Free Online Art And Music Study




Art Appreciation and Picture Study

1.  Concordia University offers free art appreciation courses for download for grades 1-8.  Each course has 10 lessons which each featuring a different artist.
2.  ArtyFactory provides free online art, design, and art appreciation lessons.  You’ll find lesson plans covering a wide variety of topics, including Ancient Egyptian Art, learning about perspective, color theory, historical art movements, and more.  This site primarily has information to read, pictures, and suggested activities.
3.  Meet the Masters is a free to download 247 page pdf that includes all you need to introduce elementary kiddos (K-5) to history’s great painters. Includes full color prints of the masters’ works (you can print them on high quality paper or just view them on your computer), discussion questions, and art activities.
4.  The Art Project powered by Google has virtual tours of art museums around the world.
5.  Famous Paintings: Art Appreciation Lessons for Kids has been a wonderful resource for art appreciation. I ask the children to choose a picture that interests them and then we explore that artist. Includes biographical information and other works.
6.  The Walters Museum in Baltimore (we’ve been there!) has a neat interactive flash site called Integrating the Arts…you’ll find information and visuals about some of the museums pieces there. 
7.  The National Gallery of Art Kids (NGA Kids) has a plethora of interactive online activities for exploring art.
8.  Asian Education is a site devoted to the Asian arts.  You’ll find background info, videos, and lesson plans, all designed to teach the history and beauty of unique works of art.
9.  If your kiddos like mysteries, they might like A. Pintura: Art Detective, an interactive mystery story that introduces the masters through some elements of their art and images of actual masterpieces. The developers also have another art adventure called Inside Artand an interactive Artist's Toolkit where you can experiment with the "tools" artists use.
10.  Coloring pages of famous works of art.  (Warning:  pop-up ads, I recommend pre-printing for the kiddos)
11.  Enchanted Learning also has “famous” coloring pages, including several that can be colored on-line.

Art History

12.  Mark Harden's Artchive is a tremendous resource of information on art and artists
14.  Free PowerPoint presentations to download on art history and architecture, plus links to more resources, including interactive activities for kids.  You’ll find presentations on ancient art, medieval art, and more.

Artist Study
15.  The Museum of Science has an interactive site on Leonardo Da Vinci.
16.  Nadene at Practical Pages offers free resources for artist study, including Famous Artist Wall Chart, Artist biography notebook pages, and a Famous Artist lapbook.
17.  The Notebooking Fairy offers a variety of free art related notebook pages for a range of art related topics, including Greek architecture, Impressionism, and Georgia O’Keefe copywork, plus a couple of composer pages.

Art Instruction

18.  DrawSpace features dozens and dozens of free drawing lessons written by Brenda Hoddinott which can be viewed online or downloaded as pdfs
19.  The ABCs of Art is a series of handouts in the elements and principles of art from Awesome Artists, available both in color and in black and white.
22.  The Virtual Instructor has over 130 video art lessons, from drawing to painting.   The owner of this site is a high school art teacher and also provides free middle school and high school lesson plans.
23.  KinderArt provides free art lesson plans including art history, architecture and various media. 
24.  See the Light offers 7 free video lessons---these serve as a preview for the DVDs they have for sale, but they are stand alone lessons.
25.  Dick Blick, known for providing fine artist's tools and affordable craft supplies, has pages of free lesson plans you can download as PDFs. Some even include online video lessons.
26.  A well-known illustrator of children’s books, Jan Brett, has a page of video drawing lessons on her site.

Music Appreciation

27.  The Piano Guys---these guys simply exude joy while they play.  Highly recommended.
28.  Harmony Art Mom has a number of free art and music resources on her site, including a 6-week study of Monet and Mendelssohn, Summer Art Show printables, and high school music appreciation e-books.
30.  Living Life Intentionally has a great (really great!) free Music Lapbook (60 pages in the file), plus additional links to resources.

Composer Study

33.  Classics for Kids is a free website with biographical info on composers, educational games, and more.
Music Instruction
35.  Keyboard and music theory lessons at Garden of Praise (you can download them as a pdf).

Other Fun Stuff

37.  Your kids might also enjoy Waltee’s Quest:  The Case of the Lost Art, an interactive game, also maintained by the Walters Museum (this looks really well done).
39.  The Art Institute of Chicago has an interactive site for young kids featuring stories, match-ups, and playing with artworks.
41.  Canon Creative Park is chock full of paper models to print and assemble, plus other craft projects. 
42.  PaperToys has a huge variety of paper models you can print, cut-out and assemble.
44.  Harmony Art Mom has a sketching assignment each week that your children can participate in called Sketch Tuesday. 



And Also:

Online Art Courses For Credit

The internet abounds with free art courses, lessons and tutorials, though few of them can lead to actual college credit. Students looking for a low-cost alternative to completing traditional courses might want to consider education providers offering online instruction for a fee that's significantly lower than the expense of enrolling in a college or university.
Education Portal offers affordable online courses that can lead to real college credit. Students looking for instruction in art can find several art history topics covered in the History 101: Western Civilization I course. Each lesson includes written transcripts that can be accessed for free. Registered members can also view short, engaging video lessons taught by experienced educators and take self-assessment quizzes to test their understanding of the material. Listed below are just some of the chapters in this course that address art history:

Free Online Non-Credited Art Courses

Annenberg Learner


Appropriate for high school and adult learners, this series is presented through 9 videos. The hour-long videos trace Western art history from its roots in Classical Greece through the major movements of the 20th century and the contemporary international art scene. Recognized art critics comment on topics that include Romanesque churches, Renaissance artists, painters of the Baroque period, Romantic artists, Impressionism/Post-Impressionism, Modernism and Abstract Expressionists. Coordinated books are available for a fee.

Art Studio Chalkboard


Users may learn the fundamental techniques of drawing and painting through a website designed and maintained by Ralph Larmann, an artist and associate professor of art at the University of Evansville. Drawing covers topics such as perspective, shading and compositional models. Users may view the instructions in still or animated versions. Painting includes information about working with canvas, painting tools, the process of painting, pigment characteristics, oil/acrylic painting and egg tempera. A list of possible source books is included.

Figure-Drawing Lab


Also created by associate professor Ralph Larmann, these animated drawing tutorials address the many facets of drawing the human form, such as proportion, shading, texture and construction. A list of source materials and books about art and drawing are also available for these tutorials.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology


MIT OpenCourseWare makes available materials from a variety of art courses; however, these pages may not contain all the learning materials from the original courses. In the project-based course Art of Color, learners are introduced to the interactions between colors, the psychology of color and historical uses of color. Though lecture notes aren't available, students can access the syllabus, reading list and project descriptions with JPEG image examples.
Though the focus of Art Since 1940 is on post-WWII American art, the course also looks at art work from other world cultures. Readings, assignments and lecture notes cover topics like surrealism, the San Francisco School, happenings, pop art, identity politics and new media art. Some of the artists discussed are Joan Miro, Mark Rothko, Laurie Anderson and Maya Lin.
Composing Your Life: Exploration of Self Through Visual Arts and Writing is an interdisciplinary course in which students express themselves through both visual and written media tools. The materials don't include lecture notes; however, a substantial reading list and project descriptions are available, as well as examples of students' work and sample exercises.
Learners are introduced to theories of Modernism/Postmodernism in Modern Art and Mass Culture, a course that includes lecture notes, readings and writing assignments. The course critiques and examines the relationship between fine art (e.g., sculpture, painting and photography) and mass culture art forms (e.g., advertising, TV and fashion).

Open University


Open University, a provider of distance-education programs based in the United Kingdom, makes course materials available for many of its courses through its LearningSpace website. Art in Renaissance Venice is a 6-hour, advanced course unit that investigates how this art was affected by the diverse population and the geographical location. Learners can access printable lessons with several color images.
Making Sense of Art History is a 5-hour, introductory course that focuses on art since 1980 and assists learners in considering artists' messages. Presented through printable lessons with images and activities, course topics include elements of art, like color and composition, as well as meaning and interpretation. Users studying Musée du Louvre, a brief 4-hour unit, learn the history of the museum and explore its collections through videos. Napoleonic Paintings is a 16-hour, intermediate-level course that investigates specific artists of the period. Through printable lectures, images and exercises, students examine the relationship between politics and art, develop analytical skills and learn the complexities of art interpretation.

University of Oxford


These drawing courses are offered by the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford. In the 8 video lessons in The Elements of Drawing, works of the influential artist and poet John Ruskin (1819-1900) are used to explain topics that include line, tone, measuring, color, collecting information and working creatively. Through Ruskin's Eyes features drawing exercises based on Ruskin's teachings, using the themes of nature, architecture, landscape and narrative. Aspiring artists have the opportunity to view video discussions of artists' works housed in the museum that illustrate key drawing principles.