Art/Design Web Sites

20 Kids * 20 Kites * 20 Minutes
http://www.molokai.com/kites/20kidskites.html
Can a classroom of twenty students make twenty kites, and be outside flying them in twenty minutes? You betcha! Uncle Jonathan from the Big Wind Kite Factory on the Hawaiian island of Molokai shares the kid-tested instructions he's been using with tour groups for fifteen years. The kites are folded from 8 x 11 inch paper, so they are smaller than the usual kite, but the simple directions are easy enough for kindergartners, yet fun enough for big kids, too. Check out the link to Variations at the bottom of the page. This is a great project for April since April is National Kite Month.

Aaron's Awesome Adventure
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Aarons_Awesome_Adventure/index.html
This is a story about a boy who visits the Metropolitan Museum especially to tell kids that looking at art can be fun. The site will read the story aloud if you click on the mouth icon.

A Closer Look at the Seated Scribe
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/dossiers/detail_oal.jsp
Take a closer look at a work of Egyptian sculpture by viewing details of the work through a virtual magnifying glass. Accompanying commentaries and animations provide historical and artistic analysis. Useful in-context tools include a glossary of terms, a scale model, a related timeline, and many detailed insets.

Activity TV
http://www.activitytv.com/default.aspx
Children of all ages can learn and create a variety of crafts ranging from origami to jewelry. In addition, children can play games and participate in other educational activities by watching online video demonstrations.

African American Art
http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_AfAm/index.html
Here's another great website to help your students celebrate Black History Month. This site showcases one hundred years of African American art achievement . Artwork ranges chronologically from the Civil War era to the Harlem Renaissance, from civil rights struggles to the contemporary period. A click on a work of art produces notes about the author and his work. Art Access provides lesson plans for grades 6 through 12 and activities for families.

American Art Museum: Online Classroom Activities
http://americanart.si.edu/education/activities/online/index.cfm
"These American Art Museum online features contain interactive or media-rich assets that can easily be used by educators in the classroom. Students can learn by viewing media or taking part in various online activities."

America's Favorite Architecture
http://favoritearchitecture.org/
Scroll through zoomable photographs of 150 architectural wonders found in America and learn about America's architectural heritage.

A. Pintura, Art Detective
http://www.eduweb.com/pintura/
This online art history adventure, "The Case of Grandpa's Painting," teaches students about art history and art composition. In the game, you play a 1940's noir detective with a degree in art history. A distraught woman asks you to identify the artist who made a painting she found in her grandfather's attic. To do so, you must examine paintings by famous artists from Gauguin to Van Gogh. Each example highlights an art concept such as composition, style or subject. The story concludes with an appropriate noirish twist, as the woman's true identity and motives become apparent. Designed for 4th Graders and up.

Architect Studio 3D
http://www.architectstudio3d.org/AS3d/index.html
Design a house with Frank Lloyd Wright. With Architect Studio 3D, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust brings to young architects everywhere the exciting process of designing a home — hands-on. Starting as real architects do, with a client who has lifestyle preferences and a site that has its own environmental considerations, you will use your imagination to design your own architectural solutions.

Art Access
http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/
The Art Institute of Chicago has made lesson plans, family activities and multicultural art resources are available at this site. Areas of study include Ancient Indian Art of the Americas, African American Art, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and Modern and Contemporary Art.

Art Capades
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/capades/
At this site, students may select a painting by on the the world's best known artists, print it with or without colors, and then either add color to the printout or use the printout as amodel for a free-hand imitation of the artist's work. There are several activities for working with these picutres. You can also view the site in Spanish. Suitable for grades K-9.

Artcyclopedia
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/
This is a Guide to Great Art on the Internet. Search Artists by Name, Artworks by Title, and Art Museums. You can also browse artists by Name, Medium, Subject, Nationality, Women Artists, and Art Movements. There are lots of art resources on this site.

ArtDaily.com
http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp
Art Daily is a weekly internet-based newspaper that covers the latest news of interest to the art world. A great source for current art news and for details of exhibitions and art fairs worldwide. A wonderful place to browse on a rainy day. Stunning images with links to art magazines, artists, galleries, auctions, digital art collections, and more.

Art in Cities
http://www.artincities.com/ 
This web site exists to collect submissions of artwork from cities all over the world, and plot it on a map. To view the art, browse by selecting points on the map, or search by City, Submitter, or Artist. Submitting art is as easy as uploading an image from your computer, and filling out a few fields on a form, thus, encouraging anyone to walk the streets of their city looking for art to add the site.

Art in the White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/art/index.html
Read the Preface to the Collection of Art in the White House and view art works from an Historical Perspective, Selected Works from the Collection, and Selected Works by Modern European Masters.

ArtisanCam
http://www.artisancam.org.uk/
"ArtisanCam provides an insight into the lives of contemporary artists. Using a mixture of video and interactive activities, we introduce children to the world of contemporary visual art before encouraging them to have a go themselves in fun and exciting ways."

Artist's Toolkit (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)
http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/index.html  
Another production from ArtsConnectEd and it's a good one! Each section (Line, Color, Space, Shape, Balance, Movement/Rhythm) allows students to watch animated demonstrations, view examples, and create their own. Includes an encyclopedia of Visual Elements (line, shape, color, space, and texture) and Visual Principles (balance, emphasis, movement/rhythm).

Art Kids Rule
http://artkidsrule.com/
A great place for playing, learning, and creating. Lots of interactive art activities.

Art of Science Competition
http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eartofsci/gallery/
This assembly of images presents a fascinating and beautiful cross section of the arts and sciences at Princeton. It celebrates the aesthetics of research and the ways in which science and art inform each other.

Art of Set Design: "The Light in the Piazza"
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2005/05/31/multimedia/20050531_PIAZZA_SLIDESHOW.html
This site provides an interesting audio slideshow narrated by the set designer for the Tony Award-winning musical "The Light in the Piazza." Its authors discuss the set designer's art as well as the designer's inspirations for the sets, both the exterior scenes of Florentine piazzas and the interiors of the Uffizi Gallery. The slides include the designer's drawings and models as well as images from an actual performance.

Artopia
http://www.knowitall.org/artopia/index.html
On the educational website Artopia, students are active learners as they explore the theater, sculpture, dance, music, painting, and mass media. In each area, they meet artists, watch video clips, participate in interactive activities, and critique work.

@rt Room
http://www.arts.ufl.edu/art/rt_room/
Like art rooms in schools everywhere, this virtual art room is meant to be a "special" place. Within its "walls," kids are offered opportunities to create, to discover, to imagine, to invent, to learn, and to make their thoughts become things. In short, the @rt room is a place for kids to explore their inner and outer worlds. Click on the doorway and find art projects to spark your interest, games about famous artists, a gallery of kids' art, and tips for @rtrageous thinking!

ArtsAlive.ca
http://www.artsalive.ca/en/
ArtsAlive.ca is the National Arts Centre of Canada's bilingual performing arts education website. It contains four modules of information on Music, English theatre, French theatre and Dance. This website is targeted at teachers, parents and students in elementary school and high school. The website offers multimedia files, inline and downloadable teaching resources, and information of interest to anyone interested in the arts.

ArtsConnected
http://www.artsconnected.org/
ArtsConnected is produced by a partnership between the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center. The purpose of the site is to provide timely, engaging and interactive resources for the study of the arts. The site includes an Artist's toolkit that permits the exploration of various art topics through animations and simulations. The site includes other useful resources, including an Art Playground, a Library & Archives, and a Classroom section that includes a Teacher's Guide and a searchable database of activities.

ArtsEdge
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
The Kennedy Center created this compelling site, which features all aspects of the arts: music, dance, fine arts, and more. An awesome resource for students, teachers, parents, and art lovers.

ArtWonders
http://www.huntington.org/Education/artwonders.html
Can portraits talk? What's in a landscape? How do artists make furniture? ArtWonders from the Huntington Library helps young learners ask and answer the kinds of questions that make observing art an interactive experience.

Arts Workshop
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/artsworkshop/index.html
Presented by The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, this site says, "Focus on...Sculpture - Make it at Home!" There are some good art projects. Besides doing them at home as suggested on the site, some would make good classroom projects.

Art Window
http://www.mmwindowtoart.com/
View Fine Art concepts with student work as teaching examples. Learning is divided into the subjects of Drawing, Painting, 3D, Word Art, Graphics, Foundations, and Mixed Media. The purpose of this site is to offer an opportunity for visitors to easily read content, understand processes and techniques on the topics presented, enjoy the photo displays provided and actively participate in the work themselves.

Artyfactory.com
http://www.artyfactory.com/
Artyfactory is a free online art and design workshop for artists of any age. "We are building a growing resource of ideas and techniques designed to improve your artistic skills. Our aim is to increase your enjoyment in creating artworks. Our workshops are carefully designed to meet classroom needs. Each workshop has an interactive quiz or games associated with its theme. All you need to take part are a few basic materials and the will to have a go."

Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/ballyhoo/index.html
Visit an example-rich exploration of poster art and learn how famous faces have been used to convey meanings and messages across the decades. An excellent resource for discovering how art can be a window into a particular time, Ballyhoo! looks at images from a range of periods in U.S. history, including turn-of-the century America (ca. 1890), World War I, World War II, and the 1960s. An effective device, also, for learning about celebrity culture and the tried-and-true advertising ruse of celebrity endorsement.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery Alien Adventures
http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/aliens/interactive/spaceshipStart.html
The alien King has sent aliens Borg and Zunk on a mission to find out about Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (BM&AG). Join Borg and Zunk and discover information and activities about the collections at BM&AG. You can learn how to create a masterpiece, find hidden messages in portraits and more.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery for Kids
http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/kids/preload.htm
A great place to make some exciting discoveries. Students can join in the fun and find out about: Victorians, World War 2, Egyptians, Romans, Art and much much more.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery: Learning About Landscapes
http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/kids/landscape.htm
This site has great interactives to understand the various components of drawing landscapes. Learn about horizon line, aerial perspective, and linear perspective. See landscapes in a gallery and make your own landscape.

Book of Multicultural Images
http://www.artsmia.org/coloringbook/index.html
Students can print out line drawings of people, clothing styles, spiritual deities, places, and animals from around the world to color, to paint, and to use as inspiration. This online coloring book includes different historical periods and cultures and is a good resource for cross-curricular approaches to the study of art and social studies.

Brushster
http://www.nga.gov/kids/zone/brushster.htm
At the National Gallery of Art’s interactive educational website Art Zone, students can unleash their inner abstract artist with BRUSHster! This virtual painting activity gets the creative juices flowing with more than 40 different brush shapes, textures, special effects, and unlimited colors. Or try the collage machine to make a virtual collage with all kinds of shapes, colors, and pictures. Make flowers or geometric shapes dance and soar with Flow, a motion painting machine. Kids of all ages will enjoy expressing themselves with Art Zone.

Building Big
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/lab/forces.html   
Students can learn about squeezing, stretching, bending, sliding and twisting through visual tools that they can manipulate. The authors also provide information on loads, materials, and shapes. "Building Big" analyzes tunnels, bridges, domes, skyscrapers, and dams, and provides fact sheets about famous examples of these projects around the world.

Cacoo
http://cacoo.com/
Cacoo is a user friendly online drawing tool that allows you to create a variety of diagrams. Multiple users can edit the same diagram in a simultaneous collaboration. Click on the Tour button for an overview. Requires registration, but is free to use.

Campfire Stories with George Catlin: An Encounter of Two Cultures
http://CatlinClassroom.si.edu
This site presents and interprets hundreds of George Catlin's artworks from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's permanent collection. Campfire Stories uses art, artifacts, and primary source texts to bridge American history, geography, art appreciation, environmental conservation, and multicultural studies. The site and its lesson plans were developed in consultation with a panel of teachers.

Carmine's Introduction to Architecture
http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/play/arch1/
This is a tutorial giving students an introduction to architecture. They can learn what architecture is, design a building, learn about Architecture as Art, and create their own architecture using the included activities.

Carmine's Landscape Adventure
http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/play/landscape1/  
Short, simple tutorials demonstrate the use of depth, light, atmosphere to create feelings in landscapes. Interactive activities allow students to practice with their own examples. Simple quizzes throughout reinforce basic concepts.

Cartoonster
http://www.cartoonster.com/ 
Cartoonster's free online tutorials provide step by step instructions for drawing and animating. Techniques are simple and can be done with no special materials. The site is totally flash-driven and full of examples that make sense.

Cézanne's Apples
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/cezannes_apples/splash.html
This is an online activity where young children can learn about the artist Paul Cézanne.

Childe Hassam, American Impressionist
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/childe_hassam/index.html
Games, a movie, and more—have some fun while you learn about paintings by Childe Hassam, American Impressionist.

City Creator
http://www.citycreator.com/
At this site, your students can choose a city from the selection provided and construct it from the ground up. It's easy to navigate just drag and drop pieces from the palettes. Arrange them to make your city. (It might help to start by adding the roads.) If you don't like a piece you can delete it by putting it in the dumper truck. Great for developing student creativity!

Color in Motion
http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com/
An interactive site by Claudia Cortes introduces color in a fun way. There are animated figures that explain how you can use colors to communicate and how colors symbolize certain emotions and events. There are activities such as a kaleidescope and a scene maker where you can design a still scene based upon a word given to you. This is an excellent, fun site that is also available in Spanish.

Colors of Clay: Special Techniques in Athenian Vases
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/colors_clay/homepage.html  
This web exhibition from The Getty takes you on a guided tour of the various ways in which Athenian vase painters decorated clay vessels between 550 and 340 B.C. Eight styles and techniques are explored: Bilingual, Coral Red, Six's Technique, Added Clay and Gilding, Outline Drawing, White Ground, Plastic, and Kerch Style. Zoomable images of artifacts, textual captions, and, in a few cases, audio curators' commentary are used at the site to explain the eight techniques.

Color With Leo
http://www.colorwithleo.com/
Explore the world of art through interactive games, hands-on activities, and lessons with a young Leonardo da Vinci.

Conservator's Studio (Seattle Art Museum)
http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/interactives/mexicanModernism/enter.asp#  
Interactively explore four paintings from the Mexican Modernism exhibition through the eyes of a conservator (What's a conservator? You'll find that out too!). You'll have a new perspective on the paintings as well as how they are handled and prepared for display. Includes information about conservator's tools and a glossary.

Construct an Aqueduct
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/roman/aqueductwave.html
On the interactive educational website Constructing an Aqueduct, students learn about the engineering behind Roman Aqueducts and decide where to build a covered trench, tunnel, pressurized pipe, wall, and arcade to bring fresh water from a spring to a Roman city. Read the manual first to learn why each structure is used.

Country Dog Gentlemen Travel to Extraordinary Worlds
http://countrydogs.sfmoma.org/
Two compelling animated characters from "Country Dog Gentlemen" lead you on a remarkable exploration of artwork by Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, and Sargent Johnson. Accompanying interactive invites you to create your own masterpiece inspired by these artists and to write a story about what you have made. From the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Crayola.com
http://www.crayola.com/
This site takes awhile to load, but has many good activites with links to Crafts, a Card Creator and Coloring Pages among others. There are separate sections for Educators and Parents.

Create My Art Gallery
http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/myartgallery/  
This flash-enhanced site from the Seattle Museum of Art teaches kids how to understand works of art, and then helps them to select art to place in their own Virtual Gallery. One of the best art appreciation sites on the Web for students in Grades 2-6.

Dancers and Degas
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/dancers/index.html
Join special guests on a visit to the galleries and find out what dancers can tell us about Edgar Degas. Listen, look, and create your own sketch in this fun activity for all ages.

Design a Coat of Arms
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/british_galleries/designa/coat_of_arms/coat_of_arms.html
A site that combines history with collaboration as students, perhaps working in teams, design their own colorful heraldic coat of arms, printable and Email-able. Lots of teachable moments here, especially when it comes time to add a motto.

Designs on Italy
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2005/05/31/multimedia/20050531_PIAZZA_SLIDESHOW.html
An audio slideshow narrated by the set designer for the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza. Discusses the set designer's art as well as the designer's inspirations for the sets, both the exterior scenes of Florentine piazzas and the interiors of the Uffizi Gallery. Slides include the designer's drawings and models as well as images from an actual performance.

Destination: Modern Art
http://www.moma.org/destination/
This fun interactive Web site by the Museum of Modern Art enables elementary school-aged children to engage with and explore modern art.

Digital Photo Fun
http://bighugelabs.com/
On the interactive website Big Huge Labs, students can design their own magazine covers, make trading cards, put together photo cubes, add text bubbles, create jigsaw puzzles, arrange mosaics, and more with their digital photos. Try making trading cards about any topic as a class research project. All ages will enjoy getting creative with their pictures on this site.

Discover What Art Is...Through the Eyes of Children
http://www.vsarts.org/prebuilt/showcase/gallery/exhibits/dwai/
View this large gallery of amazing artwork created by children with disabilities and learn how each of these special artists answers the fundamental question, "What is art?" The responses, often poignant and poetic, are sure to open the eyes of anyone just learning to think about art. This is a terrific site for families seeking ways to introduce their children to art.

Doodles, Drafts, and Designs
http://www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/doodles/cf/working.cfm
Drawing is a key element in an inventor's skill set. When it comes to the working out of new ideas, inventors turn to pencil and paper. Mixing art and science, this exhibition site showcases a collection of industrial drawings that reflect the knowledge, creativity, and intent of their makers. Unique examples on display include plans for industrial and household products, Tupperware, clothing, architectural monuments, and sports equipment. Also includes biographies of selected inventors, whose life and work tell the story of American ingenuity.

Doodle Pad
http://www.noggin.com/games/doodlepad/
This is just a fun little site where young students can create with crayons, paint, fingerpaint, glitterpens, and stamps.

Drawing in One-Point Perspective
http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/
Perspective helps to make drawing more realistic, but it's not always easy to get it right. An art teacher and artist created this site to acquaint students of all ages with the subject of one-point perspecive. The site guides you, step by step, through a number of sample drawings.

Droodles Online Exhibit
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/droodles/
Droodles is a name that combines doodles and riddles. At this exhibit, you are briefly shown sets of images and asked to draw them from memory. In one set of drawings, the names of the images are nonsense words, while in the other set the names are helpful in describing the images. This exhibit shows that if random information can be arranged in a way that makes some sense, it will be easier to remember.

Early American Paintings
http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/Early_American/
While the paintings can add depth to the study of U.S. History, the timeline may be the real treasure here as it chronicles the main events from 1671 to 1829. Students can enter the collection by clicking buttons that lead to sections arranged by artist, genre, and place of origin. Students view artwork and read biographies of twenty artists, review information on fifty-three paintings, and get information on twenty-four additional works. Each of the seventy-seven works is illustrated.

Enchanted Learning: Crafts for Kids
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/
This site from Enchanted Learning features hundreds of educational craft projects for children in more than 70 topic areas. Clearly illustrated directions are provided for each project along with lots of other related activity ideas. Suitable for grades 2-7.

Exploring Leonardo
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/
Experience the creations of one of the most famous painters of the Italian Renaissance; Leonardo DaVinci. Although he is best known for his paintings, Leonardo conducted dozens of experiments and created futuristic inventions.

Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery
http://www.npg.si.edu/cexh/eye/index.html  
Flash-based exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery uses portrait drawings dating from the 1880s to the 1980s to show the ways in which the art of portraiture has been changed by trends in 20th century art. Easy navigation through the show's five sections and audio comments by Wendy Wick Reaves, curator of the exhibition, are available in selected sections.

Eyes on Art
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/art2/index.html
Eyes on Art offers activities designed to help students learn and apply visual arts vocabulary and understand how artistic elements and design techniques function in paintings. The six sections have activities designed to lead in a progression. Beginning students start with “You Choose,” which allows them to make a connection with different paintings before they discuss what elements make something a good work of art. More advanced students can begin with “Double Visions,” where they embark more in depth on the adventure of “seeing” a work of art.

Fidgit
http://pbskids.org/designsquad/games/fidgit/
Fidgit is a multiplayer game on PBS' Design Squad site. The challenge is to save the fidgits by getting them safely into their box. Be sure to read How to Play before attempting to save the fidgits!

Frank Lloyd Wright: Art and Technology in Harmony
http://www.delmars.com/wright/flwright.htm
Frank Lloyd Wright remains among the great American architects of the 20th century, his work a unique nexus of art, technology, and nature. Even if his works appear on ties and bookmarks, the buildings and texts remain among the most exciting in the field. This site offers students and teachers a Web based perspective on Wright's career complete with extensive links to other resources on the architect and his structures.

From Microscopes to Large-Scale Scupture
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4079067
National Public Radio makes the connection between art and science by exploring the work of sculptor Kendall Buster. Site visitors can open an audio file to hear an interview with microbiologist-turned-artist Kendall Buster. Buster uses the images she sees through a microscope as inspiration to create her monumental sculptures, which can be walked through and experienced as three-dimensional worlds.

Georges Seurat: The Drawings
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2007/seurat/
French artist Georges Seurat is best known for the painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" and as the inventor of pointillism, but there is so much more to his artwork that's often forgotten. This Web site explores his art, his techniques, and his brief life.

Georgia O'Keeffe
http://ellensplace.net/okeeffe1.html
Learn about the life and work of Georgia O'Keeffe. Sections include The Young Artist, O'Keeffe and Stieglitz, and The Faraway. The sections include images of some of her unique paintings.

Gift of the Indus
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/pakistan/default.htm
The Kennedy Center provides a wonderful set of integrated resources that ties the people, the land, and daily life of Pakistan to its artistic and cultural traditions. Learn about Pakistani music, theater, dance, painting, sculpture, calligraphy, architecture, and decorative arts. This is an excellent site for examining art within a specific geographic and cultural context.

Gilbert Stuart: Making Faces
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/gilbert_stuart/index.html
Who was Gilbert Stuart and what did he do? Was he a comedian? And how did he get to know George Washington and so many other famous people? A feature that includes an animated story and activities answers these questions and more.

Global Children's Art Gallery
http://www.naturalchild.com/gallery/
See how children from Canada to Japan and from California to Massachusetts view the world. Children between the ages of 1 and 12 from all over the world have submitted their artwork to this site. See the flags from their country and state next to their artwork.

Grandeur of Viceregal Mexico
http://www.fm.coe.uh.edu/default.htm  
The Grandeur of Viceregal Mexico, Treasures from the Museo Franz Mayer web site is a collaborative effort between the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and faculty and graduate students at the University of Houston, College of Education, Instructional Technology Program. The works of art are grouped into four sections. The first introduces the many cultures that influenced colonial Mexican art. The next sections focus on art made for the church and for domestic use. The final section introduces new styles inspired by art from ancient Greece and Rome and 18th-century France and England. Resources for Teachers includes a handbook, standards-based lessons, games and activities. There is also a Timeline that provides links to other sources of information. Also in Spanish.

Great Buildings Collection
http://www.greatbuildings.com/
"This gateway to architecture around the world and across history documents a thousand buildings and hundreds of leading architects, with 3D models, photographic images and architectural drawings, commentaries, bibliographies, web links, and more, for famous designers and structures of all kinds."

Hands on Crafts for Kids
http://craftsforkids.com/projects.htm
Crafts provide learning opportunities as well as a means of self-expression. Designed with educators in mind, this resource-rich companion site to the public television program Hands on Crafts provides curriculum-based, illustrated, easy-to-follow directions for hundreds of crafts. Suitable for grades 2-6.

How to Draw a Bunny
http://www.unclefred.com/draw/bunny/bunny01.html
Cartoon artist "Uncle" Fred Lasswell — author and illustrator of the syndicated comic strip "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith" — provides step-by-step instructions for drawing a bunny. This is an easy-to-follow exercise that emphasizes creative expression and joy in using different art media and materials.

How Van Gogh Made His Mark
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/van_gogh/index.html
This interactive exploration of four landscape drawings introduces young visitors to the creative genius of Van Gogh the draftsman.

Imagination Factory
http://www.kid-at-art.com/
"There is no machinery at The Imagination Factory, and smokestacks don't pollute the air. Instead, we teach children and their caregivers creative ways to recycle by making art. Recycling is one way to minimize or lessen the amount of trash we have to throw away. When we recycle, we make a new product out of waste materials. This process helps save natural resources like trees as well as landfill space and the money needed to get rid of trash."

Inside Art
http://www.eduweb.com/insideart/
Inside Art is an online game which explores a painting from the inside out. During an art museum tour, you're sucked into a vortex and find yourself inside a mystery painting. Your only hope of escape is to answer the questions "Who?/What?/Where?/How?" A fish named Trish is your guide in this exploration of Van Gogh's Bank of the Oise at Auvers in its artistic and historical context.

Integrating the Arts
http://www.thewalters.org/pachydermpubs/00-64-881120031647100113-9310870-6-106-1129824/
Launch a cross-disciplinary examination of art designed to support essential learning in math, science, social studies, and language arts. Using representative works from ancient, medieval, and Renaissance periods, learners absorb information about a range of art and artifacts from these periods across multiple disciplines.

Joseph Wu's Origami Page
http://www.origami.vancouver.bc.ca/

Kaleidoscope
http://www.pbs.org/parents/creativity/sensory/kaleidoscope.html
This is a great site for young students to explore design. They can create a kaleidoscope of shapes and adjust the viewing speed. There are other games under Sensory Stuff such as Matisse Cut-Outs and Designer Butterflies.

Kaleidoscope Painter
http://www.permadi.com/java/spaint/spaint.html
Student's can use their imagination to create kaleioscope pictures with this online applet. Just click and drag the mouse slowly around the black square. Changing the brush size creates a different look. Click Clear to start over.

Language of Native American Baskets from the Weaver's View (Smithsonian)
http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/baskets/  
Baskets accompanied Indian people throughout their lives. Babies were carried in baskets, meals were prepared and cooked in them, worldly goods were stored in them, and people were buried in them. Today, baskets serve as markers of cultural pride and inheritance. Basketry is a living art. To help illustrate continuity from past to present, each weaver chose four baskets from the Smithsonian collections and paired them with baskets from their own or other Native basket-makers contemporary works. These juxtapositions and the weavers' thoughts on what they tell us, are presented in "The Weavers' View." Links on the top navigation bar and side navigation bars lead to a wealth of information and lots of images of baskets. From the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Learn About Color
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Learn_About_Color/index.html
How many colors can you make by mixing red, yellow, and blue? Sudents learn about color by painting a hippo named William.

Life in the Iron Age
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/ironage_life/index.shtml
Students explore and interact with modern art exhibits at New York Museum of Modern Art’s website Destination Modern Art. Design a chair, put pieces of art back together, learn about animation, write a poem, and search for pictures in a collage.

Living Colour
http://www.austmus.gov.au/colour/
The Living Colour pages on the Australian Museum's web site are a fun way to explore colors. Flash-based animation and interactive exercises will capture children's attention while teaching them basic knowledge about the science of light, color perception, and the uses of color in nature or everyday life.

Lizzy Visits the Sculpture Garden
http://www.nga.gov/kids/lizzy/lizzy.html
Lizzy is dragged to the National Gallery of Art because brother Gordon has to do a school assignment. Gordon ends up being more interested in lunch than artistic statement while Lizzy discovers a sculpture can speak to her. As they follow along through this adventure, both kids and adults will be charmed with the childlike drawings and interactive information on sculpture.

Make-a-Flake
http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/
This is a site where you can make your own snowflake. Use the scissors to cut as many holes as you wish, preview your flake, then cut some more or start over. You can save your flake as a JPG file and visit the gallery to view it.

Make a Snowman!
http://www.starfall.com/n/holiday/snowman/play.htm?f
Build a snowman and read a story about ten little snowmen. This book engages the reader in an animated story. Other links provide emergent reading skills. Site is modeled on the "Big Five" focus areas recommended by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: phonemic awareness, systematic phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Manet and the Execution of Maximilian
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2006/Manet/index.htm
Combining art with social studies, this online exhibition from the Museum of Modern Art focuses on five works by the French artist Manet depicting the execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. A fascinating and in-depth look at one artist's reaction to a political event that was unfolding in his lifetime, the exhibit takes the form of a timeline that juxtaposes Manet's works with contemporary newspaper accounts of the execution and other primary source materials.

Manet and the Sea
http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/manet/home.htm
The Philadelphia Museum of Art describes the seascape paintings of French artist Edouard Manet. Visit a gallery of Manet's at-sea and seaside paintings and listen and read interesting historical notes about them and view works by other artists that explore the same theme. Play one of several games available, or page through a wonderful watercolor sketchbook. Includes teacher's packet and "Manet for Kids."

Mark Kestler's Imagination Station
http://www.draw3d.com
At this site, Mark Kistler, star of the PBS televsion series Imagination Station, shows you haw to draw three-dimensional pictures, guiding you step by step through a number of lessons.

Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher
http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/escher/
Math Academy Online presents a great M.C. Escher site for connecting the arts and mathematics. Find a biography of Escher as well as many examples of his fascinating artwork and descriptions of how these works connect with mathematics. Tessellations, polyhedra, the shape of space, the logic of space, and the relationship of Escher's art to information science and artificial intelligence are other topics.

Meet Me At Midnight
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/midnight/default_flash.html
Undo the Root Monster’s trouble-making as you tour the Smithsonian American Art Museum with the entertaining educational website Meet Me at Midnight. Discover clues that will help you return a sculpture to where it belongs in the museum. Learn about visual art while playing interactive games. Arrange pieces of sculptures the way you think they belong, then see how the sculpture is really supposed to look!

Mind of Leonardo
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/menteleonardo/
A comprehensive museum-mounted exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci that looks at all his intellectual and creative pursuits: artistic, scientific, mathematic, and technological. Includes an array of stunning images and video presentations, along with informative descriptions that clearly demonstrate the relationship of art to other disciplines.

Mix-N-Match
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/mix_n_match/index.html
This exhibit lets you set a random background color and then try to mix red, blue, and green light in a circle in the foreground to match the background. It's an exercise in color perception, and it can also be used in learning the difference between mixing colors of light and mixing pigments.

MoMA: Modern Teachers
http://www.moma.org/modernteachers/
Modern Teachers Online connects educators with MoMA's resources and collection. Download PDFs of educators guides, browse images, or search lessons by subject, theme, medium, or text. Text and images can be printed, projected, or saved into a presentation.

Mural Mosaic: Town of Cochrane Community
http://www.muralmosaic.com/Cochrane.html
The murals on this site are made with thumbnails of paintings pieced together to make a large picture. Clicking on each thumbnail brings up the larger version of the thumbnail with information about the picture. I guess there is no real educational value to this site, but it is amazing how these pictures were put together.

My Culture Quest
http://www.mylearning.org/intermediate-interactive.asp?type=4&journeyid=238
Launch an interactive journey that lets you explore objects from many different countries. As they travel by hot air balloon around the world, players collect artwork, answering questions about what they have learned along the way. At the end of their journey, players assemble an exhibition and earn points for how many objects they collect and how the objects relate to one another. A useful resource for learning about the cultural context of art as well as how to stage a meaningful art exhibit.

National Museum of Women in the Arts
http://www.nmwa.org/collection/
This link brings to you the permanent collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. There are images of the artwork plus biographies and profiles, organized by century. You can search for a particular female artist as well. This is a great comprehensive resource to use for Women's History Month.

NGA Kids
http://www.nga.gov/kids/kids.htm
There are tons of online creative acivities for students at this site from The National Gallery of Art. They can visit the Art Zone, create an interactive Still Life, use the BRUSHster painting machine, design a Dutch Dollhouse, and much more!

Oudry's Painted Menagerie
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/oudry/index.html  
Jean Baptiste Oudry's Painted Menagerie reunites recently restored paintings with a suite of other life-size portraits of exotic animals painted by Oudry and presents a selection of Oudry's drawings as well as contemporary decorative arts. Watch various aspects of the conservation process in the video. Enlarge paintings and zoom in on details. Play games in the Getty's Games section.

Pablo Picasso's The Tragedy
http://www.nga.gov/feature/picasso/index.htm
The National Gallery of Art explores Pablo Picasso's "blue period" masterwork, "The Tragedy," which was painted over earlier works. Using tools of the curatorial trade, such as infrared reflectography, the National Gallery exposes what lies beneath the surface painting of the forlorn family. Includes an animation and a video that reveal parts of four other works of art previously composed by Picasso before the final painting.

Paper (Exploratorium Magazine)
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/paper/index.html  
The Exploratorium Magazine Online is a companion to selected issues of the print magazine, providing key articles and activities and including multimedia features. Learn how new materials, new methods and new ideas are transforming traditional origami. Watch videos of a master origami folder create his unique pieces. Learn how to make your own paper and how to fold your own paper airplanes. In Japan, legend says that a person who makes a thousand origami cranes will live a long life. All the more reason to explore this site!

Picasso and Matisse
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20030214_MATISSE/index.html
Michael Kimmelman, art critic for The New York Times, narrates a slideshow of the work of two titans of twentieth-century art, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. He clearly documents the friendly rivalry that existed between these two men and makes the case that each fueled the creative output of the other. You must be a registered user to access the whole site, but registration is free.

Pigments Through the Ages
http://webexhibits.org/pigments/  
A site dedicated to paint and color. It contains an overview of art history and how to create a painting (Intro, Planning the Scene, Preparing the canvas, Making paint, Paint picture, Seal the surface, and Other kinds of paint). Use the drop down menu to select specific pigments and get the history, recipes, and color swatch.

Pixar: 20 Years of Animation
http://www.moma.org/visit_moma/audio/flash.html?folder=2005/spec_exhib/Pixar/files
Today's feature-length computer-aided cartoon films, such as Pixar's "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," and "Monsters, Inc." are wildly popular and critically acclaimed, but did your students know of all the work that goes into creating such a film? At this site users can get a "backstage pass" to view the behind-the-scenes artwork of Pixar's animated films.

Pre-Raph Pack
http://pre-raphs.bmag.org.uk/
A new site developed by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The Pre-Raph Pack, explores the fascinating world of the Pre-Raphaelites through the artists, their ideas and their techniques. Featuring a large range of images and information the site also contains a handy timeline and offers the chance to explore one of the most Pre-Raph rich collections in the country.

Renaissance Connection
http://www.renaissanceconnection.org/  
Explore Renaissance visual arts and innovations and their role in the making of the modern world. Applying research into learning styles and user engagement, this site is a suite of interactive online activities and resources for middle school students and teachers.

Romare Bearden: Let's Walk The Block
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/the_block/index_flash.html
See Harlem street life through the eyes and imagination of Romare Bearden. This exploration of his famous collage, The Block, includes a guided tour, music by the Branford Marsalis Quartet, and activities designed for kids, parents, and teachers.

Science ART & Technology
http://www.artic.edu/aic/students/sciarttech/2a.html
This site is broken into the categories of Introduction to Science and Art, Art and Astronomy, The Chemistry and Physics of Light and Color, Perception, Light, and Color, Conservation, and Careers in Science, Art and Technology. It is brought to you from the Art Institute of Chicago with Lesson Plans, Student Projects, Self-Guides and more.

Sepup's Car Comparison
http://sv.berkeley.edu/showcase/flash/car.html
Students can design and test cars on Berkeley’s interactive educational website Sepup’s Car Comparison. Choose your car’s body, tires, engine, and average speed to determine its mileage, safety, cost, and amount it pollutes. Race two different types of cars on the race track to see which can go the farthest on one gallon of gas. What is the most fuel-efficient car you can make?

Seurat and the Making of La Grande Jatte
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/seurat/seurat_overview.html
Exhibition site about one of the most famous paintings in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat and the Making of "La Grande Jatte" explains Seurat's interest in color and pointillism.

Silicon Valley Art Museum: Linking Art and Technology
http://svam.org/
This excellent site from the Silicon Valley Museum links art with technology. The Exhibition Lobby houses featured exhibits such as "Tradition and Protest," which shows art as a vehicle of social protest. "Through the Green Fuse" is a portfolio of unique photographs of flowers and plants. "Remembrance" is a commemorative work by Asian American artists, and there's more. By clicking to Education and Art Lessons, students and teachers can access 24 art activities such as self-portraits, fanfolds, painting with liquid starch and chalk, salt-clay stick puppets, tube sock dragons, a potato print family, and others, all designed to teach a specific artistic concept.

Skyscraper Museum: Cool Stuff for Kids
http://www.skyscraper.org/WHAT'S_UP/COOL_STUFF/coolstuff.htm
This is a Kids Learning Center for skyscrapers. There are online activities to help kids learn about the Tallest Towers, Manhattan Timeformations, Big Buildings, and they can take a Downtown New York Web Walk.

smART Kids
http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/smartkids/index.html
smART Kids helps students, particularly 7 to 12 year olds, look at art, learn art vocabulary, explore materials, and find out about historic pieces of art. Students can visit an artist's studio, create art, and are prompted to use a journal to record ideas and answer questions about art. Created by the education staff at The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.

Spirograph
http://www.wordsmith.org/anu/java/spirograph.html
Remember drawing with a Spirograph? You can now create those drawing online. The way this applet works is that you modify the sliding bars on the side to whatever you want and this affects the picture that is displayed. The circle settings control what it looks like and the color settings control what color your spirograph is. You then have some other options too. Like, whether you want a light or dark background, line or point and you can also click the random button to completely randomize the spirograph settings. Have fun!

Spirograph Math
http://www.mathplayground.com/SpirographMath.html
Students can make fun art while experimenting with epitrochoids on Math Playground’s Spirograph Math interactive activity. What is an epitrochoid? It is a curve traced by a point attatched to a circle that rolls around another circle. Change the radius of the circles and the location of the drawing point to make some mathematical art!

Sumo Paint
http://www.sumopaint.com/app/
Sumo Paint is a full featured photo editing / painting application, which works right in your favorite web browser. It's like having Photoshop online! Use of the application is free and doesn't require registration, but to access features of the Sumo Paint community, you have to register.

Tall Buildings (Museum of Modern Art)
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2004/tallbuildings/index_f.html  
Tall Buildings presents twenty-five buildings. Each project was designed within the last decade. Each building views safety, structure, sustainability, and technology. Basic information and photos provided. A nice introduction to state-of-the-art skyscrapers.

Tate Kids
http://kids.tate.org.uk/
Students can create their own artwork, upload their artwork, and create their own gallery on this website. They can play games, watch films, and find ideas for creating arts and crafts. An adult zone includes the Internet safety clause, lessons for teachers, and ideas for parents to use with their children.

Timeline of Art History
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm
Did you ever wonder how you were possibly going to connect all of that world history? Here is your answer: a timeline of art history from around the world that is linked in a chronological and geographical context, from prehistory to the present. The Metropolitan Museum decided to create a timeline based on its collection to present a great reference and resource tool for those studying art history and related subjects.

Toy Maker
http://www.thetoymaker.com/
This site has paper cut-outs that you can print in color, cut out, and glue together to create various toys. Makes a great activity for hand-eye coordination, and practicing with scissors and glue.

Trompe L'oeil
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/t/trompeloeil.html
This site provides numerous examples of famous Trompe l'oeil ("Fool the eye") paintings. Clicking on the title produces a larger image in a separate window. The site also provides a definition for this French term and hyperlinks to an art glossary which includes "linear perspective," "perception," and "realism."

Vancouver Art Gallery: Emily Carr
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/EmilyCarr/en/index.php
A fascinating look at the life and career of one of Canada's most respected artists includes her work and a biography complete with pictures.

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/vangoghnight/flashsite/index.html
Many of Van Gogh's painting depicted night scenes. This interactive exhibition describes the problems he had with painting at night, examines his nocturnal interiors and landscapes, and gives examples of the literary sources that influenced his work in this area.

Van Gogh at Etten
http://library.thinkquest.org/C001734/
This is a beautiful site devoted to Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch artist, his life and times: and especially the time he spent in Etten, a small town in the Netherlands. This excellent site is available in both English and Dutch.

Vincent van Gogh
http://217.170.3.175/vgm/index.jsp
The Van Gogh Museum, which houses the world's largest collection of work by Vincent van Gogh, has produced this online tour. But, its default language is Dutch, so the first step is to select English (or any of the five other languages offered). Once that is done, visitors will have a glimpse into the astonishing life and career of Van Gogh: including a detailed biography, transcripts of letters, photographs, numerous reproductions, and more. The museum also collects Western paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Vincent van Gogh
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20051014_VANGOGH_AUDIOSS/blocker.html
Michael Kimmelman, art critic for The New York Times, narrates a walk-through slideshow of an exhibition of Van Gogh's drawings mounted by New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005. The site offers wonderful examples of Van Gogh's landscapes and self-portraits, with insightful remarks about his artistic genius. Explore an eye-opening appraisal of Van Gogh's journey from untutored novice to astonishing craftsman.

Vincent van Gogh Gallery
http://www.vggallery.com/
Vincent van Gogh's birthday is March 30. David Brooks spent eight years, and invested thousands of hours, creating this complete online catalog of van Gogh's works. The Vincent van Gogh Gallery website displays 864 paintings, 1037 drawings, 150 watercolors, ten graphic works (lithographs and etchings), and 133 sketches from van Gogh's personal correspondence. And to think that van Gogh created all this in just ten years! In addition to the massive image collection, the gallery also includes Van Gogh's letters, commentary (called "InSites") and a world map showing all the museums that house van Gogh artwork.

Watercolors
http://handprint.com/HP/WCL/water.html
A comprehensive resource for watercolorists that includes a clickable index of topics ranging from biographies and critiques of recognized masters of the art of watercolor to information on how the eye perceives light, on paper choices, and on watercolor techniques.

Web Gallery of Art
http://www.wga.hu/
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism periods (1000-1850), currently containing over 24.000 reproductions. Picture commentaries and artist biographies are available.

Welcome to Weaving
http://www.artisancam.org.uk/flashapps/howtoweave/howto.php
Here's a new reason to encourage your students to recycle. This site demonstrates through engaging, step-by-step animations how to weave a basket with paper strips from recycled juice cartons, cereal boxes, and other similar materials.

What is Printmaking?
http://saintlouis.art.museum/printmaking/index.html
See a gallery of different types of prints and watch simple animations that illustrate four printmaking methods: etching, lithography, block printing, and screen printing. Includes an exercise that challenges visitors to compare and contrast two prints of their choosing.

World Wide Art Gallery
http://www.theartgallery.com.au/kidsart.html
View children's art from around the world. Students can also Learn About Art, and learn How to Draw a Face. Teachers can submit students' work to be viewed.