This lesson uses inventive processes that encourage students to use variety of Sax materials to build up complex compositions as they draw, paint and print. Students will examine the work of Rick Bartow, Rozeal, Degas, and the Cape Dorset Printmakers to explore techniques, effects, and subject matter to create these layered unique monotype prints.

Many adults fear reptiles (especially snakes!) yet youth often find them fascinating. Teaching about the vital role snakes play in nature as well as educating youth to identify differences between poisonous and non-poisonous reptiles is an important lesson for all. The lesson will present reptiles in a less threatening and almost comical scenario.

Mosaics are fun. They can be super intricate and detailed, or they can represent a composition in its simplest format. This lesson allows students to take an image, not their own, and reproduce it in a very simplified manner using mat board, a utility knife, and glue.

“Primavera, Three Graces” by Botticelli (1478) is what we think of when we hear mention of this title/term. However, artists have used “Three Graces” as the title of their work whether it be people, plants, pets, etc. In this lesson, students will explore the idea of what could conceptually be considered to fall under this title. Additionally, students will discover a way of creating illumination, or a sense of light or “glow” to their overall painting.

‘Color’ will be the subject for students to explore the various techniques of painting with a mixture of Sakura Oil Pastels and mineral spirits. This enables the use of oil pastels in a painterly manner over a black art board substrate. The unique Sakura Oil Pastels were chosen for this lesson because of their intense pigmentation, blending ability, light fast rating of colors, and the ability to mix with other painting mediums.

General’s Kimberly Watercolor Pencils and General’s Multi-Pastel Pencils will be the vibrant colorful vehicles for students to create a painting with a humorous ‘Story Telling’ theme. This project will be done on a heavy mixed media toned blue paper to hone student’s artistic and language arts skills.

This lesson plan uses a combination of paint pouring and collage techniques to create a Tiffany Glass Company inspired image. Chroma Molten Metal Acrylic Paint and Sax Pouring Medium are used in combination to create shimmering effects of the swirling color variations found in handmade stained glass. The pieces are then stylized into shapes to assemble the final piece.

Many research studies connect using the skills of art and science to strengthen student learning. Skills such as observation, identifying patterns, visual thinking and manipulative ability cross over between the two smoothly. The study of how gears work with their interlocking pieces, their opposing rotation direction when placed next to each other, and how fast the gears move based on size, can make for an engaging art lesson as the students design their own gear composition. These compositions take on a very Steam Punk look!

Students will create a simple portrait using the new Crayola Colors of the World colored pencils, crayons or markers. The Colors of the World offer a variety of colors making it easy to use alone or combine to match any skin tone. To further personalize, students can select a background design that reflects the individuality of the portrait.

Clay animals are often difficult to create and have them stand due to fragility of thin clay legs. Greek and Roman sculptors often created their standing stone figures with a prop (like a rock or tree trunk) joining the figure at the ankles or just having the sculpture lean against an object for stability. This lesson uses a technique of cutting the animal or figure out of a clay slab and folding it over a tube or cylinder. Thusly, legs are part of the animal from the start and the animal can stand.

Nature provides beautiful analogous palettes of color, especially with flowers. Subtle shifting hues of colors next to each other on the color wheel encourage students to deepen their personal understanding of colors. Using watercolor crayons and bleeding tissue paper, students will explore the interplay of colors in a floral composition.

Using Elmer’s Build It Tools in combination with Elmer’s Glue, Elmer’s Painters Paint Markers and cardboard, student artists can explore the juxtaposition of form, color and concepts as parts turn, reposition and shift in space. As they experiment with building 3D forms from 2D shapes, and adding surface design and/or symbolic imagery, they will create unique stabiles on their own or as group projects.

The art of weaving dates to Neolithic times. Every culture has a unique style of weaving depending on their needs and the raw materials available. In this lesson students will use plain weaving on a card loom with hand designed cotton weft threads to create a commuter bag to hold today’s electronic devices.

Speedball Art, the manufacturer of the Speed Screen kit, has developed a very convenient and accessible method of screen printing that can be used on both flat and curved surfaces. This kit introduces students to an easy, and immediate screen printing process without undo effort and equipment in the process. Students can create their own original art or use digital images.

In times of uncertainty we are strengthened by the opportunity to ground ourselves and take control. This project allows students to create their own environment and, at the same time, familiarize themselves with the concept of back, middle and foregrounds. They will visualize their imaginative space and transcribe it onto a series of hanging and overlapping transparencies.

This lesson teaches how the various brush strokes can be applied to execute a creative abstract painting on canvas. Students will have an opportunity to experiment with the following brush types: Rounds, Liner/Pointed Rounds, Bright, Flat, Angular, Filbert, Fan, Mop

Fish are cold blooded vertebrates that have evolved to live their lives in water. The earth’s surface is covered by 71% of water. There were 34,300 described species of fish by 2020 with more discovered every year. Students will research a selected species and create a 3-D sculpture of the fish.

In the 1940’s a group of American artists in New York created a radical new direction in art known as Abstract Expressionism. Influenced by the Surrealist movement, they believed that art should be a free spontaneous, subconscious creation flowing freely from the artists mind to the canvas with no prior planning. Students will study the Abstract Expressionist movement and choose one artist as an inspiration to create an original work of art.