This past weekend we took a family field trip to our local Art Museum for a new children’s program. The first Saturday of each month they will be presenting a famous artist and then the children are led into a classroom to do an art project of their own. This past weekend they did a 20 minute cartoon presentation on the coloful art of pop artist Andy Warhol and made their own pop art masterpiece. Next session they will be discussing some of Leonardo DaVinci’s most famous paintings and the children will get a chance to mimic him.
This gave me an idea for an art class at home where we can pick one major artist to learn about each week and dive into their life, art styles, and create our own masterpieces based on their artistic influence. Some suggestions for artists to study are Leonardo da Vinci, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, and the art of Origami. For the elementary aged students, you want to keep the artist interesting but the art captivating and colorful.
I would recommend also looking at your local art museum to see if they offer any types of childrens programs as well. At our museum, this program was included in our regular admission.
Cool blog…Last year with my second graders, we did an author’s study on Eric Carle. They loved it! We read most of his books throughout the week, and then the kids created their own pictures. We used bright colored tissue paper that they cut into pieces to make it look like his style of art.