Art Teacher Toolbox
Creating an Environment for Art

Art-rich It's important to for students to have a "visual vocabulary" from which to draw when creating art. Displaying work from fine artists is an easy way for art styles, compositions, and images to sort of soak in. Including a variety of styles and subject matter helps students feel more free to take risks with their art.

Display Areas A dedicated display area or areas serves a variety of purposes. First of all, it is a visual reminder that art is an important part of a complete education for both the teacher and the students. Secondly, displaying student artwork adds a sense of closure and satisfaction for students. Additionally, artwork can be displayed immediately (you avoid housing stacks of artwork while waiting for a display area), it provides you with an overall assessment of the lesson at a glance, and seeing others' artwork can give students inspiration and ideas for future projects.

Organized Materials Keeping materials organized and labeled preserves their condition, communicates a respect of art, it makes them more accessible for spontaneous or planned projects, and makes clean-up easier. See Organizing Materials for tips on the subject.

Clean-up Instructions Posted written and/or pictoral clean-up instructions remind students how to care for art materials. It also makes your job a little easier, if a student has forgotten how, you merely need to refer them to the poster(s).

Ample Physical Space It's important to create enough room for students to work easily. This includes table space at their work area for the project and materials, clear pathways to walk around the room without bumping others, and room around the materials station so that students can gather supplies easily.

In-process Storage As many of you already know, rare is the day when all students finish an art project to their satisfaction during the time alloted. Therefore, it is essential to set aside places for projects to be stored while still in progress. Some teachers use wires and clothespins or bulletin boards and pins, but it is also important to find some flat surfaces for projects where paint is still wet or for 3-D projects. Sometimes you can find inexpensive cardboard shelves for storing paper (or for mailboxes--simply take out the middle divider on these to allow for 11 x 17 paper) to provide a storage cubby for each student.

Saving Student Samples Student samples can remind you of successful projects, provide inspiration to future students, and add to your room decorations. If you set up a system for saving the artwork ahead of time, you'll be more likely to do it. The easiest way is to keep a notebook or file of digital photos, now that many schools have a camera. Photos in a small album can also work nicely. For actual student work, I like to create giant folders out of very large paper. Then you can keep them more organized inside of a poster drawer or stacked underneath some furniture. You can also buy artist portfolios for as little as $10 or so.