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 $1.00 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 look at and discuss a selection of landscape paintings from the Gallery’s collection, and then consider how the artist has used colour, line and mark-making in their work. This 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 dry-brush painting of a Canterbury landscape to take back to school.
W. A. Sutton Te Tihi o Kahukura and Sky 1976. Oil on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 1980
- 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 discuss ideas like identity, immigration, multiculturalism and local history, presented in the exhibition He waka eke noa. In the education centre, students will learn about symbols, motifs and patterns and how these can be used as tools to communicate a story. They will then make their own waka, which tells a story of who they are. A great lesson for exploring personal identity or Canterbury and Christchurch history.
William Dunning Colonization Triptych 1999. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased, 1999
- 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
Create your very own dream home. Students explore the lively exhibition by Canterbury artist Wayne Youle. A show that threads together ideas about family, cultural identity and nostalgia. Your class will discuss how their day-to-day lives are shaped by family, school and the world around them. In the classroom they create a simple 3D pop-out house then decorate and draw into it to create a fantasy space just for them.
Wayne Youle Workaholic 2017. Mixed media. Collection of the artist
- 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 be guided through internationally acclaimed New Zealand artist Francis Upritchard’s major survey exhibition Jealous Saboteurs, exploring the eccentric and enigmatic figures and animals it contains. In the education centre, the class will make their own puzzling and quirky puppet character to take home.
Francis Upritchard Yellow and Black Gown 2012. Modelling material, foil, wire, paint, cloth, human hair. Collection Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, gift of the Patrons of the Auckland Art Gallery, 2013. Courtesy Kate MacGarry, London
- 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 create beautiful patterns with colour and shape and learn an easy printmaking technique. Students will discover the work of Bridget Riley, Henri Matisse and Don Peebles and use their art as the inspiration for a colourful collograph print in the education centre.
Don Peebles Relief Construction No. 3 1972. Wood and plastic. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 1973
- 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.
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
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.
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 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 from 5th August.
- 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 from 5th August.
- 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 from 5th August.
Len Lye Fountain III 1976. Stainless steel rods, motor. Collection Govett-Brewster Art Gallery