Students learning artistic trades and tricks can often best absorb this information by emulating successful pieces of art themselves. Instruct students to pick a piece of art from a certain time period and copy it themselves in a similar medium. Encourage them to add their own artistic spin on the piece, based on who they are and who the original artist was when he or she made the piece. This will show students what it takes to make that piece of art, make them study its intricacies and research who the original artist was as a person.
Each week, teach a different medium of art and instruct students to create a piece of art using this medium. Give pieces of clay to students one week, along with some examples of small, artistic types of sculpture which have been made in the past. Another week encourage students to draw with pastels, and the following week to paint with watercolor. By the end of the course, combining mediums shows students how one type of art can work with another.
Give students the opportunity to master different aspects of the artistic process without actually completing a whole piece by practicing specific techniques within a larger piece. Give students a limited amount of time to draw a still life, so that important initial details are focused upon and the artist learns what to convey first when trying to create something realistic. Focus upon a single part of the body as opposed to copying a whole portrait: a mouth, a hand, an ear. This teaches attention to detail within a larger piece of art. These little exercises come in handy when taking on larger pieces of art.