Art teachers share new and exciting art-making experiences in and outside the art room. Young students collaborate to paint a hanging cardboard butterfly installation, elementary students use everyday objects to create illuminating bookshelf dioramas, middle-school students use 3D-scanning technology to print lifelike portraits, high-school students address contemporary issues while creating in an outdoor classroom, and more.
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Introducing new ways to see art through a different lens is important for the continued development of aspiring artists. Designing fresh and relevant curricula introduces new processes, creates exciting energy, and builds an understanding that art also occurs outside of the art room. As art educators, we engage in art in so many ways. Why not share a bit of our experiences with students?
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This project was great for the beginning of the school year for our second-graders. We began with a review of the elements of shape and color. Students watched a quick YouTube video about Piet Mondrian, then we discussed his use of line, shape, and color. We made the connection that his artwork, designs, and influence can still be found in architecture, clothing, and interior designs today.
When we had to start out the school year in a virtual setting, I was inspired to come up with a project that I wouldn’t typically be able to implement in the classroom. Several projects I assigned students that semester involved items and places in their homes. Not all my students were in their homes during class time; some were in safe learning centers, so this assignment allowed them to adapt to the setting they were in and use the materials available to them.
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I am pleased to share with you a 3D-printing lesson I implemented involving chess pieces. This was our first-ever 3D-printing lesson, and I wanted students to come up with a creative solution to a problem. I gave them the following prompt: “If you could change one piece in a chess game, what would it look like, what would its name be, and how would it move?”
Imagine printing a photograph and having your subject appear in three dimensions instead of two. Like a camera, a 3D scanner can be used creatively to capture a subject’s essence through personal filters.
Teaching my students about 3D scanning and printing provides them with a new medium for their creative toolbox. The product of this captivating and challenging medium is like a monoprint because each print is unique. The elements of art and principles of design are evident in students’ choices.
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Maintaining a quality art program for middle-school students while learning about art in a blended model requires inventiveness, patience, adaptability, and imagination. Art teacher Lauren Conti’s video “Woven Optical Illusion in Google Drawings” (see Resource) serves as the inspiration for this lesson. Because the Google Drawings app is included with the Chromebook and can be used in Google Classroom, this art teacher and her students, no matter where or when, have the materials and resources they need to be their best artistic selves.
We are tasked with providing students with the knowledge they need for a successful future, but we are often limited to lessons that are too cursory or dated to be relevant. Art educators need to meet this moment by designing innovative curriculums that tackle contemporary issues and build advocacy in students. With this goal in mind, I developed an Eco Art curriculum over the last two years and built an outdoor classroom. This experience allowed my inner-city students to foster a relationship with nature through art.
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Visual puns represent an artist’s way of understanding and representing concepts in multiple ways. In this introductory Photoshop project, preservice students explored how humor, language, and technology intersect by creating visual puns based on compound words. They also explored the emerging world of art made through collaboration with artificial intelligence (AI) in Adobe’s image generator.
Art educators are teachers, learners, community connectors, and creative dreamers. Bringing novel experiences to students is part of our daily work, and we encourage them to take risks, try new things, and share their ideas. We must also embody this adventurous spirit when advocating for the value of art in our communities.
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Many contemporary artists connect their personal narratives with past cultural histories in their work, exploring unique ways of connecting these intertwined strands. Interdisciplinary artist Sharon Norwood achieves this by incorporating vintage or antique objects in her art, encouraging the viewer to contemplate new meanings for things valued in the past. Norwood examines issues of identity and perceptions of beauty in her art practice and uses curly line — a symbol for Black hair — to connect with the formal language of drawing and mark-making.
