Detail of painting by Augustin Lesage (c. 1930s), Collection de L'Art Brut, Lausanne, 2007. Photo: L. Moriarity.

Like most teachers I have adapted existing lessons and mixed them with my research on Art Brut and my own practice as a teacher and visual artist. Authors/teachers are noted with thanks on each plan.

All lesson plans can be adjusted to suit each High School Grade.

1: Introduction to Art Brut.

2: Basic Shapes to Complex Forms. - Modern Art & Art Brut.

3: Jean Dubuffet - Sculpture.

4: *NEW* Pattern Drawing from Memory & Observation - Contemporary Art & Art Brut.

5: Modern Art: Outsider Art & Jean Dubuffet - For more advanced classes, grade 12. Requires reading excerpts and quotes from different sources, presentation, thinking, speaking, and discussion.

More Lesson Plans at Museums and Galleries

Explore Bethlem, online activities, teacher's guide, and tour. Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum Services, London, England. http://www.bethlemheritage.org.uk/explorebethlem/

Intuit Education Outreach, lesson plans, resources, teacher fellowship. Intuit: Centre for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, USA. http://www.art.org/educational/about.htm

Parallel Visions: Modern Artists & Outsider Art (11/92), order form for education package ($10 US). From the exhibition of the same name, the package includes lesson plans, slides, and information. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA. http://www.lacma.org/programs/TeachersSchoolsEECurriculum.aspx#generalandcrosscultural

Creations Hors du Commun (French only), booklet pdf, lesson plans. Collection de L'Art Brut Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. http://www.dfj.vd.ch/serac/ecoles-musees/pdf/dp006_Artbrut_annexes.pdf

Acknowledgement is needed for the spontaneity and necessity to make creations in isolation due to circumstances, illness, and disability, etc. What is unique and common about Art Brut? Is it it's manifestations, techniques, and materials, not necessarily the artist's circumstances, illness, and disability? The same could be said for official artists of the Modern era.

Critical Concepts:

1. Materials, i.e. ball point pen, string, found objects, found paper, etc.
2. Produced in isolation and has no reference or influence of the fine art world and it's discourse.
3. Quality of line, mark making, color (formal aesthetics).
4. Outsider Art, Naive Art and the response from insider artists, art historians and curators, and the role of Galleries and Museums.
5. Role of the artist in society, i.e. Artist/Patients, institutionalized and sensationalized.
6. Inclusivity in high school art education, the classroom, and schools today.

Art Brut et.al. can be covered in the following areas in classrooms,

Studio: Exploration, expression, and imagination, in use of various media, use of materials, techniques, imagery, found objects.

Art History: Art Brut and Western Modern Art can be taught together, as well as with contemporary art. Art Brut can also be studied on its own.

World Art: European, Asian, North American context, etc.

Art Brut artists living in …[Canada]: Alma Rumball, Richard Greaves, etc. Please check Resources for more.