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learning about Famous Artists?

878 Views 22 Replies 21 Participants Last post by  rsps, 
M
Any ideas on resources, websites, or anything that is a fun creative way to explore famous art?

Anyone know of a place where I can get prints of some famous works of art? Not posters...something big enough for little one's to see but not as big as a poster.
I'd like to expose my dd's to different works of art such as work by Rousseau, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, etc.

Maybe we'll do our own activity inspired from the technique/style we learn about???

Any ideas?
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joensally
http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/bro...cat=AP&id=1888

My 4 year old son loves this book. It's also internet linked, and just last week we were on this cool site interpreting Kandinsky.
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Hera
I found a great one at the library a few months ago, but I can't quite remember what it was. It had pictures and activities, I think it might have been Myths by Ruth Thompson. I found a few things that look promising.

Look up books by:
Philip Yenawine
Joyce Raimondo
Ruth Thompson

Also, we've enjoyed one called Art Fraud Detective, it's a puzzle book.
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moominmamma
Mike Venezia's series "Discovering the World's Great Artists" are nice, light introductions suitable for the 6-10 set. If your library has them, they're terrific. It's a whole series of dozens of slim books, one for each of a number of artists.

My kids have also really enjoyed the Kohl / Solga book "Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters". Lots of great projects in here, along with background history and descriptions of the unique medium / style / subject matter / technique that the particular artist exemplifies. There are projects like making egg tempera from egg yolks, Q-tip pointillism, etc..

Hope that helps!

Miranda
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W
Start Exploring Masterpieces-It's a coloring book with a small description of each painting and the artist.
We also like books by Laurance Anholt -Degas and the Little Dancer, Camille and the Sunflowers- I know there are a few more.
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M
just scribin-
I want to put together a group class like this for our homeschool group
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S
If you google Pictures Every Child Should Know by Hamilton Wright Mabie It should bring up a link to the gutenburg project.Nice book fairly succint descriptions.I looked up any individual pictures on google images and print out nice postcard sized images to display or let the kids tuck in their notebooks to ponder on.Nice for art history.
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Callimom
This site has lots of famous art you can print off. Warning - it is quite slow even with cable/high speed.

My kids love the Katie series by James Mayhew and the previously mentioned Anholt books. There's a series of dvd/videos that are semi-biographical stories about the artists lives produced by the Devine Entertainment company.They are excellent and would be aimed at kids about ages 7+. My kids have also enjoyed the Kathleen Krull book Lives of the artists : masterpieces, messes (and what the neighbors thought) (this is a fun series which includes famous women, politicians, scientists, musicians etc).

I'd second the recommendation for the Kohl book Discovering Great Artists for project ideas.

Starfall ( I see your kids are young) has some simple story books about great artists and I believe some online activities.

HTH
Karen
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M
Thanks! I'll sort through all of these ideas.

My kids are young. They are almost 5 and 3.
They are very interested in this kind of stuff.
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P
To get art prints. I go to sites and save the image to my computer and get it printed as a photo.

We put one on our fridge for a couple weeks. I also set it as the background on the computer.
Then we keep them all in a binder in page protectors.

We're studying Matisse right now.
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U
There is a series of books for littles called "What Makes a Picasso a Picasso?", "What Makes a Matisse a Matisse?" etc etc. You get the picture. lol We've had fun reading those before museum visits, too.
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BurgundyElephant
Thanks for that link, Karen. I could spend days there. So many AMAZING pictures that I've never seen. I love the nursing Mama ones from the 1800's!
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D
I agree, that site is just awesome Karen, thank you! They have everything there!
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H
"Artistic Pursuits" is a very nice curriculum. We found used copies at homeschoolclassifieds.com.

www.artisticpursuits.com

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mary-Beth View Post
Any ideas on resources, websites, or anything that is a fun creative way to explore famous art?

Anyone know of a place where I can get prints of some famous works of art? Not posters...something big enough for little one's to see but not as big as a poster.
I'd like to expose my dd's to different works of art such as work by Rousseau, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, etc.

Maybe we'll do our own activity inspired from the technique/style we learn about???

Any ideas?
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S
Also, check with your local libraries. I have found lots of books that introduce children to famous works of art. I can't thnk of the names and I don't have the titles, but I feel like they're around the 500 section in the children's non-fiction. There was even one with "mathterpieces" in the title and it combined art and addition. These were all picture books.

And my 6 year old likes the Art Auction Mystery book -- you have to look at original artwork and compare it to the artwork you have for hte upcoming show to determine which one is a fraud, and how many mistakes were made, etc. I've adapted it a little to make it a little easier for him, but he can do it.
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J
3
We love these books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...rence%20Anholt

they are true stories about the artists themselves, adn you can see their famous works of art in progress or stacked about their studios


For Picasso, we also googled images and found photos of some of his art. We talked about how some of his pictures were all just diff shades of blue, got a 64 pack of crayons, seperated out all teh blues and purples, and coloured ordinary pictures using just those, looking at the photos online first each time to see how he used them to for effect. My 5 yearold got a huge kick out of it, then went on a "green" and "pink" set of periods too


Also, if you google for virtual museum tours, you will find many large famous art museums with free virtual tours where you can see famous works of art
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W
I use prints from old art calendars - cheap and just the right size.

enchantedlearning.com has a few coloring pages that are outline drawings of famous paintings - kind of interesting.

Some great books mentioned here. We also like the You Can't Take a Balloon... series by Jaqueline Preiss Weisman and a fun book by Marc Brown and Laurene Krasny Brown Visiting the Art Museum.
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S
My kids are really enjoying Child's Book of Art, by Lucy Micklethwait, and others of hers. They also liked Katie Meets the Impressionists, by James Mayhew, and there are more in that series too. There are several books by The NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, and they're lovely -- among the collection are one full of Mary Cassatt paintings called baby loves and another featuring works of Degas and excerpts from Anna Pavlova's autobiography called I Dreamed I Was a Ballerina, which is just beautiful beautiful beautiful. (I have a ballet-obsessed 5yo, LOL.)

Also AmblesideOnline.com has information with links to famous works, and a place where you can buy prints.
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M
You've already gotten some awesome suggestions, but I wanted to add a few more.


We have the book How to use Child-Size Masterpieces For Art Appreciation and I love it. The author is Aline D.Wolff and it's published by Parent Child Press. It's kind of pricy if you order all of the postcards (but you don't have to get them all at once, or even use theirs). It's quite adaptable for different ages (my 19 month old already does the first step and loves it).

We also have these great art games that are card based, but come with books. You can play games like memory and go fish, and I believe there are three different ones: Renaissance, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist. You can get them from www.BirdCageBooks.com. They are WONDERFUL, and what got my older daughter interested in art in the first place.

MoMA also has a series which is books on shapes, counting and letters that use works of art, and one called Van Gogh's Colors (I think that's the title), that are a lot of fun.

A History of Art for Young People might be a little advanced now, but my 13 year old is reading it and really enjoys it.

And last but not least (can you tell we love art?), I have had good luck with finding inexpensive art books in the bargain section at Barnes and Noble. My youngest has quite a few she enjoys looking at, and they are "nice", but since they were not expensive, we don't have to worry about them.
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M
Thank to everyone who has contributed ideas!

I have a lot to go through and consider, which is just wonderful!
As I look through these resources I might have follow up questions, for now I'm excited to start sorting through these and see what looks good for us right now.

Mary Beth
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