Andrea Mulder-Slater (creator of www.KinderArt.com ) designed this lesson to be
used with children ages 5 and older. However, this lesson can be easily adapted to
work with individuals of all ages as a way of identifying and expressing emotions.
Participants will gain an understanding of how much of a role emotion plays in
art-making as they create paintings based on feelings.

Art can be found in everything, even ordinary objects. Artist David Huffman finds that abstraction is a great way to delve into the meaning and symbolism of everyday objects, like a basketball or a shoe. Find your own inspiration and create some abstract art -- it might have more meaning than you might think!

Apexer is a street artist who creates colorful, spray-painted murals around the world. Using a visual foundation based in graffiti art and Chinese calligraphy, Apexer abstracts letterforms to create complex, dynamic compositions for his street art projects. Often creating artworks that communicate the vibe of the neighborhood where they are on view, Apexer’s painted gestures are accessible to a wide audience, and are constantly expanding upon the core element of his work: the letters of his nickname.

This class investigates the theory, method, and form of collage. It studies not only the historical precedents for collage and their physical attributes, but the psychology and process that plays a part in the making of them. The class was broken into three parts, changing scales and methods each time, to introduce and study the rigor by which decisions were made in relation to the collage. The class was less about the making of art than the study of the processes by which art is made.

This subject focuses on the objects, history, context, and critical discussion surrounding art since World War II. Because of the burgeoning increase in art production, the course is necessarily selective. We will trace major developments and movements in art up to the present, primarily from the US; but we will also be looking at art from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as art “on the margins” — art that has been overlooked by the mainstream critical press, but may have a broad cultural base in its own community. We will ask what function art serves in its various cultures of origin, and why art has been such a lightning rod for political issues around the world.

Kelly Tunstall and Ferris Plock are artists who focus on character design and development, creating a rotating cast of surreal cartoon figures inspired by visual culture, including fashion, skateboarding, Japanese regalia and folklore. They emphasize organization while maintaining freeform, both of which lead to the consistency in how their art turns out.

This article discusses how to use murals as an interdisciplinary, cooperative activity to blend science, art, and math concepts.

This art history video discussion examines Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "The Tower of Babel," 1563, oil on panel, 114 x 155 cm (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

This lesson engages students with an environmental issue and allows them to use their artistic skills to create an artwork about caring for the oceans.

Step 1 - Inquire: Students read Somebody Swallowed Stanley and discuss the colors and emotions in the book.

Step 2 - Investigate: Students practice art techniques.

Step 3 - Inspire: Students create artworks about oceans and display them around their school or local community for others to view.

Chad Hasegawa paints portraits of bears and notable artists, and his style is influenced heavily by the Abstract Expressionist movement, and a thrifty approach to materials. He has created murals throughout San Francisco and shown his paintings and sculptures in galleries. His work balances between abstract and figurative art, with dense, wild brushstrokes that are often pieced together to create recognizable forms.

How do artists create a story that provides a message or provokes emotions in that single frame? This lesson will help students analyze ways in which the composition of a painting contributes to telling the story or conveying the message through the placement of objects and images within the painting.

Johanson reflects on the past decade of his career and shares his philosophies on art making in the first Art School video from KQED. Then, Johanson creates a simple painting based on Venn diagrams, an art lesson developed for students in partnership with SFMOMA for their project, Open Studio: Artist-Designed Classroom Activities.

Charles Bargue Drawing Course introductionThe Charles Bargue Drawing Course was a highly influential guide to art instruction in the 19th century, which has recently returned to prominence in the Realist painting movement. This module introduces students to the fundamental drawing skills covered in the Charles Bargue Drawing Course, and leads them through the process of completing a Bargue plate copy. 

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn watercolour techniques, identify their target audience and create a rubric, and complete their artwork.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson connects arts with science, and it is ideal to communicate environmental change. Students learn basic watercolor techniques and apply the technique to create an artwork that would make an impact in their community. The procedures and tools used in the lesson are suitable for achieving the lesson outcomes. The lesson has passed our science review process and is recommended for use.

POSITIVES:
-Students explore and utilize visual art techniques to evoke emotions and encourage change.
-Students identify a target audience and develop a rubric to evaluate the effectiveness of their project.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This is lesson 6 of 6 in our 3rd-5th grade Art for the Earth unit.
-Watercolour paints, water, and paper are necessary for this lesson. Thick watercolour paper will allow for more control of the paint but is not necessary.
-Make sure to provide enough time for setup and cleanup.
-If students are completing reflections and rubrics, the Student Reflection & Rubrics Document must be printed beforehand or shared digitally with the students.
-The Inspire section is listed as 30 minutes long. The final parts of this project may take much longer, depending on what you intend to do with your students. Additional time will probably be needed for displaying artwork, completing reflections, completing rubrics, and distributing and collecting rubrics from the target audience.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Displaying options, target audience, and evaluation methods can vary depending on time, resources, student ability, grade level, and school environment.
-Ideas for target audiences: another class or grade level, the general school community, families, or an outside community that the class decides could benefit from this education.
-Ideas for displaying options: in a classroom space, hallway, or common room space; in a digital exhibition; at a school event (e.g., art show, classwork presentation evening, parents' night, etc.)

Form is one of the seven basic building blocks of art along with Line, Space, Shape, Value, Color, and Texture. Through the eye-fooling genre of Trompe L'oeil, we look at a variety of techniques artists use to transform shapes into forms and give their art depth and dimension.

Check out the entire collection of KQED Art School videos!

Shape is one of the seven basic building blocks of art along with Line, Form, Texture, Value, Space, and Color. Using still life paintings of fruit, we look into how artists' create their individual style and develop a unique approach to making shapes.

Check out the entire collection of KQED Art School videos!

Texture is one of the seven basic building blocks of art along with Line, Form, Shape, Value, Space, and Color. Here we look at the how visual artists try to stimulate our sight and our other senses through different textures. They create something that we can see and feel or imagine the feeling of and try to engage us in that way as well. Learn how different textures (and implied textures) convey different feelings here.

Check out the entire collection of KQED Art School videos!

Linda Black Elk is passionate about plants. Linda Black Elk is an ethnobotanist and professor of ethnobotany and science education at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota and recently she traveled to the Cansayapi Oyate (the Lower Sioux Indian Community) to share her knowledge of medicinal plants with students there.

Two lesson plans for grades 9-12 are included as gallery assets and in the Support Materials.

Artist Evah Fan makes drawings, zines and more in a style that is influenced by wordplay and folk art techniques. She tells visual stories through her interpretation of words she finds tantalizing with their multiple meanings. She emphasizes that style is not a skill that can be found overnight, but rather developed over years and realized in retrospect.

Facilitating a Group Discussion: A Brief Survey and Comparative Analysis of Native American Perceptions in Art, Then and Now

This OER takes a comparative analysis of Native American perceptions in Art and integrates this into an Art Appreciation survey course discussion. The context with which the content fits is "Themes of Art." This dialogue begins with the students' base knowledge of the subject, proceeded by observations of the works of contemporary, female Native American Artist, Wendy Red Star and the paintings of non-native, male artists from the 1800s (i.e. Alfred Jacob Miller, Charles Wimar, George Catlin, Frederic Remington, and Charles M. Russell). The primary pedagogical approaches will be engaging students in dialogue and allowing for a broader visual vocabulary through the study of historical works of art. Large groups will break into more detail specific, smaller groups. The crux of the exercise is to facilitate an appreciation of these works, through socio-political means (outsiders looking in) and the perspective of self-reflection, that of the insider's view.