During the State of the Arts presentation, participants will learn about the GaDOE Fine Arts initiatives for K-12 Fine Arts including the new instructional resources available to all Georgia Arts teachers. These resources include curriculum maps, unit plans, example lesson plans, instructional videos, and assessments all housed on the GaDOE Inspire platform.
Discover how to spark a creative movement in your community by launching a highly successful, county-wide summer art camp. This interactive workshop provides a step-by-step roadmap for camp logistics, innovative visual arts fundraising strategies, and impactful grassroots advocacy tools. Attendees will walk away with a ready-to-use playbook to secure funding, mobilize volunteers, and keep visual arts education thriving both inside and outside your school district lines.
Looking for meaningful ways to encourage creative thinking without adding hours of prep? In this hands-on workshop, participants will experience a collection of quick creativity challenges inspired by classroom practice and Crayola Creativity Week. These low-prep activities take only 1–5 minutes, encourage risk-taking and experimentation, and can easily be expanded into full lesson experiences.
Discover practical adaptive art strategies that make inclusion achievable and sustainable in today's art classroom. This session will provide simple accommodations, visual supports, and collaborative routines that help art teachers effectively utilize paraprofessionals and peer helpers while promoting student independence. Participants will create a customizable support packet that can be updated for each project to ensure consistent and meaningful support for diverse learners.
This presentation explores how elementary students connect ancient and contemporary landmarks through creative artmaking. Participants will examine a watercolor lesson on Stonehenge and a mixed-media collage project on Carhenge while discovering ways to incorporate art history, creative inquiry, and process-based learning into the elementary art classroom. No participant materials are required.
We will be exploring and designing Barn Quilts. From selected patterns, images can be altered to suit your motif, mascot or theme using geometric shapes. You will be selecting a color scheme and choice of art medium to complete your Style-ish Barn Quilt. Please bring a ruler, pencil, glue and scissors or small sliding paper cutter.
Using pamphlet and accordion books as starting points, participants will create simple sketchbooks and then alter them to expand creative journaling and sketchbook practices. This is great for all studio classes, especially for the AP portfolio, but can also be adapted for younger grades.
Take the fear out of clay! This session is designed for new art educations or anyone who wants to build confidence in using kiln-fired clay by learning essential clay management skills, kiln operation basics, common mistakes to avoid, and practical storage solutions. Participants will leave with a variety of successful clay project ideas for different grade levels and ability ranges, along with favorite tools, tips, and time-saving strategies for a successful ceramics program.
Ever wanted to have your students create a collaborative quilt? Come learn with someone who has taught it twice- with both hand sewing and machine sewing! Participants will learn hand sewing methods, access resources for machine sewing, receive a lesson plan, and create their own quilt block. Participants are encouraged to bring their own fabric scraps but many will also be provided.
Drawing and embroidery are combined in this Blick Art Materials workshop. Create a monochrome graphite portrait adorned with pops of color and imaginative embellishments. Embroidered elements can be as simple or elaborate as needed to match the artist's skill level and desired effect. A stitch guide will be provided.
This mixed media embroidery workshop invites teachers to slow down, stitch, and reconnect with their own creative practice through a calming, hands-on collage process, no experience needed. Using simple, beginner-friendly stitches, you will layer fabric, paper, and found materials while focusing on texture, reflection, and mindful making. Come ready to reset, experiment, and leave with a meaningful piece and a practice you can bring back to your classroom.
This presentation will share the story of a schoolwide mural collaboration that brought together student voice, community partnership, and public art through a partnership with Paint Love, engaging more than 600 students in grades 1–5. Participants will learn how our student art club helped shape the mural design process, how community collaboration led to the city adopting the mural as an official student-created public artwork, and how Paint Love’s resources and partnership supported the experience. Whether joined by Paint Love representatives or through shared tools and materials, attendees will leave with practical ideas and resources for creating meaningful, student-centered mural projects in their own schools and communities.
A middle school visual art teacher and an elementary school media specialist discuss ways to foster a love for the planet for the next generation of students in K-8. We will share lesson ideas on scientific illustration, earthworks, recycled art, etc. In addition, we will share how to start a birding club at your local school to help students get outside and learn to appreciate our connection to nature and how to preserve this connection. An art activity will also be provided featuring grid drawing and watercolor painting of birds based on the work of John James Audubon. No fee, sinks would be helpful but not absolutely required, projector to connect to chromebook for presentation.
How can ceramics education help students develop the capacity to remain engaged with uncertainty rather than rushing toward fixed answers? This session introduces the concept of “disciplined ambiguity” as a framework for structuring inquiry, critique, and material exploration in the ceramics classroom. Through examples drawn from studio practice and reflective discussion, participants will explore strategies for sustaining interpretive openness, encouraging thoughtful risk-taking, and helping students engage complexity through making.
In this Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) activity, participants will explore the history and symbolism of traditional family crests before designing their own personalized crest. Using symbols, images, colors, and mottos, participants will identify and represent important aspects of their family, values, traditions, strengths, and personal identity. This reflective art experience encourages self-awareness, family connection, and meaningful discussion while helping participants visually communicate the people and experiences that have shaped who they are.
Literacy in the visual arts classroom empowers students to interpret, analyze, and communicate meaning through both images and words, strengthening critical thinking and creative expression. In a hands-on experience like Japanese stab-bound bookmaking, students naturally integrate reading, writing, and visual storytelling as they design pages that convey personal or cultural narratives. This blend of visual and textual literacy deepens engagement, making artmaking a powerful tool for comprehension, reflection, and authentic communication. All materials for creating the Japanese stab-bound book will be provided—just bring your creativity and an open mind to incorporating literacy in the art room.
Join a pre-service and mentor teacher team for an inspiring, hands-on fiber arts experience celebrating identity, culture, and belonging through needle felting and quilting! Through photos and stories, we will share a 5th-grade legacy project in which students representing 19 cultures and multiple languages created a companion tree quilt, each adding needle-felted personal symbols to leaves surrounding a central tree. Participants will create and sew their own personal symbol into a quilt square to take home and contribute to a shared group photomontage. Together, we will make our mark through fiber arts - we look forward to creating and connecting with you!
This hands on workshop introduces teachers to drypoint etching, a direct and expressive printmaking technique where participants use sharp needles to create rich, velvety lines and burr driven marks on inexpensive plexiglass plates. Over the session, educators will learn plate preparation, inking, and printing methods. We will explore ways to combine drypoint with simple monoprinting techniques for unique artistic results. By the end , teachers will leave with practical low cost strategies and lesson ideas to bring high quality line making and authentic printmaking back into their art rooms.
Get ready to roll into a fun, hands-on lesson as you create Japanese inspired sushi sculptures, using a variety of media and recycled materials! In this make-and-take session, you’ll use simple mixed-media techniques that is tried and true and LOVED by students! Leave with a ready-to-teach lesson that’s easy to implement and big on engagement. We’ll also roll into a few additional ideas inspired by Japanese art and culture to extend learning in your classroom. Don’t miss this chance to bring this lesson back to your classroom that your students will devour!
This presentation empowers educators, families, and school communities to “make a mark” by using simple art-based SEL strategies that help neurodivergent and trauma-impacted learners feel seen, regulated, and connected. Through an interactive art activity and practical classroom and homeschool handouts, participants leave with meaningful tools they can immediately implement to build emotional resilience, communication, and confidence in learners of all ages.
Play in vats of 100% cotton and linen pulp to pull sheets of handmade paper. Pulp painting with multi-colored pulp and pulp printing with ready-made screens are additional stations that offer artistically exploratory ways to make messy marks!
All materials are included - no fee required - all abilities welcome! Pull sheets of cotton rag paper Make a Mark with colorful pulp painting & printing Press & Dry to Go Courage to create, make your mark, and see where the paper takes you!
Did you ever want to make a handmade journal , but thought it was too complicated? In this hands on workshop, you will make a one of a kind journal, perfect for collage, painting, or other imaginative embellishments. What better way to make your mark than with your own book!! All material will be supplied.
In this engaging art workshop, participants create bold kaleidoscope designs using symmetry, repetition, balance, and color theory. Participants will learn how to transform their names or chosen word into intricate geometric compositions inspired by kaleidoscopes, mandalas, and patterned design. Through guided instruction, students explore warm and cool color schemes, complementary colors, radial balance, and visual movement while developing creativity and design skills.
Explore the art of surface design as you create original patterns inspired by personal narrative, contemporary practices, and design principles. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn to not only create their designs but also transform them into custom fabric prints while learning techniques used in contemporary textile design to make fiber-based art. Participants will leave with the practical skills to apply this process in their personal work their lesson plans.
Practice a variety of ways to make marks to create patterned papers that can then be used in mixed media collage or negative space paintings. Create a gridded or freestyle sample page in your sketchbook.
The Unexpected Community Built Through Yarn” explores how a small after-school crochet group for teachers unexpectedly became a space for creativity, connection, and restorative community. Participants will learn how fiber arts can foster belonging, mindfulness, patience, and cross-generational learning. The workshop will include a short presentation, group discussion, beginner crochet demonstration, and collaborative hands-on making experience. $10 per person to purchase hook and yarn
Educators will learn how to create a universal lesson for their various art subjects in order to unify their 4-year journey into a comprehensive slide presentation that is 80% completed by the time that they walk into their Senior year. This way, students are not fumbling to find evidence from freshman year, or all of the various arts courses taken over their 4 years.
