Art Toolkit

Teaching artists and CAM educators provide art-making tutorials for kids and artists of all ages.

Defiant Rebellion Resist

In Dread Scott’s Slave Rebellion Reenactment, the artist worked with community members outside of New Orleans to recreate the German Coast Uprising of 1811, the largest slave rebellion in US history. This activity will use wax resist (oil pastels) and indigo (liquid watercolor) to create your own flag.

Project example created by CJ Mitchell. Cardboard collage & acrylic markers. 1913 Suffragist, Lithograph by B.M. Boye Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

Protest Recycled

Andrea Bower’s Resist (Illustration Designed by Suffrage Atelier, London, 1909) uses found, recycled cardboard pieces to create a backdrop for a powerful figure with a banner that says “resist.” In this activity, we will use similar materials and reference images to create recycled and reimagined protest art.

The Stars in My Streets

For this activity, we will use materials and processes similar to the Kahlil Robert Irving’s Star Wars [{street wars}] to create a clay tile, including rolling out clay slab and debossing the tile using recycled materials.

With My Fist Raised High

This art activity will use printmaking and repetition, paying homage to Glenn Kaino’s artwork Salute (Lineage) included in Stories of Resistance.

In the Garden

Use origami techniques to construct paper flowers and butterflies inspired by Ebony G. Patterson’s poetic work ...and the dew cracks the earth, in five acts of lamentation...between the cuts...beneath the leaves...below the soil…

Flower Power

Inspired by the dancing flowers found in Rachel Youn’s installation Gather, create your own kinetic sculpture with this accessible activity using simple materials.

Clean Green Floral Machine

Create a kinetic sculpture inspired by the dancing flowers found in Rachel Youn’s installation Gather. Using cardboard and a chromatography technique on coffee filters, simple materials are converted to hand-operated moving artworks.

A Social Medium

After looking at Kahil Robert Irving’s collage, create your own social media collage that captures an alternative form of self-portrait.

Previous Art Toolkit Activities

Remix Portrait inspired by Amy Sherald

Collaging the Self inspired by Mickalene Thomas

Automatic Drawing inspired by Nicola Tyson

Code Quilting inspired by Sanford Biggers

Fiber Weaving inspired by Sheila Hicks

Paper Sculpture inspired by Arlene Shechet

Embroidery with Janie Stamm

Thirsty Bird Flip-Book inspired by Marina Zurkow

Paper Collage inspired by Derek Fordjour

Blind Contour Drawing Tutorial

Colored Pencil Blending with Cecily Fergeson