Education
To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our educator:
Bianca van Leeuwen
(+ 64 3) 941 7373
schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz
We run art education for schools. Let us help your class discover art with hands on learning experiences based on our exhibitions and works in our collection.
Our art education programmes offer students first-hand experience with real works of art whilst developing their creative and critical thinking skills. We make links to the English, social science and arts curriculum as well as providing students with great opportunities to develop key competencies in a social context. Discussions and activities can be adapted to suit all levels.
Gallery tours and visits are free.
Art lessons take 90 minutes, involve a hands-on activity and cost $2 per student.
Bookings are essential. Our programmes are popular and we can only teach one class at a time. So get in early. To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our educator, Bianca van Leeuwen:
(+64 3) 941 7373
schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz
Installation view of Povi Christkeke by Michel Tuffery 1999
PROGRAMME
Select a programme for more information on our art lessons.
- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 Minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
Students will take a look at Len Lye’s films in the gallery and discuss how animation works, before heading to the classroom to create their own colourful abstract animations using a Zoetrope (animation viewing device) or Thaumatrope (wonder turner).
Available until 12th November.
- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
Students will look at and discuss a selection of landscape paintings from the Gallery’s collection and two works by Bridget Riley inspired by Georges Seurat. During the tour students will consider how the artists have used colour, line and mark-making in their work. The tour is supported by a practical lesson in the education centre, where students will learn simple tips and tricks to help them manage paint and use brushes correctly. Students will create their own Seurat-style painting of a Canterbury landscape to take back to school.
Available until 12th November
Bridget Riley Pink Landscape 1960. Oil on canvas. Private collection. © Bridget Riley 2017. All rights reserved
- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
Students explore some of Len Lye’s major sculptural works alongside his films, drawings and paintings. During the tour students will discuss what makes Lye’s work so interesting and what they can learn from it. The tour is supported by a lesson in the education centre, where students will get creative with a variety of materials and make a sculpture that moves.
Available until 26th November.
Len Lye Fountain III 1976. Stainless steel rods, motor. Collection Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
This lesson offers the opportunity to see work by renowned artist Matisse alongside New Zealand artist Richard Killeen and two tivaevae pieces from Rarotonga. In the Gallery students will discuss how Matisse was inspired by his time in Tahiti and their tradition of tifaifai and look at how contemporary artists like Killeen were in turn influenced by the work of Matisse. The tour is supported by a practical lesson in the education centre, where students will create their own colourful artwork inspired by Matisse.
Available until 12th November.
- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
This lesson offers students the opportunity to discover the work of significant international artist Bridget Riley. In the Gallery they will see how Riley was inspired by Georges Seurat and learn about the way she uses colour to create a range of optical responses. In the classroom the students will create their own masterpiece of collaged and woven colour.
Available until 12th November
Bridget Riley Cosmos 2016–17. Acrylic. Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, acquired through the Christchurch Art Gallery Foundation with the generous help of Heather Boock; Ros Burdon; Kate Burtt; Dame Jenny Gibbs; Ann de Lambert and daughters, Sarah, Elizabeth, Diana, and Rachel; Barbara, Lady Stewart; Gabrielle Tasman; Jenny Todd; Nicky Wagner; and the Wellington Women’s Group (est. 1974). © Bridget Riley 2017. All rights reserved.
- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
Discover the art of picture making with our new photographic exhibition Aberhart Starts Here. In this lesson students will take a tour through the Gallery, looking at how artists frame and plan their work. In the classroom students will create their own miniature 3D diorama that explores what they have learnt about composition.
Year 3+
Laurence Aberhart Lodge Pacific 1229, Hokitika, Westland, November 1979 – January 1980. 8 x 10" Polaroid. Courtesy the artist and Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin
- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
This lesson is all about colour, construction, 3D form and working collaboratively. Your class will tour the Gallery, examining Ani O’Neill’s new collaborative work in Yellow Moon as well as other sculptures from the collection to see how artists use different materials to make their work. In the education centre, your students will be given a bag of materials to experiment and play with in groups and make a 3D work together. Works can be taken back to school or photographed and deconstructed at the end of the lesson. A great lesson for imaginative play and problem-solving for kids who love to make.
Available from 30 October 2017
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- Understanding art in context
- Communicating and interpreting
- Developing ideas
- Developing practical knowledge
- Key Competencies
- Participating and contributing
- Thinking
- Managing self
- Symbols and text
- Relating to others
- Using language
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 35 students
In this lesson students will learn how to paint like the masters. Your class will look through our exhibition The Weight of Sunlight and examine how artists apply paint to create texture, layers of colour and tone. This tour is supported by a lesson in the education centre, where students will experiment with oil pastels, learning a few simple tips and tricks before creating their own artwork filled with colour and light.
![Lucy Kemp-Welch In the Orchard [Sunlight through the Leaves] 1904–5. Oil on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, presented by the Canterbury Society of Arts 1932](/media/cache/14/70/14706c99e90494ca9538bcfe3b693902.jpg)
Lucy Kemp-Welch In the Orchard [Sunlight through the Leaves] 1904–5. Oil on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, presented by the Canterbury Society of Arts 1932