Studio Activities
Our hands-on art activities are tailored to pair with tour themes to enhance students’ experience at the NBMAA.
- Benches
- Chihuly Sculpture
- Cityscape Collage
- Curator for a Day
- Exquisite Corpse
- Landscape Postcards
- Math in Landscapes
- Narrative Collection Collage
- Puppet Self Portrait
Benches
![]() | ![]() |
What are the similarities between the work of artists and engineers? Join
Museum Educators for an interactive tour and studio experience, during
which students will learn to become creative problem solvers by looking at
various artworks from a technical standpoint. This program will emphasize
the NBMAA’s impressive collection of unique works of “touchable” art in
the galleries—our artist-designed bench collection—and students will
respond to this remarkable experience by reflecting and translating their
favorite works of art from the tour into miniature paper benches using a
variety of materials.
Connecting Tour Themes: Art, Architecture, Engineering, and Design
Chihuly Sculpture
![]() | ![]() |
After a docent-led tour, students will come to the art studio to learn about
the difference between 3-D versus 2-D artwork and engage in creative
problem solving. Students will utilize their imaginations and fine motor skills
to each create a unique sculpture out of multimedia art supplies inspired by
Dale Chihuly’s sculpture, Blue and Beyond Blue.
Connecting Tour Themes: Art, Architecture, Engineering, and Design, Math-terpieces, What is Art, Art Bones
Cityscape Collage
![]() | ![]() |
What makes a community successful? After considering the many ways artists in the NBMAA collection depict city and country life, students will visit the art studio to further their discussion of the sights and sounds of the city and create an original three-dimensional, pop-up "cityscape" collage out of construction paper, color sticks, and crayons.
Connecting Tour Themes: Art, Architecture, Engineering, and Design, Math-terpieces, What is Art, Art Bones
Curator for a Day
![]() | ![]() |
Working independently or in small groups, students will curate their own
mini exhibition using a variety of artworks from the NBMAA’s collection
that relate to a predetermined theme or question. Expert curators will also
write wall labels and text to accompany their exhibition. Collectively
students then analyze and reflect upon their curatorial decisions and
interpretations.
Connecting Tour Themes: What is Art, What is America
Exquisite Corpse
![]() | ![]() |
Students will have fun working together to create an artwork in the classic
“exquisite corpse” tradition, using written prompts, creative problem
solving, and team building to make one image out of a collection of images
and words gathered by the group.
Connecting Tour Themes: What is Art, Art Bones
Landscape Postcards
![]() | ![]() |
Looking at and responding to a range of landscape painting in the NBMAA’s
collection, students will discover and analyze a variety of techniques that
artists use to create the illusion of space. Students will also investigate how
the relationship of people and the environment is portrayed over time.
Students will then create their own landscape drawings using key elements
of art to structure their composition and add watercolor to explore texture,
depth, and mark making skills. An optional message can be written on the
back of the students’ postcard-sized landscape using descriptive writing full
of sensory details about the landscape depicted.
Connecting Tour Themes: What is Art, What is America, Artist in the Landscape
Math in Landscape
![]() | ![]() |
Students are invited to participate in a hands-on studio activity that
promotes the discovery of how math can be an integral part of the art
making process. Following an interactive demonstration, students will be
guided in an art making activity utilizing point plotting where they will
graphically create a landscape using paper, glue, markers, and their
imaginations. Math topics to be explored include: fractions, coordinate
planes, point plotting, symmetry, and measurement.
Connecting Tour Themes: What is Art, What is America, Artist in the Landscape
Narrative Collection Collage
![]() | ![]() |
Students will learn the fundamentals of storytelling, including plot, setting,
and character development, and interpret and present these concepts in
their own collages. They will also take part in an inclusive theatrical
presentation of their artwork. An optional activity asks students to title
their works and write an accompanying story.
Connecting Tour Themes: Art Bones, What is Art
Puppet Self Portrait
![]() | ![]() |
Students will create individual puppet self-portraits that reflect what they
learned on their docent-led tour through the NBMAA galleries, focusing on
color, texture, and the beautiful seasons of New England.
Connecting Tour Themes: Seasons
