Free Painting Education

Inside Art
An excellent exploration of Van Gogh's Bank of the Oise at Auvers. During an art museum tour you are sucked inside a mystery painting. To escape, you answer questions about style and colour. This site is ideal for 10 year olds to adult.
 

A. Pintura: Art Detective
Interactive adventure on art history in which you have to solve 'The Case of Grandpa's Painting'. This involves identifying the artist of a painting against the known styles of several famous artists. There are clues to help you learn in this fun site.
 

Crayola
Teachers may like to check out the useful art techniques and ideas to use in the classroom.
 

AccessArt
AccessArt is a new site which promises to be a fabulous resource for teachers and pupils. The online art workshops are presented in a highly visual, engaging manner. There are two excellent Key Stage 2 workshops on sculpture.
 

Teaching Ideas
The site has hundreds of teaching ideas for use in the primary school. The art and science sections are worthy of a special mention, along with P.E. which has excellent parachute games.
 

Gareth Pitchford's Primary Resources
Don't miss this wealth of worksheets, ideas, activities and resources for primary teachers. Sections included are literacy, homework, maths, science and art. Some resources are online, others are in PDF format.
 

A Lifetime of Color
Resources for creative individuals from beginner to advanced. A range of techniques are considered such as using colour and drawing portraits. You can try the hands-on activities. There are artist biographies and lesson plans.
 

The National Gallery, London
A delightful site where you can view a selection of old masters from 1260 to 1900 on exhibition at the National Gallery or Tate Gallery.
 

Learn to Paint
Excellent step-by-step instructions on how to get started with water colour, oil and acrylics.
 

Leonardo's Workshop
Travel back in time in this art adventure. Examine Leonardo's art and inventions and discover the spirit of the Renaissance while solving this interactive mystery.
 

Arteducation.co.uk
This subscription site offers practical advice on teaching art and design processes like painting, printing, sculpture and textiles. Suitable for both specialist and non-trained teachers.
 

Face to Face with Portraits from the Past
Learn about art history and portrait-making, in this interactive 'ArtEdventure'. A fun way to learn.
 

Explore Monet's World
An attractively presented biography of Claude Monet which features several of his paintings. It is suitable for 10 - 13 year olds.
 

Hints, Tips and Techniques
Hints and techniques to enable you to explore your artistic abilities with water colours, oils, acrylics, pastels and colour mixing.
 

Essay Lab
Click here for sample A-grade GCSE and A Level essays. Don't copy these for coursework or you will be disqualified, but use them for reading round a subject, revising or for guidance for your own essays.
 

The Art Room
The Art Room's mission is to provide a virtual learning environment to explore the world of art. Designed for children 8 years old and upward, it has both information and activities to try. Teachers may find inspiration here.
 

Tesoro Gallery - Impressionists and Post Impressionists
An attractive site with the biographies and selected works of eight featured artists. They are Morisot, Jongkind, Cassatt, Sisley, Lautrec, Callebotte, Matisse, Deraine and Signac.
 

Amore Gallery - The First House of Impressionists
Nine Impressionist painters are featured such as Monet, Cézanne and Van Gogh. Each one has a concise biography and images of well known works.
 

Mark Harden's Archive
Information relating to artists and their works. Usefully arranged in alphabetical order and also under 'schools' such as Impressionists, Cubists, Surrealists, Renaissance Artists and Futurists.
 

Making Patterns with Natural Forms
Simple, but effective, art activity based on the work on William Morris where an idea from nature is used to produce a repeated pattern.
 

Carmine's Introduction to Line and Shape
An interactive, rhyming exploration of line and shape from the popular Sandford's Lifetime of Color Art Adventures and Resources web site. The activities are for 6 - 9 year olds.
 

Claude Monet French Impressionist
If you're interested in Impressionism, then this biography of Monet and overview of Impressionism has something to offer you.
 

Web Gallery of Art
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1200-1700). You can even take virtual tours such as one to the Cistine Chapel in the Vatican.
 

WebMuseum, Paris
A comprehensive guide to famous artists, themes section from 1280 to present day. Many quality images and a useful glossary of painting styles.
 

Exploring Leonardo
Gives brief biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Investigates his ways of representing the 3D world on 2D surfaces. Also includes Renaissance techniques. Class activities on perspective and mirror writing.
 

From the Real to the Surreal
A suggested project for secondary pupils, which draws on the Surrealist movement of the 1920's. It shows how to use everyday objects in art and design to create imaginative compositions.
 

Art Studio Chalkboard
A resource for artists and art students which looks at the technical fundamentals of perspective, shading, colour and painting.
 

The Wonderful Styles of Art
Learn about all the styles of art and how to draw them. The site looks at Surrealism, Impressionism, Post-impressionism, Pop Art and Cubism. Get tips how to draw faces and landscapes and find out about colour.
 

Monet in the 20th Century
An online exhibition of selected Monet's paintings demonstrating his later change in style, together with biographical details

Picasso and Portraiture
An official Picasso site which is a virtual exhibition of his portraits. They are categorised into sections: Self-portraits, the family, children, women and friends of Picasso.
 

Totally Tessellated
Tutorials and animations which look at the maths involved in tessellations to help you understand how they work and create your own designs. The work of the Dutch artist Escher is discussed and analysed. Try the activities and printable templates.
 

Carmine's Introduction to Architecture
Find out what architecture is and what you need to consider when you design a building, such as the materials you use. An attractive site for children aged 11 and upwards. Have a go at designing a building.
 

Art from India
Written in collaboration with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts this website, which is suitable for children from 6 - 16 years of age, looks at Indian Art.
 

Songlines Aboriginal Art
Enjoy this online art gallery of Aboriginal art. The quality of the images is excellent.
 

Colour in Art
The site traces developments in art from prehistoric to modern times. If you are looking for information on a particular period such as fauvism, cubism or impressionism, then this site is worth a look.
 

Carol Gerten's Fine Art - A Virtual Art Museum
A virtual gallery of images of the works of a wide selection of artists. You can search by artist's name, nationality or time-frame. If you want biographical details as well as images, browse the 'Featured Artists' section.
 

The Salvador Dali Print Gallery
Learn more about this Spanish Surrealist artist and some of the printing techniques that he used.
 

Watercolour Instructions
An online resource of watercolour techniques. There are sections on materials and instructions on how to use watercolours which include colour theory, planning washes and painting shadows, figures, skies and trees.
 

Masks.org
Extensive site featuring mask images from all round the world, an exhibition centre showing the work of mask makers and links to other mask sites.
 

On-Line Picasso Project
Biographical references to Picasso's life as well as an archive of scanned images of his work.
 

Paintings of Vermeer
Mainly background information and descriptions of featured paintings by the artist.
 

Surrealism
Unnecessarily image intensive, but this site does have interesting information on selected Surrealists artists. They are René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali and Pierre Roy.
 

Art History Resources on the Web
Massive collection of links on the history of art from prehistoric times to the 20th Century. "The Gateway to Art History" claims the site's author.
 

Asian Arts
Exhibitions and articles about Asian Arts.
 

Mondrimat
You can experiment here with space and colour in accordance with the theories of Piet Mondrian.
 

Young Embroiderers
A textile art and craft site which has project ideas for children and young people.
 

Aboriginal Bark Painting
An art teacher's lesson plan with the objective of creating contemporary bark paintings in the style of primitive cave artists and the Aboriginal people.