Building surfaces essentially means that there is layering involved in your artwork. It means placing, painting, drawing atop each other, layering media, and experimenting. Something interesting about AP Studio is how much it values thinking outside of the box, and this is the first step to encouraging AP students to do just that.

These simple drawing exercises with set up students for success in drawing and overall art-making!

We did watercolor food studies in High School Art the other week, and it because incredibly obvious what season it was. I asked them to name the reason they painted the specific fruits they did and 9/10 times the reason was, “This was the only fruit in my fridge!” Brilliant. A sweet reminder to go with the seasons, and when life gives you peaches… paint them!

Between the first and third weeks of school, it’s a great idea to give 3-4th graders a chance to express themselves, use paint, and show themselves to each other in the way they wish to be seen. This simple project was a great way to begin looking at proportions of the face, using tempera or acrylic paint, and to get to know one another in the first week of school.