Current Arkansas K-12 art teachers are invited to participate in the 2025 Windgate Summer Art Launch for Arkansas Educators, hosted by the Arkansas Tech University Department of Art. This year's workshops will be in-person with some virtual components.
Participants will learn a variety of art techniques during workshops taught by university professors and experienced regional artists. We will host a virtual orientation Sunday evening on June 7th, and our Guest speaker, Friday, June 12th, will be virtual. There will be a virtual art exhibition of the artwork created during the week of workshops.
Participants will earn up to 30 hours of professional development from the Arkansas Department of Education. We ask that all participants attend the entire event.
Due to the generous support of the Windgate Foundation, the event is provided at no cost for Arkansas Art Educators
Dr. Lynnette M. Gilbert
Director, Windgate Summer Art Launch for Arkansas Educators
lgilbert3@atu.edu
Expressive Figure Drawing
Ashley Kinsey- Artist/Professor of Art, ATU
Explore figurative artwork in art history and use a multitude of materials to create a dynamic piece of art incorporating the human form. Artists will work with a live model and will learn how to capture basic anatomy and proportion through application of their own artistic voice and style. Participants will explore rhythms of the body/natural forms and how they exist in the whole and parts of the figure. All materials will be provided and no previous experience needed.
Introduction to Adobe Photoshop
Jasmine Greer- Artist/Professor of Art, ATU
This introductory course will cover the basics of photo editing, compositing and digital painting utilizing Adobe Photoshop. Various techniques will be explored including selection tools, masking, blending modes, healing tools and custom brushes. Students are encouraged to bring their own images as well as any questions about how to edit them. Visual demonstrations of the software will be followed by studio time where students will be able to create a new piece of digital art.
Stitch & Style: Tailoring and Mending Workshop
Edward Osei – Art Educator / Fashion Designer | Graduate Teaching/Research Assistant, Art Education, University of Arkansas
Stitch & Style is a mindful hands-on workshop where participants transform t-shirts into wearable narratives. Drawing on asasawa, an Ashanti philosophy that explores the act of binding elements together. In context, it emphasizes the restoration, reuse, and repurpose of textiles. As such, this workshop is set to explore identity, emotional resilience, and culturally responsive teaching through slow-sewing practices, layering of iron-on patches, and uplifting words. Perfect for educators seeking inclusive, practical strategies to bring wearable narrative art into classrooms and communities.
Limited to 10 participants per session
Up-Cycled Sculptures
Candace Snow- Arkansas Art Educator/ Bergman Middle School
Inspired by up-cycled sculptures made in Kenya and Nigeria, we will explore sculpting opportunities utilizing discarded materials and repurpose them into a sculpture. Materials ranging from bottles, paper, cardboard, fabric scraps, old markers, and so much more will be used to create our works. We will discuss how to build armatures as well as how to create a finished look using various materials as well as paper clay from recycled paper. Many materials and recyclables will be provided, but you are welcome to bring your own things you’d like to repurpose or incorporate into your sculpture.
Special Request for Participants:
Feel free to bring recycled materials of your own to use if you have anything you’d like to incorporate into your sculpture. Many things will be provided, but you’re more than welcome to bring your own things.
Stitching Stories
Margo Duvall- Artist/Professor of Art, University of the Ozarks
This workshop introduces educators to quilting and weaving as visual strategies for constructing meaning through images. Participants will explore how fragmenting and recombining images in various ways can address themes like memory, identity, place, and storytelling.
Limited to 12 participants per session
Printmaking: Layering and Patterns with Stamps
Nikkila Carroll- Arkansas-based Sculpture and Mixed-media Artist
Participants will explore a relief printmaking technique, stamp carving, where designs are carved into soft rubber or linoleum blocks using a linoleum or wood block carving tools, then inked and pressed onto surfaces like paper or fabric creating pattern prints.
This workshop will also explore multi layered stamp process, where participants will create depth and interest to a work of art through printmaking.
Participants feel free to prepare a small simple drawing or picture you would like use as a repeating pattern.
Unlocking the Creativity of Mixed Media Collage
Sondra Strong- Arkansas-based Professional Artist/ Art Educator
Dive into the world of mixed media, where there are no rules—only exploration!
This beginner-friendly workshop introduces the exploration of creating mixed-media collage, focusing on layering, composition, and personal expression using paper, paints, and found materials. Participants will explore techniques like creating patterned papers, adhesive selection, and creating textured elements and backgrounds. No experience is required, making it perfect for unlocking creativity that will produce a unique piece of art.
Materials are provided. Participants are encouraged to bring textured papers, stencils, mediums, magazines, or any materials to add to their final product.
Pre-Service Art Educators One Day Workshop
Thursday
Needle Felting with Ella!
In this workshop is a one day workshop designed for pre-service art educators, participants
will be creating a sculpture in the round keychain using needle felting.
Contact Dr. Lynnette Gilbert @ lgilbert3@atu.edu or Ella Dover @ gdover@atu.edu to register.
*Only 15 seats available
Jasmine Greer
Jasmine Greer is a Professor of Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design and Interactive Media. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the University of Central Arkansas and a Masters of Fine Arts from Columbia College Chicago in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media. She has been with the ATU Art Department since 2013 and teaches courses serving both the Graphic Design and Game Design programs. From 2013 to 2018, she co-coordinated the Royal Film Festival in Benton, AR which featured local, national and international shorts and feature films. In 2020, she was awarded an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council in the literary category of screenwriting. Since 2019, she has served as the yearbook designer for Arkansas Governor’s School. Her areas of creative interest include digital painting, photography, and writing. She is an avid film and tv fan and in her spare time she loves to play Dungeons and Dragons.
Ashley Kinsey
Ashley Kinsey grew up in Nebraska and now calls Arkansas her home after moving back to attend high school and college. She holds a bachelor's degree in Graphic Design and Art Education from Arkansas Tech University and an MA in Art Education. She is an adjunct professor at Arkansas Tech University and the University of the Ozarks where she teaches drawing, figure drawing, design, and art history courses. Her fine art concentration focuses on the anatomy of the human figure in charcoal and graphite, and she also uses watercolor and fiber art to create mixed-media works. Along with her passion for art education and the fine arts, Ashley holds art advocacy to a very high level of importance in her personal, professional, and academic life. She has served on the Arkansas Art Educators Association board as Elementary Division Director and as Western Regional Art Show Director for several years. She also works with her community to teach summer youth art camps; the majority of her work with these community programs are voluntary as a result of her community-driven passion for integrating as much art as possible into her Russellville hometown. She also works as an art instructor, teaching workshops downtown at Garden Sass, a local artisan gift shop. Whether teaching art to young children, college students, or adults, her focus is not solely on the finished art product, but on the creative process and understanding the purposes and the importance of why we are creating. She believes that engaging in art at any age encourages critical and creative problem-solving skills and encourages perceptual awareness and self-expression, as art readily relates to all ages and life experiences.
Edward Berchie Osei
Edward Osei is an artist and fashion designer from Ghana, and a graduate student of the Art Education program at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His practice explores textiles as a site for emotional resilience, cultural continuity, storytelling, and sustainable practices, an approach he defines as Therapeutic Textile Pedagogy. Working with narrative fabrics, found materials, and mixed media, Edward is committed to guiding diverse participants and translating complex artistic ideas into accessible, hands-on experiences. His work is informed by philosophies and theories such as Sankofa, Communitarianism, Experiential Learning, and Scaffolding. Edward’s practice is shaped by lived experience, and he approaches teaching as a restorative act. His work affirms a simple but radical truth, that is, ART HEALS.
Margo Duvall
Margo Duvall is an artist and educator currently living in Little Rock, AR. She earned her MFA in Photography from San Jose State University (2009) and her BA in Studio Art from Humboldt State University (2006). She currently teaches at University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, AR.
Duvall’s artwork investigates photography's role in the development of memory and identity through film, mixed media and installation-based pieces. She has received recognition as an artist with numerous solo and group exhibitions including the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts annual Delta Exhibition, Arkansas Arts Council's Small Works on Paper, Ft. Smith’s Regional Art Museum, and many more.
Arkansas K12 Art Educator Featured Instructor:
Candace Snow
Candace Snow is an art educator that has been teaching art for about 13 years at public school as well as community classes at North Arkansas College. Watching people learn and grow through art is what she loves most in life. She finds art as one of the best outlets to let people express themselves and get to know each other. Candace believes It’s the little things we put into our work that really show our heart and our minds to others, which can be a safe way to be vulnerable with ones we love. It is her hope to help others find their way to believe in themselves and express themselves through creating.
Many of her artworks reflect inner thoughts, childhood experiences, and what is going on in the world around her. Her goal is to try as many different art mediums and techniques as she can so she can find the best way to get her thoughts out into something tangible. Candace hope is to connect to many people through her art.
Sondra Strong
Sondra Strong is a national board educator and visual artist who lives in Bryant, Arkansas. Her works include acrylic painting, book illustrations, and mixed media collage. Her works capture her experiences as an educator, a community member and a storyteller. Her work has been collected by Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, featured at the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta as well as represented in several gallery shows and community projects. In 2024, her work was selected for the Arkansas Arts Council's 37th Annual Small Works on Paper Touring Exhibition, earning her the distinction of a purchase award and becoming a part of its permanent collection.
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Nikkila Carroll
Nikkila Carroll (she/her/hers), an Arkansas-based sculpture and mixed-media artist, creates intricately detailed explorations of land and sea, inspired by the symbiotic relationships and interconnectedness found in the natural world. She creates hand-built ceramic sculptures that often incorporate fiber arts and found objects, utilizing a technique she refers to as "sculptural collage". Her work has been featured in exhibitions ranging from a collaborative project with Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center to the prestigious ICEHOTEL in Sweden, where she helped create the Illuminated Suite #23. Since 2011, Carroll has maintained a prolific studio practice under the moniker “babycreep,” participating in numerous regional and national festivals and exhibitions, including ten Horn Island exhibitions. She holds a BFA in sculpture from Memphis College of Art (2011), where she also gained experience as a continuing education and K-12 art instructor.
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Pre-Service Art Educator:
Ella Dover
Ella Dover is Junior Art Education major at Arkansas Tech University. Her art is expensive with lots of colors ranging from magenta, green, purple, and yellow. Ella loves to catch the viewer attention with my saturated and vivid artworks. Most of her works are self-portraits and objects or animals she adores or find interesting.
Dr. Mark Graham
Professor of Art Education-Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
This year campus housing will not be provided, so participants will be responsible for their own accommodations. We recommend the following hotels in Russellville:
Free Wifi
Free Parking
*Offering a Special Group Rate: ATU Windgste Summer Art Launch
$110 +tax a night
Single and Double Rooms
154 E Aspen Ln, Russellville, AR 72802
(479)968-6000
Hotel Contact: Carl Watchmaker
courtyardrussellville@atica-mailer.co
570-215-7055
For special rate and booking click link below
ATU-Windgate Summer Art Launch-Group Booking Link
Book by 5/17/2026 (for special rate)
Other Lodging Options
Chambers Dinning Hall
In the Dining Hall you have options such as the freshly prepared salad bar, deli,
Mongolian Wok, stone oven baked pizza, the grill, fantastic desserts, home cooked
yumminess, and so much more.
SUMMER HOURS:
Monday-Friday 7:00am- 6:30pm continuous service
Baswell Techionery (Baz-Tech)
SUMMER HOURS:
Monday-Friday (Starbucks) 8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Monday-Friday (Jerry's) 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Each participant will be able to attend 4 of the 7 workshops. You will receive an e-mail confirming whether your application was accepted or if you were placed on the waiting list. This workshop is only available for current Arkansas K-12 art teachers at this time.
Registration Closed
All activities will be held in the Norman Art Building on the Arkansas Tech University Campus in Russellville. The map below provides directions to Norman Hall.
