This introductory session is suitable for those visiting the Art Gallery building for the first time. Participants learn about the history of the art collection and its creators, discover how the age of a painting can be determined, discuss the special care required for works of art, and become familiar with the basics of museum etiquette. In the workshop, participants create a model of their own museum.

Key concepts: museum, exhibition, artist, collector, museum etiquette

Would you like to find yourself in Narva a hundred years ago? Walk along its old streets, admire church spires rising above the city, and look into the windows of Peter the Great’s House and historic churches? All this is possible at the exhibition of pre-war Narva in miniature. Here, participants discover what Narva looked like more than a century ago. Through tasks and attention-based games, we learn how the city lived and what its residents did. In the workshop, each participant creates a three-dimensional house model, from which an entire city can be assembled.

Key concepts: architect, model, arch

During this museum lesson, children explore paintings and applied art works by Estonian and international artists of the 18th–20th centuries that focus on the relationship between humans and the animal world. We learn about the hidden lives of domestic and wild animals and the role they play in human life, as well as which animals live in our region. At the end of the lesson, participants learn step by step how to draw an animal and create a treat for birds.

Key concepts: wild and domestic animals, applied art, painting, animal genre, care for nature

In this lesson, children become familiar with the landscape genre in painting and learn how artists convey the mood of nature. We discuss what makes a native landscape different from others, complete playful attention tasks, and observe how artists depict the interaction between humans and nature. At the exhibition, children see works by local artists as well as renowned masters such as Düker, Shishkin, and Aivazovsky. Inspired by Aivazovsky’s moonlit seascape, participants create a sea landscape characteristic of Estonia using fluorescent paint.

Key concepts: landscape, painting, seasons, human impact on the environment

At the beginning of the session, participants explore the children’s book I’m (Not Really) Afraid of the Dark, which introduces them to the mysterious world of shadows and silhouettes created with a flashlight on walls and ceilings. Then, they guess well-known fairy-tale characters by their silhouettes and visit the exhibition to see 19th-century silhouette drawings of fairy-tale characters by artist Elisabeth Böhm, as well as other contour images that inspire imagination. The session concludes with creating a cardboard puppet for a shadow theatre.

Key concepts: silhouette, fairy tales, imaginative drawing, shadow theatre

A highlight of the museum’s art collection is a series of Baroque portraits of Russian and European rulers of the 18th century. Based on this series and other exhibitions, children become familiar with different types of portraiture. Participants experience what it is like to pose for an artist and try to solve the visual puzzles left by artists for viewers. At the end of the session, we bridge the past and present of the portrait genre by creating a portrait of the President of Estonia using the acquired knowledge.

Key concepts: portrait, symbol, emperor, president

In this museum lesson, students explore one of the basic elements of art—colour. The picture book Mouse Paint helps recall primary colours in nature and how new colours are created through mixing. Using landscape paintings as examples, we examine the vast range of shades in our world and how colour affects perception and mood. We search for the most unexpected colour tones in artworks. In the workshop, participants paint a landscape, carefully studying the process of creating new shades and building their own colour palette.

Key concepts: primary and secondary colours, palette, colour wheel, landscape

In this museum lesson, participants explore emotions and relationships depicted in artworks. Attention is given to pieces whose stories reflect everyday emotions—joy and disappointment, excitement and surprise, admiration and sadness. By analysing the figures in paintings, participants learn to describe emotions and experiences of others and imagine what the characters might say if they could speak to us. At the end of the session, participants create an “emotion envelope” — a helpful tool for recognising and recording their own meaningful feelings.

Key concepts: emotions and feelings, emotional intelligence, artwork analysis