Art Detective Club
What is it?
A creative art history club for children aged 5-7. Each week, we discover a new artist, look closely at their artworks, search for clues and solve little mysteries about their work. And of course, we create our own artworks inspired by what we’ve just seen and learned, while learning the basics of art and experimenting with different materials and techniques.
How the Club Works
Each session is dedicated to a different artist from art history and is a complete little investigation of its own. Children can join individual workshops or come regularly and discover a growing collection of artists, techniques and ideas.
The club also supports the Key Stage 1 Art and Design curriculum, helping children develop their creative skills, explore different materials and techniques, and learn about the work of different artists.
Session Structure
We begin by looking closely at the artist’s work, discussing what we notice and trying to solve a few mysteries about it. In the second part, children experiment with the artist’s techniques or ideas and create their own artwork inspired by what they discovered.
Coming Up in Our First Lessons
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Why are his portraits made of fruit, vegetables, flowers and other objects? Could he paint “normally”? We’ll investigate Arcimboldo’s unusual paintings and experiment with his ideas to create a headpiece, mask or even a costume that can be worn for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Throughout October, our creations will be linked to masks and costume-making. Each week, we’ll explore a different famous artist or art movement and bring their ideas, themes or techniques into a hat, wig, mask or costume of our own.
Coming up next in October:
• Surrealism through Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Leonora Carrington
• Fauvism through Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck
• Cubism through Pablo Picasso
Practical Info
Each workshop is a self-contained session, so children can join at any point without attending previous classes.
Please wear comfortable clothes that can get messy. We provide aprons, but some of our experiments may still get wonderfully messy.