Art Titles

<DIV style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: "></DIV><P><STRONG>Action Art: Hands-On Active Art Adventures</STRONG> is A Collection of Over 100 Active Hands-On Art Experiences for Children 2-12, Full of Adventure, Movement, and Discovery. </P><P style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">FOR SCHOOLS #&8226; HOMESCHOOLS #&8226; MUSEUMS#&8226; LIBRARIES #&8226; CHILDCARE #&8226; HOME Shelving: ART ACTIVITIES #&8226; EDUCATION #&8226; PARENTING </P><P style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Over 100 action-packed art activities bring discovery and adventurous creativity to children#&8217;s art experiences that will delight and challenge kids of all ages. Each child-tested art activity is grouped into engaging action categories including: </P><OL><LI><DIV style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Smacking #&8226; Squeezing #&8226; Tapping </DIV></LI><LI><DIV style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Rolling #&8226; Spinning #&8226; Swinging </DIV></LI><LI><DIV style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Blowing #&8226; Exploding #&8226; Smooshing </DIV></LI><LI><DIV style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Tools #&8226; Toys #&8226; Utensils </DIV></LI><LI><DIV style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Up #&8226; Down #&8226; All Around </DIV></LI></OL><P style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Full color photographs highlight all activities including painting, photography, collage and sculpture, each with helpful icons indicating levels for both children and adults. <EM>Action Art</EM> experiences are built on the knowledge that art for children is a creative process and not just a finished product. MaryAnn Kohl is famous around the world for encouraging children to experience creative art exploration best known as #&8220;process art#&8221;. </P><P style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: "><EM style="BORDER-TOP-COLOR: ; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: ; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: ; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: ">Action Art</EM> offers 5 chapters of exciting and adventurous creative art activities, all with surprise outcomes, including #&8211; Blowing Glitter, Dancing Blottos, Bubble Wrap, Boot Walk, Clear Color Squish

Drawing on the natural folk art tendencies of children, who love to collect buttons, bottle caps, shells, and Popsicle sticks to create beautiful, imperfect art, this activity guide teaches kids about the history of this organic art and offers inspiration for them to create their own masterpieces. The full breadth of American folk art is surveyed, including painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and textiles from the 17th century through today. Making bubblegum wrapper chains, rag dolls, bottle cap sculptures, decoupage boxes, and folk paintings are just a few of the activities designed to bring out the artist in every child. Along the way kids learn about the lives of Americans throughout history and their casual relationships to everyday art as they cut stencils, sew needlepoint samplers, draw calligraphy birds, and design quilts. Important folk artists such as the last surviving Shakers, the legendary Grandma Moses, and the Reverend Howard Finster are also explored in sidebars throughout the book.

Discovering Great Artists is a creative collection of easy art-appreciation activities for children. Kids will find 110 fun and unique projects to experience the styles and techniques of the great masters from the Renaissance to the present. A brief biography of each artist is included with each fully illustrated, child-tested art activity that introduces the featured painting. Artists include painters, sculptors, architects, photographers, and more. 

Art historian Simonetta Carr draws on recent scholarship that challenges the traditional view of Michelangelo as a recluse. Readers will also learn about the complex and fluid era of the Italian Renaissance and how the times affected his life and work.  Lavish photos, informative sidebars, a time line, glossary, and suggestions for further readings add value, while 21 hands-on activities help young readers identify with the artist and his work.

A lifelong love of art is one of the greatest gifts an adult can bestow on a child—and no period of art is better loved or more available to children than Impressionism. Monet and the Impressionists for Kids invites children to delight in Cassatt’s mothers and children, Renoir’s dancing couples, and Gaugin’s island scenes; 21 activities explore Monet’s quick shimmering brush strokes, Cezanne’s brilliant rectangles of color, Seurat’s pointillism, and Degas’ sculpture-like circles of dancers. Kids will learn how the artists’ friendships sustained them through repeated rejection by the Parisian art world, and how they lived, painted, and thrilled to the vibrant life of Paris at the approach of the 20th century. A resource section guides readers to important museums and Web sites around the world.

The bizarre and often humorous creations of René Magritte, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and other surrealists are showcased in this activity guide for young artists. Foremost among the surrealists, Salvador Dalí was a painter, filmmaker, designer, performance artist, and eccentric self-promoter. His famous icons, including the melting watches, double images, and everyday objects set in odd contexts, helped to define the way people view reality and encourage children to view the world in new ways. Dalí’s controversial life is explored while children trace the roots of some familiar modern images. These wild and wonderful activities include making Man Ray–inspired solar prints, filming a Dali-esque dreamscape video, writing surrealist poetry, making collages, and assembling art with found objects.

Vincent van Gogh’s admiration for and departure from Impressionism and his relationships with the other enthusiastic, like-minded artists who ultimately formed the Post-Impressionist movement are explained and explored in this collection of art activities for kids. Debunking the persistent stereotype of the mad pauper who cut off his ear, van Gogh is revealed as the serious boy who loved nature and reading and spoke four languages; the young man who took great satisfaction in the study of art, his successful career as a gallery salesman, and the “brotherhood of artists” he helped to create; and the increasingly troubled and ill man who cared deeply for family and friends and tried in vain to recover. Through a series of fun and creative projects, such as a Starry Night Peep Box, a Pointillist Sailboat, and a Japanese Fold-out Album, kids will be exposed to such art as van Gogh’s vibrant landscapes, Paul Signac’s Mediterranean Sea images in dazzling dots, and Paul Gauguin’s tropical landscapes in unnatural colors. Aspiring young artists and history buffs will learn whether or not these famous painters always got along, how they helped each other in the process, and what made Post-Impressionist art unlike anything ever painted.