Google Art Project Expanded to over 30,000 images and 46 museums

The Google Art Project is a great resource for students and educators that I reviewed last year. It was originally a small collection of artwork from museums set up as a virtual art museum, where you could take virtual tours and even create your own "collections of art." It has now been expanded to include paintings, sculpture, street art and photographs from 151 museums in 40 countries.

The original Art Project was 17 museums, in 9 countries, with 1,000 images, mainly paintings. The new expansion brings the Art Project up to over 30,000 hi-res images and even Street View images for 46 museums from around the world.

Here are some of the new features:

• Using completely new tools, called Explore and Discover, you can find artworks by period, artist or type of artwork, displaying works from different museums around the world.
• Google+ and Hangouts are integrated on the site, enabling you to create even more engaging personal galleries.
• Street View images are now displayed in finer quality. A specially designed Street View “trolley” took 360-degree images of the interior of selected galleries which were then stitched together, enabling smooth navigation of more than 385 rooms within the museums. You can also explore the gallery interiors directly from withinStreet View in Google Maps.
• We now have 46 artworks available with our “gigapixel” photo capturing technology, photographed in extraordinary detail using super high resolution so you can study details of the brushwork and patina that would be impossible to see with the naked eye.
• An enhanced My Gallery feature lets you select any of the 30,000 artworks—along with your favorite details—to build your own personalized gallery. You can add comments to each painting and share the whole collection with friends and family. (It’s an ideal tool for students.) 

Here is a video on how to use the Art Project site:

For more information and future developments, follow the Art Project on Google+

This is a great resource for students and educators. Image being able to view such incredible works of arts and museums right from your classroom without the hassle and cost of airfare, TSA security, buses, cabbies, and the like! There is even an Education section on the site.

Guggenheim Museum makes 65 Art Catalogs Available Online

The famous Guggenheim Art Museum in New York City has just made 65 Art Catalogs available online for free. The catalogs include different topics and artists.

This is a great resource for art and art history classes to use.

The Guggenheim also has a great education page with resources for educators.

Google Art Project - virtual visits to world Art Museums

Google Art Project is a fascinating web site that has photos of art from museums from all around the world.

The pictures are very high quality and you can even zoom in. Besides viewing the artwork, you can also take a virtual tour of the museum itself. The virtual tour reminds me of Google Street View.

There is a "visitor's guide" for the museums and floor plans to help you navigate. The artwork pictures are incredible quality and resolution. It is truly amazing.

Each piece of artwork has in information tab on the right that has the type of painting, artist, size, audio commentary on the piece, viewing notes, history and more.

You can even create your own "collections" of art.

This is a great way to experience and view great artwork without leaving your home or classroom and is also a "art classroom" on the web.

Here's an example of one of the pieces of artwork. "Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Garden"

Aviary Education - safe environment for Aviary for Students

Aviary is one of my favorite web apps. I use the Aviary extension in Google Chrome to take and edit screen shots and I use some of their other tools to edit and modify graphics.

Aviary Education is currently in Beta and is offering free accounts for educators. The site allows educators to create private student accounts, manage assignments, and use the image editor, vector editor, audio editor, and music creator with their students. The content is promised to be 100% school safe.

This is a great tool for all educators to use, especially graphics, art, and music.