Spend a few hours tapping into your inner artist working collaboratively with a group to create a piece of public art. Learn what its like to be part of the process to create large scale works of art that will live and enrich its environment. Ideally, the location should have a wall space for this.…
Request ProgramMixed Media
Layers of Meaning: Creating Image Transfer Portraits for Historical Projects
By creating portraits, artists have long held a pivotal role in recording history. Contemporary artists create visual narratives that represent the complexity of history and historical figures. Image transfer provides new opportunities for artists to develop this avenue of exploration. The image transfer process produces a transparent image that allows for the visibility of multiple…
Request ProgramAltering Images: Photographic Transfers for Painting, Printmaking, and Collage
Image transfer provides artists with the option to create photographic images without the use of a camera. The image transfer process produces a transparent image that allows for the visibility of multiple collaged layers within a single work of art all at once. Learn this process to transform copies of photographs, as well as drawings,…
Request ProgramCreative Clothing Construction: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fashion Institute Mixed Media Workshop
The focus of this workshop is to give students, grades 6 – 12, the opportunity to create a wearable piece of art that explores cultural trends, nontraditional materials, and fine art processes. Similar to the Project Runway design style, students make wearable art by reconstructing clothing, found objects, and recycled materials. Inspiration comes from the VMFA collection, artists, and fashion designers. Workshop attendance also gives students a snapshot of the annual Teen Stylin’ runway show held each year in December and open to all teens living in Virginia.
Request ProgramMixed Media Sculpture
Participants in this workshop are asked to bring 10 objects that can fit into a backpack. Using those objects plus a variety of provided “treasures,” students will enjoy a day of creating sculpture! Concepts such as connections, texture, focal points, stability, longevity, and other elements involved in developing mixed media sculpture will be explored. Students will walk away with new brainstorming techniques as well as the information and skills needed to create sculpture using a variety of materials.
Request ProgramThat’s Me!: Portraits
Who are you? What are the important ideas and symbols that express your wishes, dreams, and everyday life? From Ancient Egypt to modern times, man has used art to record his identity through portraits, self-portraits, and symbols. In this workshop, students use a mixed-media approach, including monoprint, chine colle, collage, and stamping, to construct a self-portrait that captures their identity and puts it on display. No drawing experience necessary!
Request ProgramMobile Glass Studio
Share the unique experience of glass blowing — even add an educational component to exhibitions —with this mobile hot-glass studio, created by artist Ryan Gothrup. This studio can be used for lectures, demonstrations, workshops, or multiple-day residencies.
Request ProgramLooking at Our Lives: A Tile Mural Workshop
n the venerable tradition of landscape, farm, and animal paintings that are featured prominently in the Mellon collection, artist Beryl Solla encourages students to think about the people and things that give their own lives meaning and value. Students identify common ideas and develop images that best represent them. Using broken tile and quick-setting thin set, students design and install a small broken tile mural (approx. 3′ x 4′) in their school or community center. The installation includes designing the mural, drawing it on the wall, breaking the tile (using protective glasses), and placing the tile on the wall. The tile is then grouted and cleaned. A highly decorative and imaginative frame (also made from broken tile) that reflects the aesthetics of the Mellon collection and supports their own concepts surrounds the image(s). The mural is permanent, beautiful, and maintenance-free.
Request ProgramClay Animation Moviemakers
This workshop is for anyone who has ever wanted to make a movie! Students learn the steps used by the pros to go from character creation to construction — and sometimes destruction. Using real animator’s clay, students sculpt original characters, design sets, and work together in small groups to make a three-minute animated movie with sound character voices. Who says a movie can’t be made in a day?
Request ProgramAbstract Mixed Media
Looking to the “father of modern art,” Wassily Kandinsky, and comparing him to 21st-century artists Julie Mehretu, and “Stadia III,” students explore lyrical expression and measured marks as they apply to abstract art. Using a variety of traditional and nontraditional materials as well as a mini-psychological profile and music, students create large-scale works of geometric and organic origin.
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