In the present study, we conducted analyses of artwork that represents elements from the natural and man-made environment and established their compliance with the real world. We also present a comparative approach of young schoolchildren's artwork, having the landscape and other environment elements as a main theme. The research took place…

The present research focuses on modernising the approach to learning and teaching the visual arts in teaching practice, as well as examining the performance of an interactive approach to learning and teaching in visual arts classes with the use of a combination of general and specific (visual arts) teaching methods. The study uses quantitative…

The author's school is only 30 minutes from New York City, so every year when second-graders study towns and cities, the students do a project based on New York City landmarks. This year was the Statue of Liberty. The author introduced Peter Max's famous Pop art to her students, and explained that, as the art world kept changing, artists decided…

One can easily find a choice studio. In this choice-based art classroom, the students move comfortably within an organized structure of space, time and materials, managed by the teacher. They are well aware of their responsibilities and their possibilities. The teacher helps them to mine their lives and interests for the content of their…

A humid summer haze covers the River Seine and the grassy bank where young men and boys go swimming on Sunday. Everything seems so quiet, still, and very hot. They wear hats to protect them from the hot sun. The artist Georges Seurat used warm tones to give viewers the feeling of the hot sun. Seurat was trying to catch the dazzle of hot sunlight…

In this article, the author describes how her second-graders created their cool polar bears. The students used the elements of shape and texture to create the bears. They used Monet's technique of dabbing paint so as to give the bear some texture on his fur.

In this article, second-graders create a sunflower drawing using pastel techniques that produce similar effects to Vincent van Gogh's brushstrokes. They also learn how layering colors and using white to lighten colors creates depth in their flowers.

The author noticed that, when painting self-portraits, her students struggled with size relationships between the head, neck, and shoulders. In order to address this without having to deal with facial proportions, she had her second-graders take turns drawing a partner from the back. Students began this project by learning about Mary Cassatt,…

This article describes a collaborative painting project that allows first- through third-grade students to work with partners to create a four-inch square of a group painting and learn the basics of mixing paints to produce lights and darks, and tints and shades. One by one, the students worked on the painting in their free time. The author kept a…

In this article, the author describes an art project wherein students used simple shapes and photo references to imagine what they might look like when they are one hundred years old. The project challenged the students technically, intellectually, and emotionally. The artwork stimulated their imagination and their imagination informed their…

Latin American customs and colors play an important role as second graders are introduced to multicultural experiences through food, music, dance, art, and craft. In this article, the author describes a printing project inspired by Guatemalan weavings and amate bark paintings. (Contains 2 online resources.)

The wonderful book, "How Are You Peeling? Foods with Moods" by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers inspired a lesson on feelings and expressions for this author's second-grade students. Many students at her school have difficult lives and lots of emotional baggage, resulting in behavioral problems at school. Using the example of Fauvist portraits by…

In this article, the author describes an art project for second-grade students based on American Regionalist Grant Wood's most famous painting, "American Gothic," which was modeled by his sister, Nan, and his dentist. This well-loved painting depicting a hard-working farmer and his daughter standing in front of their farmhouse is the project's…

This study portrayed a picture of kindergarten through 3rd-grade teachers who teach visual arts, their perceptions of the value of visual arts, their visual arts teaching practices, visual arts experiences provided to young learners in school, and major factors and/or influences that affect their teaching of visual arts. The sample for this study…

Young children are experts at make-believe and delight in listening to tales of fantasy and wonder. When the author learned that the second-grade students in her school were studying fairy tales and legends, she took advantage of their natural interests and classroom experiences and introduced them to the magical, dreamlike paintings of Swiss…