Van Gogh´s Starry Night
My 7th and 8th grade art students are learning about Van Gogh. I printed off a color copy of his famous painting ¨Starry Night¨ and cut it into 16 equal sections. I gave each student one section and a larger paper (11.5 x 15). They were instructed to enlarge the [...]

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ARTIST STATEMENT
 I studied at the Otis Art Institute / Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles and received my BFA in sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri.  I currently live in Los Angeles.
My art has evolved from a time in my childhood when I played in the woods along the Wabash River [...]

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My first graders this year created pumpkins from clay using the pinch pot method. They have Art two fourty-five minute periods per week. Three classes before Halloween, I have the students work with clay. They create a simple pinch pot, turn it over, smooth the rounded sides, pinch a stem on the top and draw [...]

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This year the school that I am teaching at went Halloween crazy with decorations and a huge costume party. So when I introduced the holiday Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) it was no surprise to have the students confuse it with Halloween. I printed out a page of information on Halloween [...]

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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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