Discovery Through Art

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At Discovery Through Art, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students use the works of art at the MFAH as inspiration for art making. Choose from two- or three-part museum visits that combine learning experiences in the MFAH’s galleries with art-making workshops at the Glassell Junior School. Students study works of art through discussion, looking activities, writing, and using hands-on art materials before they create original works of art in the studio. Discovery Through Art visits are led by artists and instructors from the Glassell Junior School.

Discovery Through Art is free to school groups and is offered Tuesday–Friday, October to May. Art materials are included. All programs are held from 9:45 a.m. to 12 noon. Tours are scheduled for two or three consecutive weeks (i.e. three consecutive Tuesdays).

Booking a Visit
To register for Discovery Through Art, e-mail schools@mfah.org (please put Discovery Through Art in the subject line) or call 713.639.7835. Requests must be made at least three weeks in advance.

• Two-Part Program
Includes two museum visits that are 2 ½ hours in length. Please choose two topics from the list below.
• Three-Part Program
Includes three museum visits that are 2 ½ hours in length. Please choose three topics from the list below.

Topics (Choose two or three topics from the following list)

Messages to the Community Clay Relief Sculpture
Artists all over the world use images and symbols—such as animals, images of warriors, or characters from myths—to tell stories, remember heroes and leaders, or share a moral lesson. Students will study a wide range of works of art including paintings, sculpture, and objects from antiquities to discover how the language of pictures tells stories about ancient cultures. Students will make inferences about stories and meanings based on what they see. Inmaking a clay relief sculpture, students will create their own symbols to tell stories.

Form and Function Clay Animal Pot
Clay has been used by many cultures over thousands of years to produce sculptural and functional objects. Students will explore the museum’s collections and compare and contrast artistic styles, techniques, and uses of ceramic art. They will identify and sketch both geometric symbols and symbols of animals and nature in ceramic art. In the studio, students will work with clay and will use hand-building and coil techniques to make a work of art that is also functional. Students may select an animal depicted in art at the museum whose characteristics they admire to incorporate into their clay vessel’s design.

Artistic Explorers Painting
Artists at the turn of the 20th century pushed the art world to the limits.  MFAH's collection of modern paintings will inspire students to get their brushes moving! Students explore the radical art styles of Impressionism, Pointillism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism. Through hands-on gallery activities and sketching, students learn about the artist’s tool kit—how artists employ line, shape, color, texture, pattern, space, and perspective to make a composition. In the studio, students use the tool kit to create a painting incorporating the artistic styles of their choice. Students may paint pictures of city buildings made out of simplified geometric shapes, create a harbor scene with colored dots, or discover that a tree can be blue.

Nature Inspirations Watercolor Paint and Oil Pastel Resist Drawing
Students will discover nature in art, including seascapes, deserts, gardens, rivers, jungles, forests, mountains, and plains depicted in paintings, art installations, and sculpture. Students will identify the components of a landscape, discuss perspective and narrative, and study the arrangement of space. In the studio, students will learn how to mix colors, overlap shapes and forms, and use scale to create the illusion of depth in their landscape painting. They will use oil pastels and watercolor paint to create a work of art representing a natural environment of their choice.

Identities Hidden and Revealed Paper Sculpture Mask
On this tour, students will observe the symbols, materials, and images artists use to communicate identities, and learn how beyond the exact likeness of a person, the items depicted in works of art represent personalities, hobbies, values and interests. Beads, clothing, furniture, pictures of books, or a golden scepter will tell students about people represented in the art at the museum. In the studio, students will make a paper mask composed of the things and symbols that represent themselves both symbolically and literally. Students will make paper cut-outs and experiment with a variety of paper sculpting techniques such as folding and curling to create relief elements. Their finished product will be a mask that both hides and reveals personal characteristics, expressions, and interests students choose to portray.