June Mystery Artist

Hi Everyone!

We're in the home stretch and that means this is the last mystery artist for the year.  

This month the mystery artist is already in your head!

Tell me what you know!

Tell me one artist you learned about this year and one fact about them.

That's it! No excuses....submit your entry today!

Marble Painting Madness!

We're manipulating paint in the kindergarten art room!

We discussed all the different tools you can use to paint in art class this week.  Tools like brushes, forks, hands, fingers, feet, and MARBLES!! We used marbles to create an abstract splatter design.  These young artists practiced controlling the direction of the marble and the marks it made by how slowly or quickly they tipped their tins.  They had so much fun! 

Check out a few video's of this fabulous marble painting process.

Check back next week to see what these marble paintings will be used for!

It's Ice Cream Time!

How can we use value to create 3-dimensional forms?

4th Graders are getting their scoopers out just in time for Spring! Students learned about American pop artist Wayne Thiebaud and his use of pale colors, value, and a popular subject matter.

Wayne Thiebaud, Two Jolly Cones, 1920

4th grade artists then applied these concepts to their own ice cream inspired art work.  

Students mixed different tints of color to create dimension and form.  

I was so impressed with the final products!!

As a special treat Ms. Brown's 4th grade class will have their ice cream art on display 

at Richardson's from now until June.  

Stop by and see these talented young artists. What a good excuse to get an ice cream!

Take your picture eating an ice cream in front of your favorite work of art and send it to me.....

you might end up on my blog!

Teacher Appreciation Week!

Remembering one of my own art teachers!

Inspired by Art of Ed's article on appreciating art teachers (click here to read the article), I'm remembering one of my high school art teachers Mr. DeRosa who helped mentor and guide me through the process of painting a faux carving design around the proscenium arch way in our school theater. I designed a stencil, climbed aboard a cherry picker, and traced and painted the design all the way around the proscenium. What an experience and I'm so grateful for his guidance and I can only hope that I can have the same impact on my own students!

May Mystery Artist

Last month I received two mystery artist guesses through my blog! How fun!  

This prompted me to decide to accept more guesses through the blog.  

So here's how it will work: post your guess and name in the comments section of this blog post.  At the end of the month I will publish all of the guesses and include those in my monthly contest. For a special bonus, I will allow your guess to count as 2 if you submit a written one and a blog posted one! Good Luck!!

May Mystery Artist Facts:

I lived from September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988.

I was a Russian born, American sculptor.

I am most know for my monochromatic wooden wall pieces and out door sculptures.

“About what black…the illusion of black means to me: I don’t think I chose it for black. I think it chose me for saying something. You see, it says more for me than anything else. In the academic world, they used to say black and white were no colors, but I’m twisting that to tell you that for me it is the total color. It means totality. It means: contains all.”  

Let's Check in On What We're Learning!

How Do We Assess Learning in the Art Room?

In September I measured how well our Howe Manning fifth graders understood basic color theory principals. It was great to see that so many students (84%) knew the most basic: primary and secondary colors.  The assessment showed that we still need to work on those trickier ones: analogous and monochromatic colors. 

Throughout this year we practiced color theory in lessons, extension activities, and by using exit tickets.  I often ask students to line up by complementary table colors or analogous table colors.  

I checked in on what we learned in January and February and was excited to see that we've made progress! You can compare the pre and mid year results below. 

It looks like we made gains in each category

I'd love to see if we can really drive these definitions in for the end of the year!

PreK–12 STANDARD 2.7 : Elements and Principles of Design Students will demonstrate knowledge of the elements and principles of design. For color, use and be able to identify hues, values, intermediate shades, tints, tones, complementary, analogous, and monochromatic colors Demonstrate awareness of color by painting objective studies from life and free form abstractions that employ relative properties of color

April Mystery Artist

It's time for the April Mystery Artist!

I lived from 1928 - 1987

I was a leading artist in the 1960’s Pop Art Movement

I worked in a wide range of art forms including printmaking, filmmaking, writing and performance art.

Artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertisement were themes in my artwork.

Submit your guess by the end of April!