Teachers Guide on ART teaching, analysing, exploration from Art Stuff web

Teachers Guide Dear Visual Arts Teacher, Welcome to the Art Stuff web site… There are many ways you can use the information on this site. Send the students to it and let them browse, or set specific topics for them. Note, I have not set the site up with an one curriculum or course type in mind as the aim is to cover a range of art areas, however I feel sure you will find topics and information that can be adapted to suit your particular curriculum and course requirements. Here are a few suggestions for setting topics for your students, perhaps think of them as starting points to their learning about the wonderful world of Visual Arts.

Contemporary artist interviews – There are links on here to a sister site with full on interviews with artists. Brainstorm with the students the sorts of things they would like to know about practicing artists, what questions might they ask and so on. Then show them this site and the links to artist interviews, they can then find out things about each artist and perhaps search for similarities. Then discuss their findings. Consider how looking at the interviews could be a great lead in to an excursion to an art gallery or to encourage them or their parents to go to galleries on weekends and holidays. Chat to the artists – Some of the artists interviewed will readily reply to the comments people add in at the end of the interview, so they can write a response to the artist’s interview. Note that the comments are moderated, so it gets approved by the admin team first to stop spammers and inappropriate information being added. (It might take a while for the artist to reply mind you… To get around this you can go directly to their sites and email them.) Create artist links – Most of the artists interviewed have their own website, students could create a list of links to the sites of the artists work they find of interest to them, they could extend on that by exploring the artists site and writing about what they like about the artist and why. The possibilities are endless here, students could also evaluate the value of an artist having a site, and which sites work better. Creative strategies – There are a range of techniques around creative strategy development the students can explore, this can be a fascinating area for students to get into to find ways forward if they are in a creative slump or to explore ways around how the creative brain works. You could do a brainstorm to get some ideas started before they jump in and tackle these topics.

Art Theory – There are a number of aspects of Art theory some Teachers find challenging, perhaps it’s evaluating an artist or looking at some aspect of Art and Culture… Check out the articles for a suitable starting point, head the students to it and give them some questions to explore the information deeper. It may well lead them to searching the internet more deeply once they have used this as a starting point. Art Galleries – Exploring art galleries is one thing but finding out more about the smaller contemporary galleries is another. There are a few articles in here on the galleries and thoughts by gallery directors, (it’s my aim to add more over time.) students could utilise this information to find out more about how galleries operate and their differences.

Analysing Art - Another aspect of Art Theory. there are some ideas in here that might be useful for the students to explore. It can lead to a great discussion and a brainstorming session to glean from the students starting points to art analysis. Explore these ideas and create your own, if you have an idea or three that could be of value to others let me know and I will add them in, just drop me a line.