Relates the experience of sixth-grade students who created a mural of the rain forest on a school wall. Describes the process of choosing a theme, researching the theme, designing the composition, and painting the mural. Uses the team approach to foster cooperation and peer learning during the project. (DSK)

Explains that if students want to depict predatory animals in works of art, they need to learn the shapes of the animals and their habitats. Discusses four artworks (reproductions included) that depict predatory animals by Darrel Austin, Ando Hiroshige, Antoine Louis Barye, and John Singleton Copley (CMK)

Provides information on marine painting, the historical treatment of its subject matter, and its stylistic development. Discusses and includes reproductions of paintings, from the marine collection of the Butler Institute of American Art, by Robert Swain Gifford, Stuart Davis, Alfred Thompson Bricher, Augustus V. Tack, and James E. Buttersworth.…

Reviews the work and life of Maxfield Parrish, an illustrator and painter. Considers "Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966," an exhibition featuring more than 170 works, including easel paintings, mural studies, drawings, and prints. Provides examples of his artwork and an itinerary for the exhibition. (CMK)

Discusses maritime paintings addressing such topics as why artists are attracted to sailing vessels and the content of the paintings. Includes reproductions of paintings by Edward Hopper, John H. B. Everett, Lyonel Feininger, and Willem van de Velde the Younger. Selects works to help students realize that maritime art is quite varied. (CMK)

Focuses on how the construction of understanding can be supported through the visual arts in the context of the British National Curriculum for Art and Design. Giving students experience working with art materials is not, in itself, sufficient; the experience must be shaped in order for students to develop artistic understanding and appreciation.…

Focuses on David Bates and his artwork entitled "Blackwater I." Includes background information, activities based on the artwork, and a reproduction of the painting. Describes the painting, focusing on how it is like and unlike folk art. (CMK)

Discusses learning that occurs beyond the classroom and home, identifying (through illustration of arts-based extracurricular activities) key features and educational benefits of this environment, the creative and critical power of youth work in the arts (particularly visual arts and dance), and manifest reasoning and organizing properties of the…

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…