Draw–> Collage–> Paint
This art activity includes three sequential art lessons. The first lesson consists of a number of contour line drawings of a simple six string guitar. The second includes opportunities to look at and discuss collages made by Picasso (Three Musicians.) The young artist will use paper scraps, cardboard, yarn and their contour drawings [...]

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The art of weaving has been used in every civilization to make clothing, containers, rugs and furniture.  Weaving is the process where natural or synthetic materials are passed over and under each other in a given pattern.  In the classroom students can explore weaving by creating simple paper weavings or more advanced yarn weaving [...]

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Clay is great fun and I like schedule a clay unit around the end of November. Students are starting to get a bit restless with the holidays around the corner and working with clay recharges the energy in the studio. With a bit of control and technique they can have an earthenware pot at the [...]

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Younger art students love to make paper mache pumpkins or jack-o’-lanterns.  Starting with crumbled up newspaper, they shape it the size they want and wrap masking tape around it to hold the form.  After soaking orange construction paper in water for a couple of minutes, the paper can be torn into large sections.  Their little hands rub [...]

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Fifth grade art students really get into one-point perspective drawing.  Starting with only paper, pencil, ruler and eraser each student draws a horizontal line across their paper.  Next they place a dot in the middle on the horizontal line.  The dot represents the vanishing point.  A vanishing point is where receding parallel lines meet.  The fronts of the buildings are [...]

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Often in the art lesson planning, there are lessons that allow the student to explore various drawing and painting media as the focus of the lesson.  The art student selects a still life object such as an apple.  Then she creates a still life study using all the art media the art class has to offer.  Art [...]

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“It’s Dry, See!”

During art instruction some students often try to hurry through their lessons. Maybe they think of art like other subjects where finishing first gives them “free time” or maybe out of the excitement of the activity they kick into hyperspeed. Regardless of the reasons, art students that finish early can always benefit from [...]

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The aluminum foil figure is a great addition to a figure studies unit.  After gesture and figure drawing, the art pupil can create a sculpture of the figure with wire, clay or simply aluminum foil.  After some experimentation by the student to create her own sculpture, the art tutor can guide the student with some [...]

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A collage is a two-dimensional work of art created with such items as paper, photographs, cloth or found objects.  The art pupil is given construction paper of red, blue, yellow (primary colors) and black.  She is asked to cut the primary colors into squares and rectangles.  The black is to be cut into strips.  After [...]

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Gesture drawing is when one makes drawings of the movements or gestures of the body.  The student needs a model to make a series of poses for the student to draw.  The model will “freeze” in a pose to allow enough time for the student to capture the gestures.  The drawings are not meant [...]

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