Vincent Van Gogh

I was in my new school today and there on the wall was the ubiquitous print of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh and it got me to wondering. Why is it that nearly every primary school I have been in recently seems to have some artwork by Van Gogh somewhere on its walls? I'm not complaining you understand, just wondering what the reason is for his popularity with this age group.

Perhaps it is the way he used lots of bright colours and pure hues. Perhaps it is the way his brushstrokes are clearly visible and invite copying by even the most reluctant of young painters. Perhaps it is the gory story of how he cut off his own ear.

Anyway, while I was thinking about this I cam across a version of Don McLean's excellent song "Vincent" (which is possibly the best song about an artist and his works) by Josh Groban. Some kind person has posted a You Tube video of this with a slide show of some of the artist's paintings. The fades between images are particularly well-timed in this one so I thought I would post it for anyone bored with the McLean original (though I can't think why anyone would be).

Take One Picture

Every year the National Gallery in London runs its "Take One Picture" scheme for primary schools. The idea is that one of the paintings from its collection is chosen to be used both in art and other curriculum areas leading to a display of submitted work at its annual "Take One Picture" exhibition. This year the gallery has chosen one of my favourites: J. M. W. Turner's The Fighting Temeraire of 1839.

Full details of this year's scheme, which runs until November 2008, can be found on this website. The "Across the Curriculum" section contains a number of cross-curricular ideas that have been used successfully in the past as well as some examples of the artworks produced by schools. The gallery offers a one-day Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course to help teachers get to grips with the possibilities offered by the painting.

The Getty Museum

The Education section of the website run by the Getty Museum in California has a number of promising areas including some lesson plans, resources, games and their TeacherArtExchange listserv (as mentioned in a previous post). You can get to the site by clicking here. The games and lesson plans cover more than just art so it might be worth looking through for ideas.

Claude Monet

This week, to tie in with looking at water-themed topics in numeracy and geography we are going to be doing some watercolour paintings based on the French Impressionist Claude Monet's Water Lily series of paintings, which he completed at his house in Giverny in the last 30 years or so of his life. While looking for some pictures to give to the children to inspire them to produce their own water lily paintings, I came across a wonderful website with images of Monet's paintings. I have added it to my links but you can also get to it by clicking here.

The images are organised by time, place and theme so it is very easy to find anything you want and all of them seem detailed enough to reproduce. I just love the way the pictures constantly change to give you an idea what is on each linked page. If you go to the site's home page you will find a number of other links about the painter, his life and works. Check it out.

If you want ideas on what to do as an activity, some have been submitted to the Getty Museum's TeacherArtExchange website and you can get to it here.

kidsart

I've added a new link, this time to kidsart, which is a non-profit making website where kids and schools can have galleries to showcase their art. The link will actually take you to their own links and resources page, which is worth checking out as their tips are short, to the point and very child-friendly.

The Victorians

Someone was asking me about ideas for incorporating art into a history unit on the Victorians. In a way there are far too many things that could be done but, after giving it some thought, I thought that doing something on the Arts and Crafts Movement, and William Morris in particular, would be suitable.

There is a good web resource on the movement here, which provides short info-bytes on the main personalities involved as well as links to galleries, museums and collections that house some of their work. William Morris used a lot of natural forms in his designs so he is an ideal subject for spring and summer. If you want to find out more about him and see some examples of his work then why not take a look at the website of the William Morris Society, which can be found here. If you want to see an idea of how to use his work to inspire art projects then there is a good display available on the website of St Nicholas Church of England Community Primary School in Warwickshire, which you can get to by clicking this. Why not cut designs into polystyrene tiles and then use them as printing blocks to create your own wallpaper designs?

You can get more help on using William Morris in teaching from the Education Department of the William Morris Gallery here, including an Inspired by Nature resource pack, which is free to download and suitable for key stage 2 pupils.

Otherwise, to find out more about Victorian art there is an excellent links page here. This site (the Victorian Web) is, in part, funded by the National university of Singapore and there are links on most areas of artistic endeavour: design, architecture, photography, sculpture and fashion. Personally, among my favourites, are the cartoons from Punch on subjects ranging from politics to women and children. It is well worth browsing for both history and art ideas.

How to videos

For those of us who need a little help with our art techniques there is an American site I've discovered called Expert Village, which has a whole section dedicated to art here. There are videos on a very diverse range of topics from art and craft projects suitable for Foundation classes, through basic how to draw sessions to more sophisticated painting and sculpting videos. Its well worth browsing through this website and none of the videos I've looked at have been very long. Best of all, its completely free!

I've also found the videos on You Tube (though its probably better to get them from Expert Village themselves). Here's Debbie showing you how to make thumbprint art: