The author of this article, an art teacher at Monarch High School in Louisville, Colorado, describes how her experience teaching in a new school presented an exciting visual challenge for an art teacher--monotonous brick walls just waiting for decoration. This school experienced only minimal instances of graffiti, but as an art teacher, she did…

Norman Rockwell's Triple Self-Portrait provided the perfect starting point for taking self-conscious teenagers on a personal journey into the intimidating world of introspective art. Asking students to find the three self-portraits in the Rockwell work was an easy way to draw them into painting. From the visual clues and objects meaningfully…

Expressionistic textured paintings are intense and passionate for both the viewer and the artist. Regional subject matter can relate the artist's feelings with the period and location of the artwork. This article briefly describes one classroom's experience engaging in a lesson relating to combining Expressionism and Regionalism. The class was a…

The author's inspiration for this lesson for her fifth- and sixth-grade students came from an article on Peruvian-style retablos in the December 1998 issue of SchoolArts. She wanted a multicultural theme for a three-dimensional assignment that incorporated many art-making and higher-order thinking skills. She prepared a packet or kit for each…

Tracey Hunter-Doniger is an elementary visual arts teacher who is fortunate enough to work in a school that realizes the value and influence art has on technology. Twice a year, her first-through fifth-grade classes meet in the computer lab to create computer-generated works of art. the class discusses the importance of art in technology, such as…

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), a Viennese painter, was the founder of the Vienna Secession, the Austrian Art Nouveau movement. Art Nouveau is characterised by flowing lines and flat designs based on organic structures. This style is found in the symbolic aspect of Klimt's later work, and in the works of other artists of the late 1890s and early 1900s…

In the fall of 2003 the Children's Art Workshop, the Program for Southeast Asian Studies and Hayden Library at Arizona State University (ASU), in cooperation with the Arizona Lao Association, had both the fascinating and occasionally difficult experience of teaching Lao art traditions to a group of 25 students from diverse communities in the…

During a visit to Williamsburg Elementary School (Williamsburg, Iowa), this author was introduced to J. C. Holz, a 10-year-old boy who had already exhibited the characteristics of a prolific artist. During one of the interviews with J. C., the author encouraged him to have a solo exhibition of his work at the University of Iowa. The exhibition was…

Picture books are the first visual arts experience many students encounter. A picture book equally emphasizes text and illustrations, and though the text often receives most of the attention, in the best cases, the pictures are excellent resources for teaching about creating and responding to images. For a resourceful teacher who knows how to use…

In this article, the author, an art teacher, relates how she struggles every year with finding the time for every lesson she wants to do with her students. Because of time constraints, she always had to make a decision each quarter as to whether her seventh graders would do an artist research lesson, a multimedia project, or a unit on portraits.…

Tanjore (or Thanjavur or Thanlavoor) paintings are one of the most popular traditional art forms in Southern India. These ornate religious paintings involve Hindu mythology. The paintings are noted for their adornment of gold and semiprecious stones such as rubies, emeralds, and pearls. Currently, the semiprecious stones are often substituted…

Provides a reproduction of a painting called "Torpedo" by Roy Lichtenstein that was chosen because of facial expression. Includes learning activities for use with students as well as background information about the artist and the painting. (CMK)

Despite Hawai'i's location at the northern apex of Polynesia, visual arts education in Hawai'i is predominately west facing in its orientation. Defining visual arts solely along European/American conventions and history, arts education as practiced in Hawai'i does little to acknowledge and engage the diversity of cultural perspectives long…

Painting in early childhood classrooms should have its own values and purposes enriching young children's aesthetic intelligence rather than being considered as mere supplements to other art activities. The three approaches to painting in early childhood settings--Bank Street, Reggio, and Waldorf--consider painting as the core of integrated…

This manuscript considers the way that several creative media--including music, videography, visual arts, literature, drama, play, and altar-making--can be utilized in assisting the multifaceted grief process of clients. In particular, attention is given to the ability of creative media to enable clients to maintain a connection to the deceased,…