GAEA Conference Fall 2024

Meet at the bottom of the ramp in the Atrium at the High

In this workshop, we will sit with some of the work in the High Museum galleries. The practice will improve your ability to use art as a form of meditation which will in turn improve your artwork. This practice is both relaxing and helps you identify to direction your artwork needs to take. **Supplies needed are minimal. Just a sketchbook, pencil, and open mind are all that is needed.**

We will be drawing an easy but realistic looking eye and a spider web-like pattern that will connect our inner and our outer world. By visually connecting these two elements, we aim to explore how they interact and influence each other in our daily lives. Understanding and being aware of both our inner and outer worlds can help us gain insights into our motivations for positive and negative choices and the overall reactions to our experience and thought patterns.

Get ready to trick your mind with this new way to teach about space, distance, and perspective! Reverse-Perspective is a contemporary art concept that was popularized by artist Patrick Hughes using one and two point perspective and sculpture as a way to trick the mind. In this workshop, I'll show how I teach the concept of one point perspective AND the optical illusion of reverse perspective to my elementary age students. Partcipants will walk away with not only two ways to teach this concept (one and two point perspective), but also their own reverse perspective sculpture! This lesson reaches out to our students in the most interesting way!

This presentation looks at an after-school workshop series I taught for middle-school aged students on creating superhero stories. Topics that will be explored in this presentation include facilitating original character creation, incorporating literacy learning and storytelling in art-making practices, and using comic books as a medium to engage students in creating stories.

Calling all aspiring digital artists! Join us for a fun and informative workshop where you'll learn to create inspiring artwork like Jason Naylor, whose vibrant illustrations promote positivity. Using a Wacom One tablet and the free program Kleki, we'll explore the magic of digital drawing. This workshop will equip you with essential skills like layering, opening the door to exciting creative fields like graphic design. Get ready to transform your ideas into stunning visuals and explore how digital art can make a positive impact on the world! **Teachers will need to bring a computer/laptop.**

This is a technique I use for every grade that I teach. I do a different symmetrical drawing for each of my grade levels. I would love to be able to show examples and go over the directions of how to draw bugs, owls, and dragons and have the teachers choose which of the three that they wish to try. Even though they will leave with only one drawing they will have a new technique and several ideas to use with symmetry. I have had great success with this project with all levels of students and the kids always leave with a project that they are proud of. They will use simple shapes to do a sketch on half of the paper. After the pencil sketch is complete they will trace all lines with sharpie and go to a window with pencil. They will flip the image over and the light at the window will serve as a light table to trace a perfectly symmetrical image on the other side. (Most classes do not have funding for more that one or two light tables so this gives access to a light source for all students.) They will trace the other side with sharpie and have an amazing symmetrical drawing completed in a single class period. I have pictures to show this process in use and tons of student examples of successful and beautiful drawings.