can reinforce vocabulary, provide practice for grammatical structures, and can offer a creative impetus for meaningful language use in oral conversation practice.

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There was a unit on shopping we were recently working on with my sixth grade primary school students that triggered the idea of showing them Vincent Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters" and relating it to poverty.

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I have periodically shared links to lessons on using art as a language-learning activity, and have published some of my own. I thought it would be useful to start compiling them here, and to invite readers to contribute what I hope are a whole lot more.

I'm excluding music lessons from this list since I have several separate ones for them:

A Collection Of "The Best..." Lists For Sites Where ELL's Can Create Art
The Best Music Websites For Learning English
The Best Online Sites For Creating Music
The Best Online Karaoke Sites For English Language Learners
Not "The Best," But "A List" Of Music Sites
The Best Places To Find Lyrics On The Web
The Best Sites For Ideas On Making Simple Musical Instruments

You might also be interested in The Best Resources Discussing The Importance Of Art In Education - Help Me Find More.

Here is a beginning Best Resources For Using Art As A Way To Teach & Learn English:
Videos: Using Art As A Language-Learning Activity
Using art in the classroom is from ELT-Cation.
Five Reasons to Teach English Using Art
Art Least is "A site that explores art & creativity in ELT."

Chain Drawings is a nice lesson from The British Council.

Create to Communicate: Art Activities for the EFL Classroom is from the United States Department of State.

From my NY Times posts for ELLs: Students separate run-on sentences in this interactive about International Dance Day, and use it as a model for creating their own. In addition, they can view a variety of dance videos and write a compare/contrast essay.

Developing English Language Skills through Dance from ArtsConnection on Vimeo.

@Larryferlazzo Here are some resources 4using art in ELA http://t.co/xDdAUxBi3R & http://t.co/4fMISyCUo8 pic.twitter.com/l50kCaPoay

- Trevor Bryan (@trevorabryan) July 9, 2015

Teaching English Through Art:Reflection on a MOOC sessionis from Art Least. Thanks to Michelle Henry for the tip.

Language through Art (Beginning Level) (ESL Enrichment at the Getty) #elchat #artsed https://t.co/1C6Mi46Wb5

- Heather Wolpert-G. (@tweenteacher) October 16, 2016

The Artistry of Teaching and Arts Integration: Why Your ELs Need You to Embrace Both is from Paridad.

How to Teach English to Beginners Using Art is from Think English.

I'm looking forward to lots of new suggestions from readers!

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The Best Resources For Using Art As A Way To Teach & Learn English - Help Me Find More

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I have periodically shared links to lessons on using art as a language-learning activity, and have published some of my own. I thought it would be useful to start compiling them here, and to invite readers to contribute what I hope are a whole lot more.

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Finding the Story inside the Painting Here's a lesson plan I developed inspired by the ITDI sessions given by Debora Tebovich and Roseli Serra on storytelling and the use of video and images in the classroom. It is based on Tracy Chevalier's TED talk Finding the Story inside the Painting.

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I have always been very interested in the association between Art and Learning. Teaching with art. In my workshops and presentations as a teacher and sales trainer, I usually try to illustrate my sessions with slides containing pictures of famous paintings or sculptures to make a point. The reaction of the audience is invariably positive. I started then to think about the power of the pedagogy or andragogy (training adults) that incorporates art works as some form of context in the specific field of English language teaching. These are some of the reasons to expose learners to art I came up with. The list is by no means exhaustive, and I would appreciate your help in adding your ideas to this blog in the comments section at the bottom.

1. Fun: art is fun. Fun makes learning easier. We all know that whenever leaners are enjoying an activity their level of engagement rises and, therefore, they spend longer stretches of time focusing on the topic. Considering the goldfish-like attention span of most people today, due to the overwhelming amount of information they are bombarded with from all sides, this is already a victory in and of itself.

2. CLIL: most teachers are familiar with this acronym that means Content and Language Integrated Learning. It's been around for some time now. It only means that language should be taught within a specific context, as a means to an end, rather than as a metalinguistic process. Learners acquire a second language more effectively if they come across real or contextualized uses of it: in a text, a listening passage or a video clip, for example, so they can concentrate on the message as much as on the medium. The length of exposure to the topic may vary: the longer the better. This means that if you teach, for example, history or math in English for a whole term, the learners might develop a better grasp of the language than if you had used fragments or decontextualized sentences to focus only on the language itself. Art, therefore, lends itself perfectly to the job, as it provides a wonderful canvas (pun intended) to design innumerable language activities on.

3. Emotions: Krashen, the linguist, warned us against psychological barriers that, when up, prevent the linguistic input from reaching our innate language acquisition device. The classroom environment must be as free as possible of pressures and inhibiting factors to be more conducive to learning. Art can be a great help in creating this atmosphere of calm and relaxation learners need to internalize input. But it also keeps them alert, due to its positively emotional impact, which is also a necessary condition for language acquisition. Besides, beauty makes the language more memorable.

4. Flexibility: teaching English based on paintings and sculptures lends itself to all kinds of activities across language levels, catering for different kinds of learning styles. Of course the impact is huge for the more visually oriented learners. But if you add a listening comprehension task about the piece of art or aesthetic movement you are discussing, or have, for example, learners work on some kind of hands-on activity as a follow-up - such as putting the pieces of a puzzle together, producing their own art work, or making a collage on the theme - you will be equally catering for the auditory and kinesthetic learners.

5. Personalization: learning is all about personalization. People have individual learning paces, varied kinds of intelligences, diverse learning styles and interests. Art and its many manifestations allow for different meanings and interpretations. The same work of art fosters different reactions and emotions in different people. Teachers can tap into this. Allowing open-ended responses to a speaking or writing activity based on a painting makes for solid and effective methodology.

Both teachers and students profit enormously from the inclusion of art in their English lessons. Most people are not really exposed to fine art, despite all the technological means to reach it we have at out disposal today. So, in addition to all the reasons listed before, we, as teachers and educators, will be refining the learners' aesthetic taste, opening up a whole world of discovery and instilling a wish for self-improvement in them.

If you want to see some practical examples of English lessons using art, we have some ready-made plans on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/jorgesetteelt

For those of you who are English Teachers and love art in general, we offer a wonderful collection of supplementary eBooks for the students to practice vocabulary, speaking and writing, based on the works of famous painters: TEACHING ENGLISH WITH ART. The series is comprised of 8 books so far, and features works by Matisse, Picasso, Caravaggio, Monet, Norman Rockwell, Vincent van Gogh and Winslow Homer. For further information on how to download the materials, please click here: http://wp.me/p4gEKJ-1lS

Check out this brief video on the material on TEACHING ENGLISH WITH ART: MONET:

Au revoir

Jorge Sette

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I have always been very interested in the association between Art and Learning. Teaching with art. In my workshops and presentations as a teacher and sales trainer, I usually try to illustrate my sessions with slides containing pictures of famous paintings or sculptures to make a point.