Customer Reviews

Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters (Bright Ideas for Learning)

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a former public school teacher, and now a homeschool parent, I can honestly say I've seen a great deal of art curriculum materials. This book stands hand and shoulders above the rest in terms of what it attempts to cover and the way it brings the great artistic styles into undestandable terms for children and their educators.

My only complaint (and what's kept me from giving this book 5 Stars) is that the black & white photocopies of pictures show so little detail of each artist. You really need to have a good full color guide to the world of art (showing at least one major work from each artist) to be able to use this curriculum effectively.

My hope is that the authors will consider this for future printings. If they do so, I think this will be the perfect art curriculum to teach both hands on art and art history.

This wonderful book features just about any artist you can think of (most of which I've never even heard of!). It's divided into four chapters: Renaissance & Post-Renaiisance, Impressionists & Post-Impressionists, Expressionists...& Surrealists (say what?), Modern & Folk Art. Each page features a different artist, with a simple sketch of the artist, a brief biography, and several ideas on how to re-create that artist's style. The only gripe I have, which is the reason it didn't get 5 stars, is that there are not nearly enough reproductions of the artists' best work. Many pages show only a picture drawn or sketched by a student in the style of the artist, which I found extremely unhelpful. What would have been great is if the publishers would have included a postcard-size reproduction of the best known artists. I ended up having to buy several other books with postcard-size reproductions to use in class. This book will give you a lot of great ideas, but it's not overly functional.

Intoduce your kids to the great artists by doing projects that imitate the artists style. For example, read a short paragraph about Michelangelo's life and then mimic his technique by lying on the floor and painting the "ceiling" above (tape paper to the underside of a table for the "ceiling").

This is a wonderful book for ways to spark an interest in both art as an activity and art history. I work with kids from ages 2 - 13 and this book has ideas that will work for most of that range. A variety of materials are suggested and the historical information helps bring perspective to the artists work, even for young minds. I highly recommend this for the home or school. I even bought one for my daughter's middle school art teacher for use at the school.

This book was very helpful in putting together my art studio curriculum. I teach fine and creative art to small children. I needed more great lessons to expand my classes...This book was so great that it dissapeared soon after my classes started...I have looked everywhere...and assume that it is a lost cause. I am here to buy a new copy. I highly recommend this book for teachers as well as parents. No child is too young to start exploring art! Especially with an enthusiastic adult!

As an elementary school art teacher, I refer to this book frequently when I need new ideas. It covers so many time periods and styles of art. Each page features a famous artist a small blurb about that artist, and an art activity. The difficulty of the projects range from easy to more challenging, and the prep time for the lessons range from a few minutes to more involved. It is easy enough to modify the lessons for different age groups. The back of the book has several cute art history games. I could even see this book being useful for scout leaders and after school programs. The only drawback is that there are no color photos of the artist or their work, so a good art history book or other source of color photos is essential.

I have been looking for a new ways to teach children about art, and this book had all that I was looking for and then some. I am very impressed with the stress on the process over the finished product and the wonderfully creative approaches used to teaching children about art. A terrific book!

I'm reviewing several of Kohl's books today, and this one is my favorite. Easy, common materials, creative, open=ended, and based on kids trying out the styles and techniques of the great masters from the Renaissance to the Present. I've learned so much! I love the little biographies because they usually tell something about the artist's life as a child. This is for allllllll ages. Including ME (age withheld).

I'm an adult and I can't wait to try these projects. Who says kids are the only ones that get to play and explore with art ideas? The Gaugin project looks brint and mysterious, and the Michelangelo painting on the underside of a table is a must do. So, let's have an art party and invite only people who like to have fun! (Besides, I'm to busy to learn about all these cool artists in big huge wordy adult books, and these great one- paragraph descriptions -- with a portrait sketch -- are perfect for me. Interesting too.)

We are using this excellent book at the basis of our art curriculum this year and next year in our homeschool co-op, involving boys and girls from age 7 to 14. Each week we learn about a different artist and do at least one project. The techniques taught have all been very well done; materials are easily found and the processes realistic for our small budget program, while being of high artistic quality, really helping our children deepen their understanding and art ability.

The teacher or the students research the artist, bringing in books or prints of his/her works as examples. The only shortcoming of this book is that only one example of the artist's work (OR of a child's work) is shown in black and white per page. We found that we wanted more input in this area to truly inspire the children's creativity. We have changed some of the projects to correspond to a holiday or specific interest of our children. For example, we used the projects in the book to make several kinds of holiday cards. We include social studies in our art study as this book is written in rough chronological order. Each student has an 11 x 14 sketchbook, a pencil case, and watercolor paper. We share our other materials and buy some materials as they are needed. Each student is keeping a timeline of the artists in the front cover of the sketchbook. We have assigned some drawing as homework during the week and in the fall each student wrote a report on an artist.

The techniques in this book could easily be used with younger children and, by adding the biographic and historical elements to the study, we are extending the curriculum into high school.