The term "Scribble Stage" highlights how first efforts appear in student independent work. Age does not correlate with "scribble" work as does experience; upper grade students and even adults will often approach new materials and techniques in an experimental manner as a means to become familiar with them. Everyone is a beginner at the things they…

Since Pen Argyl High School in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania was in the process of redeveloping its mascot, the Green Knight, the author decided to implement a studio project based on armor. In groups of three, students would research an assigned type of historical armor, replicate it in cardboard, and fit it to a group member. The lesson had heavy…

Collecting and placing images/objects of inspiration and personal significance is not an uncommon practice for studio artists. Washington based mixed-media/installation artist Renee Stout draws from the collections she displays in her studio and in her home. She is an avid collector of various objects, including vintage perfumes, West African…

This article reports on the most recent phase of an ongoing research program that examines the artistic graphic representational behavior and paintings of children between the ages of four and seven. The goal of this research program is to articulate a contemporary account of artistic growth and to illuminate how young children's changing…

The drab, cold days of winter were not helping to motivate the author's painting students. Still-life work appeared forced, tight, and overworked. A downed white birch in her front yard provided the author a resource and inspiration. In this article, students do some timed gestural drawings of still life using sticks as paintbrushes. (Contains 1…

When the author traveled to the city of Barcelona, Spain to see the still-unfinished La Sagrada Familia in person, she marveled at the magical genius of Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece. Inspired by Gaudi's whimsical tile work and cathedral towers, the author developed an art project that engages students in a creative experience, which combined art…

For centuries people from around the world have celebrated storytelling and puppetry for their educational and social functions. In the comprehensive curriculum, storytelling combined with puppet performances enriches the classroom experience by providing students with opportunities to engage in open dialogue, creativity, and structured play.…

When an unlimited amount of free 8 x 10" (20 x 25 cm) canvas was offered to all of the schools in their community to participate in the city's the Color of Friendship art competition, the author saw a wonderful opportunity for her students at Cedarcreek Elementary. After some thought, the idea of combining poetry with the contest's rich theme…

Dada, an art movement that became well known in the late 1910s and early 1920s, challenged traditional notions of art and aesthetics. Dada artists, for example, tossed colored scraps of paper into the air to compose chance-based collages, performed sound poems devoid of semantic value, and modeled a headpiece fashioned of sardine cans. To most art…

Each year, the first-year high-school art students at Surry County High School in Dendron, Virginia, complete a three-dimensional project that attempts to re-create an artifact from the Old Kingdom. In this article, the author describes how the students made canopic jars from recycled 2-liter soda bottles and newspapers for this year's art…

Creating a painting with texture is easy, although using heavy gel medium or modeling paste may be pricey ways to go about it. High school artists generally like making collages and mixed-media. In this article, the author suggests ways to capitalize on that interest with inexpensive fabric in a painting project.

In this article, the author describes a lesson that evolved from being based solely on observation to incorporating images from imagination. The challenges involved in this lesson span a multiplicity of skills while encouraging students to trust and develop their own creativity. Incorporating both versions--the observed and imagined--into a single…

As art department budgets across the country continue to shrink, art teachers are increasingly on the lookout for inexpensive materials that can be used to teach a range of concepts. In this article, the authors describe a newspaper beam tower project inspired by the book, "The Wonderful Towers of Watts" by Patricia Zelver. There are many more…

There is a wonderful community of art educators connecting a once-isolated profession through blogging. Art educators around the world are sharing ideas and communicating with their peers through this amazing resource. In this article, the author describes the bottle cap mural at Tulip Grove Elementary School which was inspired by this exchange of…

In this article, the author describes a project wherein students created colorful underwater sea creatures. This project began with a discussion about underwater sea creatures and how they live. The first step was making the multi-colored tissue paper that would become sea creatures and seaweed. Once students had the shapes of their sea creatures…