Art is all about exploring, appreciating, and enjoying the richness and diversity of our cultures. Artful thinking is an analytic approach through which we get to explore this cultural diversity.
Cross curricular integration of art is therefore a way to help students apply artful thinking in conceptualizing the world around them. Art enables students to acknowledge the multiple ways of thinking and to recognize that certain forms of human expression are better captured and represented visually.
[ Related: Best YouTube art channels for teachers and students]
In this post, I am sharing with you this collection of some of the best resources to help you integrate art in your teaching. I invite you to check them out and share with us your feedback.
Art Resources
Here are our top picks for art resources:
1. Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture is definitely one of the best art resources to use in your teaching.The site offers a wide variety of materials and services that include exhibits which are guided tours of the world museums curated by art experts, the ability to search for and locate nearby museums and exhibitions, Pocket Gallery (visit immersive art galleries to explore artwork up close), Art Projector (enables you to see how artwork looks in real size), 360ยฐ videos to help you explore cultural artifacts in 360 degrees, virtual reality tours of world class museums, Street View to help you tour famous sites and landmarks, games to learn cultural literacy, and many more. You can also use Google Arts & Culture to teach cultural literacy.
2. Getty
Getty offers a wide range of tools and materials to help with the study of art and cultural heritage. These include over 1000.000 artwork images, books, archives, and several other resources.
There is also a section for K-12 teaching embedding resources tailored specifically for the education community including lesson plans, class activities, museum educators, professional development, online interactive experiences, museum programs for all ages, internships, grants, summer programs for teens, and many more.
3. The Art Story
The Art Story is an art website that helps you develop a better understanding (and eventually appreciation) of art through detailed guides and explanations of masterpieces and artwork.
More specifically, you will be able to access information about artists, learn about the different art movements (e.g., impressionism, performance, The Baroque, etc), and explore art concepts (e.g., The Readymade, Renaissance, Humanism, Collage, etc). You can also use the site’s timeline feature to track the chronological developments of different art movements and concepts.
4. Art Encyclopedia
Art Encyclopedia provides access to a huge collection of educational resources covering everything related to art and its history. Examples of resources include art history, best modern painters, sculpture, photography, world art, museums, art appreciation, timeline of art, prehistoric art, renaissance, painting, A-Z of art movements, analysis of famous paintings, and many more.
5. WikiArt
WikiArt is an online repository of world’s visual arts. The site features over 200.000 artworks by 3000 artists from all around the world. Art resources provided by WikiArt include art movements, art schools and groups, art institutions, artwork genres and styles, short films, and many more. WikiArt is also available as an iPad app.
6. Artble
Artble is another excellent art resource ‘where you can find unique information about artists from many different art periods. Take your time to view and appreciate the art whilst navigating through the pages, reading about history’s greatest art works and the fascinating lives of their creators.’
7. The National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art provides access to numerous art resources to use in your classroom. These include lesson ideas, teaching resources, interactive activities, tools and apps, and many more.
The site also features ‘more than 150,000 paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photographs, prints, and drawings spans the history of Western art and showcases some of the triumphs of human creativity. Across 363 days a year, the National Gallery offers a full spectrum of special exhibitions and public programs free of charge.’
8. Colossal
Colossal is a website that offers resources on contemporary art and visual culture. ‘Colossal is designed to serve as an online gallery of visually spectacular artwork, while seeking to educate and inform rather than criticize or interpret. Through this effort, Colossal is used as inspiration and instruction in classrooms across the arts and sciences from grade school through graduate school.’
9. DeviantArt
DeviantArt is an online community for artists and art enthusiasts where they promote and share their artwork. Members upload tons of artwork everyday covering everything from anime and film to painting, sculpture, pixel art and digital art. DeviantArt also provides ‘the tools, resources, and exposure to enable them to become better, more successful artists.’
10. KinderArt
KinderArt is all about art resources tailored specifically for classroom use. There are art lesson plans, crafts, teaching ideas, art activities, and many more. Lesson plans are thematically organized by topics. There are lesson plans for painting, drawing, sculpture, art history, collage, printmaking, architecture, drama, multicultural art, and more.
For instance, the Musical instruments section features lesson plans to help teachers integrate music into their art lessons. Likewise, the Sculpture section offers lessons that help students learn how to create beautiful artwork using wood, paper, tape, metal stones, foam, etc.
11. Art History Teaching Resources (AHTR)
AHTR is a platform dedicated to art history teachers. The site embeds a wide variety of resources related to art history teaching including lesson plans, book review, introductions to museums, image clusters, classroom and museum activities, and many more.
Also, AHTR ‘promotes discussion and reflection around new ways of teaching and learning in the art history classroom through a peer-populated blog, and fosters a collaborative virtual community for art history instructors at all career stages.’
12. Doodle Academy
Doodle Academy offers visual art curricula that support teachers in their integration of art in teaching. The purpose of Doodle’s resources is to help students develop creative thinking and be able to use multiple ways of thinking and representation. Doodle Academy’s philosophy ’embraces unique and individual art projects rather than step-by-step tutorials.
Too much art education revolves around projects that focus on product and not on process, erasing student individuality. Our content is designed to allow students to tell their own stories and to create highly individual art projects.’
13. OER Commons
OER Commons has this collection called Arts Integration featuring a wide variety of art resources to use with students in class to help them ‘construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form’. You can search and filter OER resources bu education standards, subject area, education level, material type, language, and providers.
A sample of these art resources include: Arts Integration in Elementary Curriculum (this is an open textbook that covers the theoretical foundations of arts integration in education, among others), Capturing Light: The Science of Photography (e.g., ‘Students create and use pinhole cameras to understand how artists use and manipulate light to capture images in photographs.’), Counting on Art (e.g., ‘In these lessons students will explore the paintings of Horace Pippin and Wayne Thiebaud and the mobiles of Alexander Calder to discover and practice math and visual art concepts’), and more.
14- YouTube Art Channels
Check out this collection of some of the best YouTube art channels where you can access video content everything related to art teaching and learning. Most of these channels are created by fellow art teachers and educators and include how-to-videos, guides, tutorials, lesson ideas, and more.
15- Pinterest Art Boards
This is a collection of Pinterest Art boards I curated to help teachers make the best of art in their instruction. Resources shared in these boards cover classroom art decor, art lessons, art posters, art project ideas, and more.
16- Best Art Books for Kids
Check out this collection of some of the best books to introduce kids to the world of art and help them develop key artistic skills. From learning to draw and paint to discovering the different ways art can be used to create inclusive learning spaces, these books will help kids unlock their art gene and render their art learning a fun and engaging experience.
Final thoughts
Artful thinking is a transformative approach that encourages students to explore and appreciate the diversity of human culture and expression. With the integration of art across curricula, students learn to see the world through a multifaceted lens, acknowledging the many ways of thinking and expressing that transcend words. The resources highlighted in this blog post provide a wealth of opportunities for educators to enrich their teaching with artistic insights. From Google Arts & Culture’s virtual tours to the hands-on experiments suggested by Science Bob, these tools open up new avenues for creative exploration and cultural literacy.
