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Encouraging children to 'really look' is one of the great challenges for art teachers. Finding ways to get children to look beyond the literal and really explore a piece of art or subject matter can be tricky, but the benefits are enormous! Here are some ideas to encourage children to really engage with works of art that can also be applied to a new subject matter or topic.
Active Looking
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Negative Space
Look really carefully at a piece of art. Instead of copying the shapes, collect the shape of the spaces in between: the negative space. Overlap the different shapes you find to create your own abstract composition.
Shape Searching
Look at a piece of art and instead of drawing the shapes you see, cut them out of coloured paper. Look beyond the obvious shapes for spaces and interesting forms that are created when shapes overlap or obscure each other. Then, arrange your shapes to make an exciting abstract composition!
What can you see?
Ask children to collect picture clues that tell them the who, what, where, when and the why of the art they are looking at. You could use words if you prefer, but collecting images helps turn this activity into its own piece of art.
Which is the odd one out?
This is a great art starter to get children really looking at great works of art. Give the class a number of works of art and in groups, get them to decide and justify which one they think is the odd one out. It might be that you have already chosen why one of the paintings stands alone, but it could be that the children come up with a much better idea! This is just a brilliant exercise in looking, analysing, debating, comparing and talking about art and can be easily adapted to whatever art genre you might be learning about.
If you're wondering, the odd one out is the painting on the right of the middle row. It's a Lee Krasner in amongst four Jackson Pollocks. It would be amazing to see what you class would say though...
If you're wondering, the odd one out is the painting on the right of the middle row. It's a Lee Krasner in amongst four Jackson Pollocks. It would be amazing to see what you class would say though...
Spot the Elements of Art
Encourage children to really look at a piece of art and collect the ways that the artist has used the elements of art by recording visual clues.
Spot the difference
Two different paintings of two different women, painted 300 years apart. Many similarities but also many differences. This is a really good starter for your art lessons to get children really looking closely at an image and beginning to talk about the details that they uncover when they spend time observing a work of art. You could begin with a discussion about the similarities and differences between the paintings, but then move onto thinking about the artists themselves and how their lives and experiences would have been different too. When trying to develop children's theoretical and disciplinary artistic skills, these kind of discussion points help children use their artistic vocabulary as well as their inference and critical thinking skills. Try this with your class, you will be amazed at the things they come up with!
Art Scavenger Hunt
Really look at a piece of art work... use these clues to collect things from the work of art that you might not have seen before and draw them on your sheet.
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