Express Yourself!: Activities and Adventures in Expressionism »

Joyce Raimondo, the author of Imagine That!: Activities and Adventures in Surrealism and Picture This!: Activities and Adventures in Impressionism, was the family programs coordinator at The Museum of Modern Art in New York for eight years. She lives in New York.

• Interactive introduction to 6 famous artists: Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Vassily Kandinsky,
Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock

• Hands-on approach to understanding great art

• Parents and teachers need Art Explorers—ideal for homeschoolers, too!

The Art Explorers series offers a new approach to art, encouraging kids to interpret what they see in famous artworks, then try the techniques themselves. Express Yourself!: Activities and Adventures in Expressionism, the third book in the series, draws children into the compelling, dramatic world of expressionism by highlighting the work of six famous artists. From modern expressionists (Van Gogh, Munch) to German expressionists (Kirchner, Kandinsky) to abstract expressionists (De Kooning, Pollock), each artist is represented by a famous artwork, paired with questions to get kids thinking about what they see. Easy-to-follow activities provide hands-on experience with the artist’s techniques, subject, and mediums, each illustrated with examples by real kids. Packed with great art and ideas, Express Yourself! lets kids understand art—and become artists themselves.

Kathleen Karr - Children's Literature

This title, the third in the "Art Explorers" series—following Adventures in Surrealism and Adventures in Impressionism—takes on Expressionism in a hands-on way. Five artists—from Edvard Munch to the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock—are used as vehicles for getting students involved in making their own art. It is a worthy endeavor, and one the educator and consultant to the Pollock-Krasner House, Joyce Raimondo, obviously joins in with her whole heart. Suggested approaches target one sample painting by each artist—followed in turn by examples of kids' art, the most successful of which are faces inspired by de Kooning's virulent "Woman V." Worthy, yes, but the garish "expressionist" background colors and super-busy page designs make the copy hard to read. They also dull the colors of the primary paintings used as examples. Almost makes you want to "Scream." 2005, Watson-Guptill, Ages 5 to 12.