Painting with James Autio

December 2021

First grade students learned that James Autio is an artist, poet, and teacher. He grew up in Superior, Wisconsin (near Duluth, Minnesota). His mother is Ojibwe and his father is Finnish.

He showed the students several of his artworks. (A few of them are reproduced below, at top.) Some were large paintings done in acrylics. Others were done with charcoal on the back of brown grocery bags opened up and taped together.

Autio gave each student a reproduction of a drawing he made. He encouraged the students to paint them in whatever way they wanted. The students used tempera paints. They could paint the backgrounds if they chose.