My Museum

Overview

Students explore some famous museums worldwide in order to investigate the different aspects of drawing, painting and sculpture. Most museums have a website where they can find basic information and learn more about their collections of artwork. The main goal of this activity is to classify the artworks based on the technique and medium used to create them.

Description

Provide students with links to some of the most important museums in the world (see the list of resources at the back of this handbook). In groups of 3 or 4, students choose a museum to investigate. Ask them to pay attention to the most important drawing techniques – these will have already been studied in class so learners should be familiar with them. Encourage them to add to this information using information they find elsewhere on the Internet. If you need to give them some direction, suggest they look at watercolour, gouache, airbrushing, acrylic painting, pastel painting, fresco, ink etc.

Every museum in the word has famous artworks that are considered the ‘highlights’ of their collections. Ask them to look for these amongst the museum’s collections and to classify them according to the techniques used. Once they have organized the paintings, they should choose a particular technique and select other art pieces (just 2 or 3) created using the same technique. If there are not enough paintings in the same ‘genre’ they may choose some from the museum’s broader collection. Ask them to download or take a screen shot of the paintings and upload them to a Google Drive gallery and to share it with their peers. Additionally, in the gallery, they should justify their selection and classification. It could be interesting to share a map in Google Maps for geolocalising the selected museums and to include the link to the Google Drive gallery… but this is optional.

Time needed 2 hours.

Resources

One computer (or device with internet connection) per group.
Google, Google Drive, Google Maps.

Hints and tips

The activity can be done individually, in pairs or in groups.
Remember the restrictions regarding taking pictures from the Internet if they intent publishing their work on the web. If you prefer, ask them to search the Creative Commons site only.

—> Around the World in 6 Museums