Art doesn’t have to be limited to paper, canvas, pencil, and paint; our world is a digital one and so it only makes sense that we include digital art in our art classes. Teaching our children digital art and design skills can ignite a passion that may lead to a creative career, or otherwise provide children with skills they can later use on their resumes. 

We are no longer limited to Adobe programs like Photoshop and Illustrator, which can be too expensive for small middle schools, but there are a whole host of accessible platforms and projects to bring digital art into the classroom. Read on for 4 ideas for digital art projects:

1.     Create Posters, Art or Newsletters on Canva

Canva is a free online platform that allows you to start from a completely blank canvas or use a template to create anything from posters and presentations to business cards and more. There are several different projects you can do with your students with this tool, and it’s best to have a look for yourself and see what sparks your creativity. One project idea is to ask your students to create a new book cover for a story they’d like to tell, give their favorite book a new cover, or create a cover for their favorite show. 

 2.     Digital Painting

Creating a piece of artwork from scratch is just as difficult – if not more so – from a blank digital canvas as a real one. Each platform has a different set of tools the students are required to learn to use them creatively to bring an image to life. While good old Paint will do the job, an Adobe application or Queeky are others with more sophisticated tools. 

 3.     Minecraft

Did you know there are online contests for Minecraft art? There are, and there are plenty of artists creating amazing work with just the few blocks available. Minecraft not only allows children to think critically about where to place each colored block to bring their image to life, but they can also create 3D art within the game. 

 4.     Photography

Photography is more accessible than ever, and bringing it into your art class can be a fantastic way to help your students look at the world around them differently. Ask your students to take images inside and outside the classroom that use distance, motion or lighting creatively. Use digital cameras or those on tablets and ask the children to edit their images in Photoshop or the basic built-in editor on the computers or tablets, using the different settings to bring more life to their images.