Ar(t)chive, a retroactivist technique for queer worldmaking in art therapy, invites sexual, gender, and relationship diverse (SGRD) clients to engage with queer forms from history and construct a continuum of shared lived experiences across differences to challenge misinformation and discrimination, foster resilience, and build community. Phases…

What makes an artist a great master? Why are some artworks held in higher esteem than others? In this article, the author considers why the contributions and creations of some artists have made it through the years. A short quiz using just a few of the abundant facts and fascinating information found in "The First Time: Innovations in Art" is…

What if we hosted a banquet for famous artists and they came dressed in their own work? With this idea in mind, the author gathered materials on different artists from books, magazines, and the Internet. To simplify things somewhat, she only used artists from the mid-1800s to the present. The sixth graders made the artists' masks, placemats, and…

This article describes a miniature painting project that allows students to research a master painter and then replicate the work on a smaller scale. This lesson focuses on the students' ability to learn to identify style, subject matter, themes, and content in painting through the study of historical paintings, and the application of various…

A primary goal of substantive art education is to communicate visually--to decipher art for meaning and to construct meaning through images and objects. Strategies available to engage students are the interdisciplinary activities found in performance, visual and written forms of creative expression, and related disciplines such as ethnography,…

One of the fifth-grade art-curriculum objectives is to create a relief print. In this era of budget cuts, the author was looking for a way for her students to meet this objective by making colorful prints without using a lot of expensive printing ink. She knew she wanted to use a rainforest animal theme, as well as share the colorful art of Henri…

This book details the Guggenheim Museum's classroom-tested, inquiry-based approach to learning. This user-friendly guide provides teachers (grades 2-8) with strategies and resources for investigating art to enhance student learning across the curriculum. "For the classroom teacher", Art Investigation provides an exciting way to study contemporary…

When he painted a portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II (1552-1612), Giuseppe Arcimboldo used his imagination, and portrayed him as "Vertumnus," the Roman god of vegetation and the seasons. It's fun to find the different fruits, vegetables and flowers he used: pea-pod eyelids, a gourd for the forehead. Court painters of the time usually…

Both Greeks and Romans placed the building of temples and sanctuaries high on their list of architectural priorities, as these structures were a source of public pride. The temples were built as shrines for the all-important gods and goddesses of the ancient world. The Parthenon is a great example of this. The frieze on the Parthenon shows scenes…

Creativity--where does it come from? When nurturing creativity, it is necessary to have an open mind. By nurturing a creative mind, one finds that artists' ideas flow freely, so students need to look deeper into the artworks, the artists' lives, and what was behind the inspiration for the work. Imagining themselves as one of the artists they have…

This article describes how the author exposes her students to the world of Jackson Pollock, the artist who brings to mind dripping, meandering, splashing puddles of paint. Pollock's action paintings of the late 1940s-'50s call out for unfettered movement, fluidity, and freedom of application. Is it even possible to capture the action, rhythm and…

This article describes an activity in which students created and designed lampshades using artists' styles. This was a unique experience because while all of the students have drawn or painted on flat canvas, none of them had done dimensional painting in this manner before. Essentially, they were planning and creating murals in 3-D. The author…

Bright, shining gold, so daring and intense. Patterns reflecting the spirit of the portrait's subject, wisps of a look that intrigue the viewer. Something sultry in the eye, something shimmering on the lip... these are the works of Gustav Klimt. Klimt was Vienna's golden boy of painting. Through his use of pattern and the mosaic qualities in his…

Many of the paintings of 20th-century American artist Philip C. Curtis defy clear classification. Curtis's artworks often show dreamlike and fantastical qualities and are therefore frequently pigeonholed as Surrealistic. While this classification is not completely erroneous, it fails to acknowledge some subtle differences between Curtis's artwork…

"The Problem We All Live With" is one of Norman Rockwell's most famous, and provocative, images. First printed in the January 14, 1964, issue of "Look" magazine, the image features an approximately six-year-old African American girl walking. She is wearing a white dress, white socks and white shoes. Her hair is parted in neat…