The author likes to have her middle school students work with pens, patterns and textures. Because she was tired of the usual texture project she had been using, Shirley Laird began looking for a new approach. While searching for an inspiration, she ran across some old calendars that had excellent photos of teddy bears dressed up in different…

In this article, the author describes a texture and pattern project. Students started by doing an outline contour drawing of an animal. With the outline drawn, the students then write one of their names to fit "inside" the animal.