Teaching News » Art

Cyberkidz

markwarner — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:38:48 +0000

Cyberkidz is a Dutch ‘edutainment’ site with lots of educational games, covering Maths, Literacy, Geography, Art, Music and more. The games are sorted by subject and age range, suitable for children aged 4-11.

www.cyberkidz.net

The site has recently been translated into English, so even more children are now able to take advantage of these resources.

Let’s Draw

markwarner — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:56:04 +0000

Tony De Saullese has been illustrating Scholastic’s Horrible Science series since it started in 1996. He currently visits a lot of primary schools, libraries and literature festivals where he holds Horrible Science Drawing Workshops.

Tony has recently started a new “LET’S DRAW!” YouTube channel which has six videos showing children how to draw: a crocodile, a dinosaur, a dog, a cat, a snail and a fish. The cartoon drawings are created using simple lines so that children can copy the image as it appears. A teacher can hit the pause button at any time to allow pupils to catch up.

You can view the rest of Tony’s videos and subscribe to receive future updates at http://www.youtube.com/user/TonyDesaulles

The Art Classroom

markwarner — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:44:29 +0000

The Art Classroom is a wonderful blog about art and design in secondary schools. It is run by David Dunlop and shows the day to day workings of an art classroom.

There are lots of examples of student work, as well as unit plans and ideas for other schools to try. Take a look and leave some comments about the work that is shared.

One Million Giraffes

markwarner — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:49:42 +0000

One Million Giraffes is an online project in which one person is hoping to collect 1 million giraffes by 2011. People are sending pictures of their giraffes (which can’t be created on a computer) and at the time of writing, the collection has reached over 250,000!

Could your class get involved?

Ask each child to draw one giraffe… or maybe more! This could be as part of an Art activity or set as homework.
Think of creative ways of making giraffes… they don’t have to be hand-drawn but they cannot be made using a computer.
Explore the giraffe images on the site… how were they made? Could your pupils create their own giraffes using similar techniques?

Get your pupils involved and have one of their giraffes as part of the million!

Tony Hart dies at 83

RossA — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:07:30 +0000

Hartbeat presenter and artist Tony Hart died yesterday, aged 83. He had suffered from ill health, including two strokes in recent years, and died peacefully in the early hours of the morning, according to his agent.

Hart inspired generations of budding artists over his 50-year television career through programmes such as Vision On, Take Hart and Hartbeat, before retiring in 2001 due to ill health. His agent, Roc Renals, said his health had recently been in decline and he had been taken to hospital with a chest infection. He described Hart as a "kind man" who was single-minded in his dedication to his work.

"Tony inspired many thousands of young people to take up art. His ability to inspire was his greatest gift," he said. "He was always ready to communicate with the many people who wrote to him and gave his time very willingly. He loved his work and was totally dedicated to it, and was always able to come up with new ideas and techniques."

You can watch a tribute to Tony Hart on YouTube.

Mosaic Competition

RossA — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:12:07 +0000

The British Association for Modern Mosaic (BAMM) is running a mosaic competition which is open to primary school aged children.

The
competition is called MEGA MOSAIC MAKERS 2008 and it is
nationwide. They are aiming to raise the profile of mosaic art in
schools, with the principle of getting children interested at a young
age. It is open to groups/organisations/workshops who work with
children under the age of eleven. Both teachers and students are
awarded prizes, which have been provided by the sponsor, Topps Tiles.
There is a group and an individual category.

This year’s entry is open from now until 7th Nov 2008, and work can have been completed anytime in the last three years.

Link: http://www.bamm.org.uk/portal/content.asp?ContentId=1103

Find your talent

RossA — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:08:00 +0000

Ten areas around the country are to pilot the Government’s £25 million Find your Talent programme to give young people the chance to encounter a range of high-quality cultural experiences for five hours a week both in and outside of school. Children in the pilot areas will be able to discover and develop their talents in the cultural sphere.

In time, the Government wants all young people to have the right to experience five hours of arts and culture every week.

The ten lead organisations chosen as pilots are:

• Bolton Borough Council;
• The Creative Foundation (serving Shepway District and including Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh);
• Customs House (North and South Tyneside);
• Hampshire County Council;
• Leeds Children’s Services;
• Leicestershire County Council;
• ‘Liverpool City Region’ Partnership (serving three Merseyside neighbourhoods);
• North Somerset;
• Telford and Wrekin Council; and
• Tower Hamlets.

The pilots will trial different ways of offering young people a range of cultural experiences both within schools and in professional art settings. Different approaches will be used, based on partnerships between schools, local authorities and arts organisations, so that creative practitioners will spend time in schools, as well as children getting the chance to gain experience outside the classroom.

The areas, from 141 that applied, will become the first Find Your Talent areas and build on existing investment and experience, currently taking place around the country.

Find your Talent will include giving young people the chance to:

• perform on stage and attend top quality performances, exhibitions at museums and galleries, and heritage sites;
• get hands-on experience of the creative industries including film making, radio and TV;
• learn a musical instrument, and take part in a musical performance in front of an audience;
• produce creative writing and appreciate authors and how they work;
• learn about – and practise – new media and digital art; and
• develop art and craft skills.

ArtisanCam

RossA — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:30:00 +0000

Using ICT in ART lessons can be difficult – but by having a look at ArtisanCam on the Interactive Whiteboard or suite, you can really inspire the children and use ICT in the art lesson rather than for producing the art. This superb site is suitable from KS1 right up to KS4 and beyond. For me the best part is the Activity zone.

I can’t list everything here that is worth visiting – but some of my favourites are the ‘Figure it Out‘ for drawing bodies, charcoal drawings with Louise Bradley and the movies and interviews with Andy Goldsworthy my favourite artist.

Link: http://www.artisancam.org.uk

2012 Olympic Art

RossA — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:35:00 +0000

With all the controversy about the 2012 Olympic symbol what better time than to challenge the children to design their own.

Joe emailed a link to http://www.fubra.com/london2012/ which allows you to upload your own 2012 logos and then vote. Why not upload some from the children and see if they can fair any better than the one unveiled!

A great mini challenge for the children.

Art safety warning

RossA — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:12:37 +0000

The school science advisory service, Cleapss, has sent out a warning to all schools and local authorities about the dangers of mixing plaster of Paris with water by hand. This was sent out after it was confirmed that a teenage girl had to have most of her fingers and thumbs amputated because
of severe burns caused by mixing plaster of Paris by hand during a (secondary) art class.

Be warned!