Art & Language Arts Online

The French navy sets sail for battle on a page from the Chronicles, a history book made in the 1400s

We are gearing up for our next workshop for current Art & Language Art participants, which will focus on illuminated manuscripts and will take place on Saturday 1/23.

How have you incorporated illuminated manuscripts into your elementary curricula? Post your lesson ideas and student artwork to inspire your colleagues.

And be sure to check out our current exhibition Medieval Scriptorium, on view at the Getty Center through February 14, 2010. This exhibition, which focuses on the working method of artists in the Middle Ages (about A.D. 500–1500), is designed specifically for kids and families!

Our next workshop for current Art & Language Art participants (on Saturday 11/7) will focus on photography.

Share your successes and challenges with incorporating photography into the elementary classroom. What activities have worked well with K–5 students? Do you have recommendations for cameras you’ve used with your students? Which photographs from the Getty’s collection have your students responded to?

Self-Portrait with Camera, Man Ray,
1932, Gelatin silver print (solarized),
11 1/2 x 9 in.
© Man Ray Trust ARS-ADAGP

Congratulations to the Art & Language Arts teachers who authored the four new lessons we published on the Getty’s Web site. The lessons were written by teachers who completed the program in 2008. In these lessons, students create works of art and write compositions inspired by paintings, a photo-collage, and decorative arts objects.

The drawing of the desert landscape to the right was created by a student at Edison Elementary School.

Click on the links below to view the lessons:
• “In Depth: Pearblossom Highway,” Roberta Fong, Edison Elementary School, BUSD
• “Take a Trip on the Chandelier,” Soojin Kim, Alma Mijango, Liset Noriega, Ann Park, and Iris Verbera, Madison Elementary School, LAUSD
• “Decorating Objects…and Re-decorating,” Debbie Winstein and Jennifer Almer, Miller Elementary School, BUSD
• “And Then What Happened?” by Carla Buchanan, Edison Elementary, BUSD

If you try out any of these lessons in your classrooms, share how it turned out by leaving a comment on this blog. You could even post your own student artworks.