Like his students, Nansemond River High School art teacher Brian Kershasky was excited to have the opportunity to learn about printing textiles with Indian block prints.

He was among the students and teachers from Nansemond River, Lakeland and King’s Fork high schools, as well as Nansemond-Suffolk Academy, who were taking part in a recent Virginia Museum of Fine Arts workshop at Lakeland.

“They pay me to do this,” Kershasky said. “This is great. I get paid to come on a field trip with the kids and make cool stuff. I love it. Every time we come here I learn something new as well — some new tricks and some new things to add to my game, and they can help me teach it too.”

Kershasky’s students were taking the prints and putting them on T-shirts, while others were using their designs for pillows, bandannas and other items.

It’s not something he and other area art teachers would normally get to do in their classrooms. However, through the workshop — presented by the Suffolk Art League — they had the opportunity to learn about the art form from VMFA visiting artist Mary Swezey, who spent the day teaching students how to use intricately carved wood blocks to print a set of two, 27-inch cotton tea towels while they learned about pigment, layering colors, composition and the possibility of making stamps at home. Some students also brought their own items, such as T-shirts, to print on.

“This is the best program ever,” Kershasky said. “I started teaching in Suffolk — this is my fifth year here — and this one program is so flippin’ cool. Having a real artists with techniques that you probably wouldn’t get to see in a normal classroom, because of their complexities, and you just wouldn’t be able to afford something like this for 100 kids.

“And so, getting a couple of kids who truly are invested in art to talk with a working artist with real professional tools and real professional skills, and just getting that kind of attention, that’s awesome. It’s such a good program.”

One of the perks for teachers during the workshops is that it allows them to work alongside their students with less familiar materials.

“It’s wonderful for the art teachers, because it gives us the opportunity to work with a material that we might not necessarily have in our classroom,” said Lakeland art teacher Angela White. “It’s a different experience for us, because it teaches us new techniques that we might not know.”

The program is offered free to students, as a Suffolk Foundation grant provides part of the funding for the program, which is organized by the Richmond-based museum and is also supported, in part, by its Paul Mellon Endowment and Jean Stafford Camp Memorial Fund.

Nansemond River junior Lily Kirk, 16, in her third year of taking art, was working on creating a stamp for a T-shirt. She was practicing her technique before applying the stamp to her T-shirt. Kirk, who says she has always had an interest in art, started out by drawing cartoons of TV shows like “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!” and progressed from there. She appreciated the opportunity to try something new.

“It’s fun,” Kirk said. “I feel like if I still lived over in Maryland, we wouldn’t get to do things like this, but we have a teacher like Mr. K, who is like, ‘Let’s go do these things, it’s fun,’ like last minute.”

Nansemond-Suffolk Academy senior Molly Bladsell, 17, said she enjoyed the workshop.

“I love it,” Bladsell said. “I like that we can make the screen prints for our own design.”

Swezey, who has a master’s degree in fine arts from Arizona State University and had done screen printing and printing on fabric there, represents the VMFA through its statewide department and travels to different parts of Virginia to teach workshops.

Among the things she taught the students was how to roll the pigment onto the Indian block prints. The pigment the students used is specifically for fabric, she said, but the technique could also be used for paper, such as with tempera or acrylic paints.

Lakeland junior Jeana Van Hemel, 16, was working on making a pillow during the workshop.

“My dad knows how to use a sewing machine, my mom knows how to knit, so I grew up around yarn and fabric, creating stuff, so I absolutely love this kind of stuff,” Van Hemel said.

Though the students are learning new techniques, King’s Fork International Baccalaureate fine arts and Theory of Knowledge teacher Stephanie Gwaltney said students get much more out of the program.

“They’re actually learning about how she works with the VMFA,” Gwaltney said, “and how that’s even an opportunity to be on their radar for a future career path, and how each student in here comes from a different school, so those are different ideas and inspirations into their work that they can walk around and gather as well, and then just talking and collaborating. That’s always a positive experience.”

King’s Fork junior Mason Greer, 17, said he had not tried the technique before, but would consider using it again. He said art allows him to be himself and convey a message to people.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for everyone to come together and understand what art is about, even if people aren’t real artists, or true artists,” Greer said. “They still have the sense of the beauty of art and how art can do anything.”

The workshop series typically visits each of the four schools each year, and students from all of the schools attend each one. Topics for the rest of the series this year include digital portraits and photographic transfers.