Edgar Degas was not yet famous, but was on the point of aesthetic and commercial success when he left Paris in the fall for his New Orleans visit of about four months, during which time he painted 22 major works. It might be said that he was having a midlife crisis at this time. He had been painting ballet and horse pictures to assist his father's…

Manurewa Intermediate students were given an experience only the arts can provide as they collaboratively researched, responded to and celebrated a school mural project. The mural project was initiated by Shane Hansen through the Principal Iain Taylor and coordinated by Dianne Macdonald, a Professional Learning Leader at Manurewa Intermediate…

In this article, the author describes how high school and university students in Georgia and members of a small weaving pueblo in Oaxaca, Mexico, collaborated in designing and creating a mural in the central market ("mercado") of the pueblo. A number of lessons emerged from this multi-cultural collaboration. First they learned that using…

How "could" one borrow a view? The works of artist, Ray Kass (b. 1944) are as much, if not more, about the experience and process of perception and art-making as they are about the final objects he creates. Kass is notorious for not solely his art making, but also for his thinking. He thinks, he writes, he teaches, he discusses, he organizes…

Interactive art activities can empower children and adults to experience art as active participants rather than passive spectators. Fayetteville State University's Art Education program in North Carolina has established Panorama Kids, mural projects designed by kids and painted by community volunteers. As art students can attest, art is very much…

In this article, the author describes a culmination activity for a technology unit wherein students would have to create a work of art on the computer that was as artistic as any painting done using oils or acrylics. The painting lesson was based on the song and book, "America the Beautiful," by Katharine Lee Bates and illustrated by Neil Waldman.

The current study examines how children develop multimodal narratives through the construction of quilt squares and I Am poetry. Creating visual narratives through the use of personal artifacts lays the foundation for this artistic multiple literacy experience. The study focuses on the process and growth that a diverse group of kindergarten…

Orland is a small agricultural town in Northern California. The community has been deluged with fundraisers and requests for money. The author knew there must be a way to self-fund. She took a closer look at what made some of their community artists successful, and she looked at what the public bought. Her challenge was to put together a project…

Murals have become a powerful art form for portraying antiwar, human rights, social justice, and human dignity issues. Educators and artists have conducted mural workshops with adolescents in international settings to educate them about peace, human rights, and cultural tolerance. Learning with murals has been shown to be pedagogically meaningful…

The "all-over" abstract canvases that Jackson Pollock produced between 1943 and 1951 present a pedagogical challenge in how to account for their apparently chaotic structure. One reason that they are difficult to teach about is that they have proved notoriously difficult for art historians to come to terms with. This is undoubtedly a consequence…

Did you know that a hummingbird weighs less than a penny? Or that an elephant swims twenty miles a day? These are just two of the many facts that Snapple prints on the lids of their drink bottles. When Snapple first introduced the Snapple Real Facts the author was excited to see that something so trivial was also educational. She asked herself if…

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…

With the formation of Pakistan as a modern Islamic republic in 1947, the institutions of art and design education were transformed under the sway of modernization theories of development. A conceptual and physical infrastructure was put in place to modify existing institutions and to create new ones for encouraging modern art and artists in the…

In this article, the author describes an after-school project he reactivated at RHAM Middle School. The author embarked on the Mural Project, which he hoped would engaged students in a year-long cycle to depict just what the seven pillars mean to the social and academic well-being of the school community. What emerged from the project was a…

Arts resources available on the Internet and DVDs provide a flexible, richly resonant, student-friendly framework for a coordinated study of the connections between the style and structure of Proust's novel and the social and cultural worlds he depicts. "In Search of Lost Time", a product of an artistic revolution as well as a critical…