Love the thread on the art games. I teach AP art history and use games to
break up the slide/lecture rhythm.
The game my highschoolers love is Pictionary. We use the blackboad, and play
it like regular Pictionary, but use art terms/art history terms instead.
Since most of the kids in AP Art history are NOT art students in terms of
'drawing' it is a hoot to watch them draw, giggle, and guess. One of the
kids did a well endowed caryatid, and another did a pretty funny putti, and
monstrance is not as easy to draw as one would think.
Another game we do is I make a xeroxes of art work we are studying. We just
finished medieval churches. I then safety pin a piece of artwork to the back
of each student, and they go around asking questions to try to figure out
(in this case, which church) which piece of art work they are.
Another game I do is I xerox 4 pieces of art we have studied. I attach the
xeroxes to a large piece of construction paper and put it up in each of the
four corners of the room. I divide the class into 4ths, and each group gets
a certain color magic marker. They are then challenged to write as much
about the piece as they can within the confines of style, substance,
signficance and subject (this activity was shared by Yu Bong Ko at the last
AP Art History seminar in Philly). Each group is timed and goes from one
piece of work to another, writing as much as they can in their group's
color. This activity is timed.
I have a collection of postcards of famous art works. We play dominoes with
them. Each kid gets 3 postcards. We stand in a circle. I start off by
putting the first postcard down. Then we go around and one at a time they
must lay a postcard down adjacent to any of the four sides of the postcard,
and say how they are related. It can be as simple as "my postcard has 3
figures and the one on the floor has 3 figures", or it can be as complicated
as "my postcard has sfumato, and the Leonardo who painted the postcard on
the ground did sfumato in is work", or "my postcard has warm colors and the
postcard has warm colors". We continue around the circle.
Notice that there are no winners in the games, but the class itself is the
winner. Not that I am not a competitive person myself, but these exercises
are fun, and the idea of winning is secondary.
