The author was fortunate enough to teach in the children's program at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. Anderson Ranch is a magical place where artists young and old come to expand their creative spirits. The children's art program spans a wide range of media for children aged six through seventeen. There are classes to explore…

A title, a cover, and pages with "substance" bound together--this is what the author's eighth-grade students decided were the essential elements of a book. There could be more, but no less. In art, one does judge a book by its cover. In this article, the author describes how her students created their books. (Contains 1 online resource.)

Every year, the author's eighth-graders do some projects on color mixing and color schemes. In this article, the author gives a twist to the basic color wheel. Using rough-draft paper the same size as the paper they would eventually work on, students were to figure out a way to divide it into six spaces. They were not limited to basic rectangles,…

Vocabulary can become tedious and a chore if it is approached as such. By making art terms and vocabulary meaningful, students will remember and use them for years to come. In this article, the author describes two vocabulary review projects that work wonderfully and create great works of art: (1) cursive creature rubbings; and (2) bubbling bodies…

It is no secret that America is overweight. A record number of children are obese and are showing signs of adult diseases such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. Fortunately, people are recognizing this and beginning to do something about it: (1) restaurants and markets are offering healthier options; (2) menus are starting to list…

Telling art students to do anything they want can be dangerous. It's not something teachers often do, but this is a project where anything goes. In this article, the author describes how her students created a Mardi Gras type mask, then incorporated it into a mixed-media composition.

A traditional understanding in art is that, in order to draw the human figure, the artist must first understand its structure and inner workings. This project was first developed for middle-school art students in an attempt to help them better understand figure drawing. In subsequent years, it has been amended and adapted to integrate with other…

In this article, the author describes how her students constructed a three-dimensional sculpture of a dragon using plaster wrap and other materials. The dragons were formed from modest means--using only a toilet-paper tube, newsprint, tape and wire.

In this article, students build a prototype guitar. One way to get students to take creative risks is to allow playful approaches to their designs--let them come up with wild or silly ideas. By starting from such a wide-open place, many students will change their definitions and assumptions of what a guitar has to be. The result will be a wider…

Inspired by a beautiful bookmark one of the author's students made for him as a gift, he began a lesson exploring the vibrant bark paintings popular all over Mexico. The majority of his students have Mexican ancestry, so exploring the arts of Mexico is always popular and well received. Amate paintings can also be a great way to introduce the…

Having an answer to "When are we ever going to use this in real life?" is important to middle school mathematics teachers. The activity described in this article awakened sixth graders' understanding of how artists use mathematics. By exploring ratio and proportionality in different paintings, students realized the use of proportional…

To support a high-quality fine arts education, the District III -- East Area Fine Arts Initiative expanded students' access to teaching and learning through participation in off-campus and in-school arts-related activities and events. The initiative will serve as a blueprint for gradual expansion of the program to the Milby feeder pattern in…

When the author was training to be an art educator, she was employed as a sixth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teacher. When the author moved into the art teacher position at the very same school, she borrowed her cooperating teacher Kim Donovan's ELA project, in which students will design an 1800s-style "wanted poster," and transformed it into…

The house paintings of the South African Ndebele people are more than just an attempt to improve the aesthetics of a community; they are a source of identity and significance for Ndebele women. In this article, the author describes an art project wherein students use the tradition of Ndebele house painting as inspiration for creating their own…

A ballerina, a gladiator, a camper, a baseball player, a surfer, and a shopper; these are just a few of the amazing monkeys that the author's seventh graders created from papier-mache. This project provided an opportunity for students to express themselves through the creation of sculptural characters based on their own interests, hobbies, and…