Amsler's artroom

"Chromatic Cascade" by Jen Stark, Los Angeles Jen Stark herself! Parking Garage Mural by Jen Stark, Los Angeles Jen Stark is a Los Angeles based artist known for her psychedelic, brightly colored public murals, many of which feature layers of drip-like forms. I found a middle school lesson online in which individual…

Radial Symmetry is a uniquely satisfying project theme for middle schoolers. Even the most basic of designs gets repeated in a way that yields eye-catching results. Here is my take on a printed ver…

This year my school adopted a new schedule. Now, instead of seeing my classes daily for 47 minutes, each day we drop one period. In addition, each class has one weekly “long block” that is 68 minut…

Middle School Students enjoy doing creative interpretations of their name, and exploring the art of graffiti lettering is always a hit. When I saw a lesson in one of my art teacher Facebook groups …

art with a middle school mentality

We began this lesson by perusing a variety of scientific illustrations of insects, observing the realistic elements such as the presence of a head, thorax, and abdomen and a total of six segmented…

Students began this lesson with a week of watercolor painting. We learned four painting techniques and each student created an assortment of painted papers in each style using warm, cool and “free” color schemes. We then cut, tore and drew on these papers to create an ocean scene with fish, coral, and other sea life. Each…

These small, square books “explode” into a series of square and triangular pages when you open them. But… this lesson began as a mystery project! Before they even knew we were making books,…

We began this lesson by perusing a variety of scientific illustrations of insects, observing the realistic elements such as the presence of a head, thorax, and abdomen and a total of six segmented…

Ready, set, POSE! I use my iPhone to take photos of my students. I usually do this on a day during which they are intently engaged with another lesson, and pull one or two students at a time into t…