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Best art home education resources

Best art home education resources
Whether you want to learn to doodle, draw flowers, illustrate Marvel comics or create a portrait of a Disney character, our pick of the best home education resources will bring the world of art to your kitchen table. Explore art history through videos and games or pick up a pencil to have a go yourself – the only limit is your imagination.

Best for interactive art activities and quizzes

A fantastic art website for children, Tate Kids is a hub for playing loads of interactive art games and quizzes, watching videos arty (find out about surrealism or watch Jacqueline Wilson's tour of Tate Britain), exploring art and artists, making art with different techniques (we like the sound of chocolate painting!) and sharing your art with other users.

Best for original colouring sheets

Fancy colouring in a medieval manuscript, an anatomical drawing of a heart or a sketch or a winking owl? Libraries, archives and cultural institutions around the world are sharing free colouring sheets based on materials in their collections through Colour Our Collections, and there are some fascinating options to choose from.

If you'd rather do some science-themed colouring, we love the Oxford Physics Colouring Challenge: learn about magnetism, spin waves and flux pinning as you colour in!

Best for creating pixel art

Have you ever wanted to make your own Mario character? Inspired by the artwork of old-school role playing games? Create your own pixel art character resources from the National Video Game Museum resources will guide you through creating animated pixel art step-by-step.

A video, Create Pixel Art with the National Videogame Museum, is also available.

Best for wannabe superhero illustrators

 

If your child love superhero characters, encourage them to get creative and draw them themselves! Will Sliney, a Marvel Comics artist who has primarily worked on Spider-Man and Star Wars comic books, is providing children with free Youtube lessons on how to draw favourite Marvel characters.

Best for creative record breaking

Our Creative Face is a record attempt is to have 50,000+ collaged portraits on the Creative Face online gallery over the next few months. Once the record is made, everyone who uploads one or more portraits will receive an official GUINNESS WORLD RECORD™ certificate and be OFFICIALLY AMAZING™!

Best for daily art inspiration for all ages

Learn to make salt dough beads, paint with string, make your own kaleidoscope, take part in a paper aeroplane workshop, watch a kids' art history guide to Frida Kahlo and more – Isolation Art School on Instagram is packed with projects, daily lessons and tips by artists to help people get creative while housebound.

Best for daily doodling time

 

Mo Willems, author of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and the Kennedy Center’s first Education Artist-in-Residence, opened his home studio every weekday for approximately twenty minutes worth of LUNCHDOODLES.

You can catch up with the whole LUNCHDOODLES series on YouTube and there is even a "graduation gift" to download for Mo's students!

Best for a live daily art class

#DrawTogether with WendyMac is a 30-minute drawing class for children of all ages, live on Instagram every school day at 5pm UK time. Each class includes a warmup exercise and a How-to lesson (and sometimes dancing!). You can watch previous #DrawTogether with WendyMac classes on YouTube and learn to draw anything from racer cars to cupcakes and sound waves.

Best for learning to express yourself through art

Inspired by artist Rebecca Baumann, keep an art journal to track your emotions and experiences using only visual forms like sketches, diagrams, colour fields or abstract drawings. You could also glue objects or photos into your journal. Download a guide to art journalling from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Australia.

Best for future animators

 

Learn how to draw your favourite Disney characters with online tutorials from Disney animators – there are 42 detailed video guides to choose from, featuring Frozen characters, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Woody from Toy Story, characters from Inside Out and lots more. Look through the Disney Parks How to Draw playlist now.

Best for a series of art creation lessons

Guide your child through the process of creating artwork with an art lesson plan program from the Japingka Aboriginal Art gallery, inspired by conversations with artist Sarrita King and based on the theme “My Family”. Your child will explore painting through colour mixing, colour theory and the emotional quality of colour, creating a piece of art which explores their own feelings about their family.

Best for history of art for children

Discover New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art collections using an interactive map and by watching behind-the-scenes videos presented by children, then travel through more than 5,000 years of art in the MetKids time machine and find out fun facts about works of art, from dragons to dancers and mummies to masks!

Best for art games and art investigations

With 107 arts games and 99 arts investigations to choose from, Artsology is a brilliant site to introduce children to art history through play. Why not wander through New York City looking for walls to tag with digital graffiti, challenge Mondrian to a classic game of dots, escape from the Hieronymus Bosch Underworld, create abstract art images or play the classic arcade game Frogger (with a Surrealist twist) – all for free.

Best for art tutorials

 

ArtJohn offers exciting art lesson ideas and free video tutorials from experienced arts educator, John Mayson.

Subscribe to the ArtJohn YouTube channel for simple, mess-free introductions to Op-Art, chalk art, spin painting, landscape drawing and sculpture – the results are seriously impressive and visually exciting.

Best for art modelling

Learn to transform egg cartons, milk bottles, biscuit boxes and yoghurt pots into amazing installations with artist Darrell Wakelam's free ArtJumpStart projects. From pasta fossil fish to toilet roll rockets, milk carton elephants, paper plate penguins and tin foil sea monsters, follow the step-by-step suggestions to turn recycling into art. 

Best online art courses for kids

 

The Future Creatives Art School for 7 to 10 Year Olds Online Short Courses from University of the Arts London offers young learners the opportunity to develop their creativity at home. The online art and design classes are live, led by qualified teachers, and children explore new creative skills, techniques and concepts with practical, fun activities.

Each class is different and only basic art materials are required to take part. Prices start at £1 for a one-hour Future Creatives taster, up to £60 for three two-hour sessions. You can also browse through artist-suggested creative things to do with kids during lockdown if you'd like to run your own art session for your child at home.

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