In this lesson, students will have the opportunity to create a personal 3D star mat to be included in a collaborative classroom constellation. Students will make their stars out of Crescent Matboard. In doing so, they will learn to make straight and bevel cuts on matboard.

Our Earth has many landscape features, from sea to sky and all in between. Using the images of various landscape features and the historical quilt pattern of the Log Cabin, students can create their own unique quilt design pattern to celebrate Earth’s awesome and changing landscapes.

The difference between working on a dark ground rather than the traditional white is like night and day. Even on the most sunny, bright day our psychological and visual perceptions shift when it turns dark. In idiom, we like things to be “crystal clear” and, certainly, no one wants to be “left in the dark.” In this project, students will experiment with manipulating forms, color, light, and their psychological effects using Faber-Castell’s Black Edition colored pencils with black paper.

This lesson demonstrates making simple monoprints on canvas and collaging them into a finished painting. The lesson incorporates canvas board, canvas pads, heavy bodied acrylic paint, and a gel printing plate creating collage pieces on canvas. Students can research the use of texture designs in the art of Max Ernst.

Students will paint patterned landscape using Sax Washable Liquid Watercolors. Each landscape will be separated into patterned sections using Zentangle® designs, and/or a variety of fine line patterns using permanent markers. Foreground, middle ground and background will be studied. Emphasis will be on horizontal lines and the placement of land, water, and sky in the composition.

What is a “filbert”? Many students have never worked with this particular type of brush. Generally, one would use this brush to create botanical objects—primarily, flowers. This lesson will allow for experimentation, use of mathematical structure, and finally a completed floral composition.

In this lesson, the Wax Effects medium is used to create an encaustic style painting, using layers of color and various application methods to create translucence and depth within the piece. The traditional form of encaustic has a long history beginning with the Greeks. In traditional encaustic methods, the wax is heated. However, this lesson uses a Wax Effects medium that requires no heating to achieve the same stunning and desirable effects.

A drone is a UAV, an unmanned aerial vehicle. Originally developed for use by the military, they were first used during the First and Second World Wars and in later wars and conflicts. As drones developed to become smaller, more maneuverable, and less expensive, they expanded into nonmilitary uses such as aerial photography, cinematography, monitoring of forest fires and rivers, real estate development, policing, and more.

Earth Day is April 22, but every day can bring us new opportunities to improve the condition of our planet. This project examines the impact that humans can have on their environment and invites the artist to create a simplified, graphic painting with words to deliver a motivational pro-Earth message to the viewer. The artist will create their image using Liquitex Recycled Canvas (made from 100% recycled plastic bottles) and Liquitex Basics Acrylic Fluid.

Clay works and ceramics have been around since humans discovered fire. It can be functional, utilitarian, or a decorative art form. With this lesson, we look at the many textures one can use and the glazes that can enhance those textures. Whether we work small or large, in a 2-D style or completely in a 3-D mode, it all works as long as we have TEXTURE!

Using abstract and unexpected color in a composition allows artists to give subject matter an expressive twist. Works by artists including André Derain, Bisa Butler, and Holly Coulis will inspire students to review or be introduced to complementary, contrasting, and abstract uses of color. Layering Crayola Pastel crayons and colored pencils, along with Bold & Bright markers and construction paper crayons, will allow students to develop rich drawings that highlight their skills and knowledge.

Artists including Yayoi Kusama, Nick Cave, and Olafur Eliasson use color, form, and design to communicate meaning and connect with viewers. Using Sharpie Creative Markers, students can express themselves by designing objects and environments that speak to their current interests while visually inviting others to explore the worlds they create.

Students will create with clay an additive and subtractive Merry-Go-Round hanging sculpture using geometric shapes and animal forms. They will glaze them with the colorful Mayco Jungle Gems and Stroke and Coat glazes.

Sketchbooks and journals have been an important part of many artists’ work. Exploring materials beyond the traditional techniques encourages student creativity. Kwik Stix are a fast-drying paint medium, but when used as a more traditional paint paired with tissue paper, they produce exciting artworks. In this lesson, students will design and create a textured sketchbook cover to use on their journeys as artists.

Throughout the ages, artists have employed sketchbooks as part of their creative process. These sketchbooks are as unique as the artists themselves and are personal records—not only of their artwork and its development, but most often, also of their ideas, concerns, feelings, and observations of the physical and spiritual realms. This project will help students learn to use sketchbooks in a personal and influential manner in order to best express their own artistic visions.

Silk screen printing dates back as early as the year 900 in China and was used for prints on clothing. Its purpose primarily was not as an art form but as a process for functional use. It had the capability of printing an image over and over again in repetitious steps, allowing for repeated patterns in fabric and in wallpaper. It was much later that it would be adopted as an art form, made even more popular by artists such as Andy Warhol.

In this lesson, students will learn to mix colors using Prang Watercolors and create a color wheel based on the twelve colors of the artist’s color wheel. Students will create paper flowers, paint them with Prang Watercolors, and assemble them into a botanical color wheel wreath.

After studying the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh, students will use General Pencil’s Drawing Kit and Kimberly® Watercolor Pencils to create a mixed media line drawing. The composition will use many types of line and washes of color. Students will illustrate the meaning of an original quote they create about the “Element of Line in Art” or about “Art” in general.

In this project, students will create their own chapbooks on a subject of their own choice illustrated by handcolored intaglio prints. Because chapbooks are simple to construct and have no need for binding techniques, artists can create their own vision in an 8-paneled sequence, offering the opportunity to quickly create a library comprised from the mind’s eye and a single, folded piece of paper.

Speedball® Mid-Fire™ Glaze offers students the ability to layer color and create unique dimensions on ceramic vessels that are dinnerware safe. In this lesson, students will learn to create a vessel using a simple slab method and Speedball® Mid-Fire™ Glaze.

Using Chroma’s Chromacryl Pastel Colored Acrylics, vibrant Chroma Drawing Inks, and Chromacryl Texture Paste, a mixed media landscape will be created to illustrate “Color as Form.” Inspired by historical and present-day artists, students will create a non-representational landscape grounded in reality and bordering on abstraction. This is achieved by treating ‘“Color” as a structural form through color mixing, shadow, light, contrast, and painting techniques.