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Hi, I'm Amanda.

I'm an art teacher, art student, and artist living in Northern Virginia.

I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Media Arts and Animation from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. I am a candidate for a Master of Arts in Teaching at George Mason University and an art teacher for FCPS.

As I continue pursuing my education in art, I am exploring expressive portraiture and how to build narration into my static work. I work as both a digital painter and a traditional oil painter. As a teacher, I believe every student is a capable artist, they just need a thoughtful teacher and a bit of practice.

Yeah, that's me --->

My artistic practice

Student Work & Teaching Portfolio

The tangible nature of art sets it apart from other subjects. Art is an opportunity for students to explore their interests and develop work that is a direct reflection of themselves. Through demonstration and scaffolding, I hope to leave my students with both creative and technical artistic knowledge. My goal as a teacher is to foster a sense of agency and ownership in the art room.

When it comes to lesson design, I enjoy creating lessons that help build skills while also allowing students to infuse their artwork with their own personalities. The following lessons focus on individual artworks. Currently, I am expanding my pedagogy and curriculum to make the lessons more collaborative, so the final works feature both individual and group-driven components. For example, my fourth graders created a self-published comic anthology that they illustrated and bound as a class. I am also passionate about expanding the artistic disciplines my students are exposed to in my art room. In addition to book binding, I am encouraging my students to explore methods of sewing and fiber arts.

View samples of my lesson plans here and here

View my resume here 🎨

Interested in seeing how I would approach teaching portraiture to secondary students? I am currently developing a lesson that makes the process more approachable and experimental without sacrificing technique and core artistic knowledge. You can check out my progress here .

As a response to a prompt from my Secondary Education class at GMU, I developed a middle school unit focusing on the intersection of art, creative writing, and technology. You can view the overview of the 3-lesson unit here.