Tag Archives: Art Education

Art Nouveau – Student Choice Projects

Students were introduced to a variety of art and artwork of the period, and from there they decided on a project that was somehow influenced by the work they’d viewed and researched. In addition to the art production part of … Continue reading

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Art Nouveau

Over the years when I used the Art Nouveau period as a unit of study, students were inspired to create original artwork based on their knowledge of–or reaction to–the prominent artists and artwork of this artistic era. At times I … Continue reading

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Sculptural Paintings

Students were challenged to create an acrylic painting that was also a relief sculpture. They sketched their design on a canvas panel (gridding, if necessary) and built up areas with mat board covered with a layer of papier-mache’ before starting … Continue reading

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Decorative Painting

Students practiced the techniques of “one stroke” painting, using resource materials by popular decorative painters, such as Donna Dewberry and Priscilla Hauser. Additional resources included a wide variety of books on decorative and “folk art” painting, and an attractive display was set up … Continue reading

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Watercolor Fall Leaves

Students painted small watercolors of fall leaves before starting on acrylic paintings. This exercise helped them with observational drawing, and with color mixing and color matching, as they were using real leaves as reference.

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Screen Printing using Transparency Film Stencils

We used Mask-Ease for most of our screen printing projects, but we also used printer transparency film to create reusable stencils. In addition to being reusable (unlike the Mask-Ease which had to be removed from the screen and discarded after … Continue reading

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Screen Printing with High School Students

After I learned the basics of screen printing by attending a one-day workshop, and after introducing screen printing to my middle school art students, I was ready to include this unit in my high school art ed curriculum. We used … Continue reading

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Screen Printing Workshop (For Adults)

In November 2008, I attended a workshop on screen printing at our local community college. As an art teacher, I was always looking for new and exciting projects for my students, and I thought this would be a lot of … Continue reading

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Printmaking Demonstration by Mary Azarian

Mary Azarian–recipient of the 1999 Caldecott Medal for her artwork in the children’s book “Snowflake Bentley”–visited students at my school in March 2002 to demonstrate her woodcarving and printmaking techniques. She began her demonstration by showing the wood and the … Continue reading

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Handmade Paper

Our basic materials for papermaking included a blender, two dishpans, two 8″ x 10″ stretcher frames covered with fine nylon screen, paper that we salvaged from various recycling bins around our school, sponges, towels, and newspapers. Before starting this unit, … Continue reading

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