Art Explorers: A Study of the Past

Oglebay Institute in the past 6 years has provided quality after-school arts programming to many locations in the Ohio Valley. These art programs provide essential learning skills such as problem-solving, creative self-expression, life-lessons and teamwork. The professionally trained staff develops programs based on curriculum standards and objectives but in a manner that is fun, interactive and hands-on.

Oglebay institute’s latest program is a traveling Art History exhibition called “Art Explorers: A Study of the Past ”. This program can be implemented into any after-school program (i.e. school, church, community center, art center, youth group) by a person of any authority (i.e. clergy, parent, youth program director, scout leader). Art Explorers: A Study of the Past will consist of 10 significant movements in Art History. Each movement will contain 10 to 12 framed ready to hang art prints representing the work of significant artists or artworks from these different periods in history. Also, with each movement in Art History there will be four art lesson plans developed to supplement West Virginia’s Content Standards and Objectives. The lessons will be easy to use by showing and explaining in a step-by-step format. Each lesson will relate to the art movement by creating projects that mimic the styles of that time period. For example, the Pop Art Movement will have a lesson where students will create a print plate of an image and repeat the image in different colors similar to the style of Andy Warhol. Materials of an unusual nature such as patterns, tools, inks, clay, and more will be included with the lessons. The basic materials that the user will need are:

  • Pencils         
  • Scissors         
  • Glue           
  • Copy Paper or Drawing Paper
  • Rulers       
  • Markers   
  • Colored Pencils        
  • Crayons


Time Periods for After School Grant & Lesson Ideas
1.Prehistoric Art (24,000 – 332 B.C.)
  • Cave Painting: make your own pigments with berries, dirt, etc. Create a picture using crumbled butcher paper and images of animals of that time.
  • Egyptian Cartouche: make a clay cartouche that will spell your name in hieroglyphics.
  • Pyramids: Construct a cardboard pyramid and a group project where you build a pyramid out of cans or blocks.
  • Sarcophagus: make one out of clay and carve out the center to make the body
  • Head Dress: make the White Crown of Upper Egypt or the Red Crown of Lower Egypt
2. Greek and Roman (800 B.C. – 300 A.D.)
  • Architecture: make and learn the different columns out of paper towel tubes or out of construction paper.
  • Pottery: create Greek coil pots out of clay and design a picture using the handout.
  • Pottery: create Greek coil pots out of clay and design a picture using the handout.
3. Middle Ages (550 – 1000 A.D.)
  • Colored Stain Glass: using symmetric balance cut tag board out to make designs and use colored cellophane to represent the glass.
  • Castles: create the tag board castles with the copied pattern.
  • Knights and armor: create a Knight’s helmet and a coat of arms using poster board. 
  • Tapestry and Medieval Book Art: Make a Book of Days by using the style of the medieval monks using calligraphy and illuminations.
4. Renaissance (1400 – 1525 A.D.)
  • Michelangelo: Paint a fresco plaque use plaster and watercolor paints. Make a drawing of the creation hands then use the cartoon transfer technique to make the drawing complete.
  • Leonardo da Vinci: Select one of his invention ideas and using cardboard, paper, string, glue and any other materials you need to put it together to make a model.
  • Raphael (Mother and Baby and Perspective): Draw a picture using the Renaissance Triangle or the Tondo for circular pictures and make the Mother and Baby (with angles if they want). Also try one point perspective drawing as in the School of Athens.
  • Albrecht Durer (Wood Block Prints): Make wood block print plate using balsa or pine wood and metal pieces and small hammers to pound the in the design.
5. Impressionism (1860 – 1900)
  • Claude Monet: Monet’s Garden using sponges to paint and tape as stencils to block out paint for a fence or bench.
  • Edgar Degas: use chalk pastels to create a picture in the Degas style.
  • Pierre-Auguste Renior: Use oil pastels to create a landscape similar to the style of Renior.
6. Post-Impressionism (1880 – 1915)
  • Vincent van Gogh: Use black construction paper and construction paper crayons show how to create his technique then recreate one of his pictures
  • Paul Cézanne: Use old magazines or colored papers to find colors to recreate one of his pictures using his style of blocks of colors.
  • Georges Seurat: Using Q-tips paint in his style and try creating the primary color cards to see if his technique works.
7. Surrealism (1915 – 1950)
  • Paul Klee: create cubist works using a grid method to achieve it. Make a drawing 1st then draw a cube grid over it then color in the squares different colors.
  • Marc Chagall: I and the village style landscape drawing were students will turn their drawing a ¼ turn draw a image then keep turning till all side are complete.
  • Rene Magritte & Salvadore Dali: create a surreal landscape, person, or animal by using old magazines and colored pencils.
8. Pop Art (1950 – 1975)
  • Roy Lichtenstein: enlarge a comic strip from the Sunday newspaper by using the grid method.
  • Andy Warhol: Foam printmaking project were students would reproduce the same print in different colors to get the same result as Warhol did.
  • Wayne Thiebaud: Using kool clay dough, create food sculptures similar to the way Wayne painted food. 
9. Op Art (1955 – 1973)
  • Victor Vasarely: create a checkerboard design using vertical lines and circles to design a colorful optical illusion design.
  • Students will create two pictures then cut them into strips and glue them down using the every other method.
  • M.C. Esher: Tessellations will be cut out then traced to the style of Esher.
10. 20th Century Sculpture
  • Alexander Calder: Wire sculptures twisted and shaped in the of a human figure
  • Henry Moore: Use soap or balsa wood to create a subtractive sculpture
  • Javacheff Christo: Transformations of objects from nature or junk to something new by using rope, fabric, tape, etc.
  • Claes Oldenburg: create a soft sculpture by enlarging everyday objects to larger than life.

 

 

 

 
Contacts
Rick Morgan
Oglebay Institute
1330 National Road
Wheeling, WV 26003
304.242.7700