Online Art Education

Contrary to the popular believe, art education is no longer restricted to the classrooms and now it has graduated to the dotcom platform. Art Education on the Internet is gaining momentum and not only are the new age trends like photography, video, film, design, computer art, booming on the internet, but also the traditional mediums for visual, tangible arts like -drawing, painting, sculpture, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics is also gaining a great fan following. One of the key reasons for these shifts is considered to be globalism - the world is becoming a smaller place by the day and so are the mediums of expression.

With the gradual change of medium, the veterans in the field are trying to utilize the available resources for an apt art education on the internet. Not only using the available resources a challenge, but making it interactive and interesting is also a huge challenge. However, art education on the internet is not as difficult as it sounds. All one needs to start of is an email address for communication, a web browser and lastly an internet connection to stay connected to the world. Once you are online, the world is your playground! Opportunities are galore, be it for the students or be it for the teachers.

With Art education going online, today the students are much more aware of their subjects than they were even 10 years ago. Some of the popular resources for art education on the internet are listed below:

William F Eisner Museum

This is an online exhibit of a collection of advertisements and designs that showcase highlights of 20th century advertising that featured burma shave, automobiles, and record albums. Apart from that there are also sections that feature Hikifuda, or Japanese handbills and Boris Artzybasheff's illustrations for the cover of TIME magazine. Moreover, there are prospects of delving into some of the unique aspects of visual culture and it's a great platform to understand how consumer behavior can be influenced though graphic art. William F Eisner Museum's site is a great starting point for the novice as well as for the professionals.

Adobe Youth Voices Essentials

This is one of the popular mediums that have propagated the art education on the internet. This allows teachers to download curricular materials with supporting resources. This also offers a splendid opportunity to those who are interested in coming up with innovative and interesting ways of engaging young people to art in the new media. Adobe Youth Voices program follows a mantra of 'create with purpose' and there are several domains that they cover like print, video, photography, and animation. With this, art is not restricted to the physical world, but here it has some state-of-art samples that echo the group's mantra of creating with a purpose. To get the curriculum and the material, one has to register on their website.

African Mosiac

Finally this last platform is a haven for those who want a glimpse of National Museum of African Arts collection of the last ten years. It is a brilliant exhibit of the museum's permanent collection that ranges from wooden figurines to precious gold jewelry that reflects the diverse and the colorful extravaganza of African arts and culture. This is a haven for those who want to peek into Africa's rich culture and diversity.