Adolescents face complex dilemmas such as challenging issues of identity and self-concept, and struggles with building and maintaining relationships. These issues must be embraced in the art classroom. This Instructional Resource will focus on the concept of brand--connecting visual art, marketing, and psychology--and center on ideas found in the…

Art educators can "critique" senseless violence--mistreatment, exclusion, intimidation, bullying, violation, abuse, corruption, murder, and war--by unleashing the power of students' creativity. In this article, the author, sharing her philosophical context, discusses how art is preventative medicine with the power to transform the…

Art educators should be concerned with teaching their students to make critical connections between the classroom and the outside world. One effective way to make these critical connections is to provide students with the opportunity to engage in community-based art endeavors. In this article, three university art educators discuss engaging…

Northern Ireland's well-known civil strife between Catholics and Protestants had enjoyed an uneasy peace, but a recent outbreak of new violence in 2010 caused disappointment to these authors. Bernard Conlon and Tom Anderson collaborated on creating a new children's peace mural with the Kids' Guernica Peace Mural Project in West…

In this article, Miguel Aguilar describes the process of mental preparation he performs before beginning a new graffiti mural. This may include reviewing recent sketches and his lists of color palettes. Aguilar mind maps ideas he wants to connect, thinking about intentions or the goal he wants to accomplish. Aguilar further states "this…

Murals have become a powerful art form for portraying antiwar, human rights, social justice, and human dignity issues. Educators and artists have conducted mural workshops with adolescents in international settings to educate them about peace, human rights, and cultural tolerance. Learning with murals has been shown to be pedagogically meaningful…

Many of the paintings of 20th-century American artist Philip C. Curtis defy clear classification. Curtis's artworks often show dreamlike and fantastical qualities and are therefore frequently pigeonholed as Surrealistic. While this classification is not completely erroneous, it fails to acknowledge some subtle differences between Curtis's artwork…

Showcasing the many forms and functions of art helps to articulate the fundamental importance of art education, whether it is to enhance the child or to support society. In illuminating the importance of art education, educators can eloquently argue about its value and contributions through an institutional tunnel, or they can take art education…

For military veterans suffering from the long-term trauma of warfare, arts and crafts become much more than the fabrication of relics; they can literally save the spirit. Dialogue and interaction between the veterans, volunteers, and staff are crucial to the success of veterans' arts and crafts program. The purpose of this research was threefold.…

During the winter 2007 art education graduate class at Eastern Michigan University, the professor and students experienced a journey as learners and teachers. This article is about their experiences exploring the educational potential of podcasts in teaching, particularly in a constructivist and situated-learning environment. Throughout the…

In this article, the author describes how high school and university students in Georgia and members of a small weaving pueblo in Oaxaca, Mexico, collaborated in designing and creating a mural in the central market ("mercado") of the pueblo. A number of lessons emerged from this multi-cultural collaboration. First they learned that using images…

In this article the author describes a project in which professors and preservice art educators from Northern Illinois University (NIU) collaborated with teens and members of the DeKalb Latino local community center to create a mural celebrating a traditional Aztec narrative. The mural project involved professors, university students, teenagers…

The importance of multicultural art education has been addressed by art educators over the past 15 years. Art educators maintain that art is capable of empowering mutual respect and appreciation for people, objects, and ideas among diverse groups. Although many educators/teachers use non-Western artworks or artifacts to enrich their art programs,…

As a young art teacher, this author was inspired by the advice of Faith Ringgold, who emphasized the importance of creating time during each day to create art. This advice led the author to develop a painting discipline by creating "The 40/40 Challenge" for her students in Painting I and Painting II classes. The 40/40 Challenge is a voluntary…

In this article, the author describes a painting and drawing lesson which was inspired by the beautiful circular windows found in cathedrals and churches (also known as "rose windows"). This two-week lesson would reinforce both the concept of symmetry and students' understanding of the color wheel. (Contains 1 online resource.)