Students will analyze "Man with a Hoe" by Jean-Francois Millet, and learn how the artist's use of shape and space creates emphasis. Students will discuss their interpretations of the painting and provide visual evidence to back up their ideas. They will create a persona poem that demonstrates their interpretation of how the man in the painting feels. Students will then illustrate their understanding of how shape and space creates emphasis by drawing a person in their family who works hard.

Students compare and contrast a photograph and a photo-collage depicting the same highway and write a descriptive composition of both images. They identify one-point perspective in works of art then draw a desert landscape using one-point perspective.

Students will learn about the work of illustrator Elizabeth Zunon. Zunon calls herself “a global artist" because she grew up in Ivory Coast, West Africa, and would spend summers in Albany, New York, with her American grandparents. She loved reading and drawing and decided to combine her two passions to tell stories for children. Today, Elizabeth is a successful children's book illustrator and author. In the related activity, students will work with drawing, painting, and collage to create an illustration of their own. The video and discussion will take one class session. The art activity may take several class sessions.

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For more studio tours and other arts content from WMHT, visit AHA! A House for Arts. AHA! A House for Arts features the stories of artists, makers, and creative institutions right here in our backyard and across the country. A celebration of all things creative, AHA! features everything from the traditional to the innovative.

This resource was created by James Parks, in collaboration with Dawn DeTurk, Hannah Blomstedt, and Julie Albrecht, as part of ESU2's Integrating the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education, practice, and coaching.

This project involves students solving an open ended question of exploring how different cultures around the world use art forms in their traditions.

This resource was created by Alison Pavelka, in collaboration with Dawn DeTurk, Hannah Blomstedt, and Julie Albrecht, as part of ESU2's Integrating the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education, practice, and coaching.

This resource was created by Michele Barcelona, in collaboration with Lynn Bowder, as part of ESU2's Mastering the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education and experiential learning. 

This resource was created by Staci Simonsen, in collaboration with Lynn Bowder, as part of ESU2's Mastering the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education and experiential learning.

Students will be singing the blues in this lesson in which they identify themes from "The Gift of the Magi" and write and present blues poetry based on those themes.

Examine the skills and materials needed by Jan Heath in order to use woodcuts to create prints.

Learn how Jane Frenke uses fabric, a sewing machine, and her creativity to create works of art.

This 19-minute video looks at artist Joan Miro. Celebrated as one of the greatest modern artists, Joan Miró— developed a visual language that reflected his vision and energy in a variety of styles across many media. This film examines the impact on Miró's career, of the Spanish Civil War, the fascism of the Franco regime, and the events of World War II, as well as Miró's sense of Spanish - specifically Catalan - identity. (The full 30-minute video is available to borrow).

Learn about the work of artist Roberto Juarez. Inspired by his memories of childhood, Juarez combines collage, painting, and printmaking to make large-scale artworks. In the related activity, students will work with these techniques to create their own mixed media piece. The video and discussion will take one class session. The art activity will take 3 or more class sessions.

More About This Resource
For more studio tours and other arts content from WMHT, visit AHA! A House for Arts. AHA! A House for Arts features the stories of artists, makers, and creative institutions right here in our backyard and across the country. A celebration of all things creative, AHA! features everything from the traditional to the innovative.

Students explore The Great Gatsby's allusion to art and its use of visual imagery and conclude their study by designing their own cover for the novel.

You may have never thought of pedaling your sofa down the street to visit your neighbors, but that was the idea behind DekoSofa, a kinetic, multimedia sculpture that traveled around BLINK, a festival of art and light held in Cincinnati. Festival-goers were invited to join one of the artists on the three-person mobile sofa, complete with coffee table and chandeliers. The entire rig was decorated with neon lights in the style of Japanese dekotora trucks (decorated trucks) and included a multimedia mural of a creature crawling out of the Chesapeake Bay.

Students are introduced to traditional folk music in this animation of the French song, “L'Arc en Ciel” which means "the Rainbow." Students learn the colors of the rainbow in French while following the adventures of a singing bumblebee.

When we view paintings and other works of art our eyes usually move across the surface of the canvas, hitting on various points, objects, and figures in the picture. In this lesson students will learn about repetition, one of the techniques artists often use to highlight important elements within a painting's composition, and to move a viewer's eye around the canvas, from highpoint to highpoint.

Let’s learn about the different building blocks of music: beat, rhythm, harmony, and melody. Using these building blocks, we can be brave musicians and make our very own musical sound. Join us while we experiment with the elements of music and then watch as our special guest, Ms. Foster, shows us how to build shoebox houses with everyday items we find around the house.

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Presented by VPM.

Songs and Stories with Mary and Mike uses music and story as the joyful pathway to learning for young children while integrating and modeling the state's new EC learning standards for literacy, math, and social-emotional learning as well as the National Standards for Music Education. The show forges connections across the greater community by featuring guest teachers, artists, musicians, authors, and community members. With every music selection, book selection, and guest spotlight, Mary and Mike strive for a rich, diverse, beautiful representation of all people and cultures. The message to beautiful learners is clear: they are loved, they are valued, and they can do amazing things.

Students write a friendly letter based on their observations of a painting by Poussin. They demonstrate their observation of the painting's content and new vocabulary that they access themselves, using a thesaurus.

San Francisco artist and author Jessica Hische has designed everything from chocolate lettering to Wes Anderson movie title sequences. Here she takes us into her design studio with a demo on custom lettering from pencil sketch to vector paths.