Howe Manning Conferences

December Conferences

Please note that I will be available to the Howe Manning Art Room 

on Wed. and Thurs. afternoons from 1 - 3:15 pm for parent conferences.  

Feel free to pop in and say hi or contact me to schedule a different time.  

Thanks!

November Mystery Artist

Mystery Artist Facts

I am known by two names.

I was a renowned Native American basket weaver.

I was a member of the Washoe people of Northwest Nevada.

I primarily used willow in the construction of my baskets.

Submit your guess in the envelope at school or in the comments section below! 

* Include your first name, last initial, and class code ONLY for online guesses (ex. George S., 5Ha)

deCordova Museum Visit

My First Field Trip!

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to accompany our third grade on their class field trip to the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA.  It was a beautiful day and so great to be able to look at sculptures and other works of art through their eyes. I hope to be invited on another one!

October Mystery Artist

Hi Everyone, we have a special Halloween themed 

mystery artist for you this month. 

Enjoy!

Mystery Artist Facts

1. I lived from 1852 - 1913
2. I was a Mexican printmaker and engraver.
3. I used skulls, calaveras, and skeletons to make political and cultural comments on my country and the world.
4. I am best known for my calaveras (skulls) works, which often appear in costume.

Submit your guess in the envelope at school or in the comments section below! 

* Include your first name, last initial, and class code ONLY for online guesses (ex. George S., 5Ha)

September Mystery Artist

Mystery Artist Facts:

1. I am an author and illustrator of children’s books.

2. I am best known for my children’s books about “authentic learning, creativity and self-expression”.

3. One of my books has been published in over twenty languages, as well as in Braille, and sparked an international movement.

4. I have also created two award winning short films.

Submit your guess in the envelope at school or in the comments section below! 

* Include your first name, last initial, and class code ONLY for online guesses

(ex. George S., 5Ha)

Mystery Artist is Back!

It's Mystery Artist Time

Each month we will feature a different mystery artist.  Students can research and discuss who the artist is with friends and family.  Guesses can be entered on the mystery artist board or by entering a guess online in the comments section below each mystery artist post. A monthly winner be selected from all correct guesses.  Read more about it below!

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!

Assessments Galore!

How Can We Check for Understanding in the Art Room?

There are so many ways that we can assess learning and understanding in the art room.  

Here are a few that we are putting to use this year at Howe Manning.  

We have been measuring a few key concepts this year.

 Color Theory and Perspective

My 4th and 5th grade students took the following assessments twice this year and 

are scheduled for one more in May.

We also do exit ticket challenges when leaving the classroom.

Finally, students have been self-reflecting on their work.
I hope that their reflections will help them to improve their work on future projects.

Printmaking in the Art Studio

How Does Printmaking Allow for Bringing Art to the Masses?

Howe Manning fifth graders are learning about printmaking and 

how they use a printmaking plate to create multiple pieces of identical artwork.

We watched videos that demonstrated 2 different styles of printmaking plates: 

collographs and relief plates

Printmaking is fun, but it is a lengthy process. The tutorial below illustrates all the steps necessary to create a successful print.  We used the tutorial below to remind us of the printing process.
 We've just started doing practice prints called proofs.
Ask your 5th grade artist how many times it took to get the hang of it!

5th graders were tasked to say something meaningful about themselves through an object.  They really thought carefully about what they wanted to say and how to represent that with an image.

For their final copy, 5th graders where challenged to explore printing their images with different color ink, showing repetition, printing on colored backgrounds, and on interesting unique backgrounds.  They learned how all of these images are a part of their print edition. 

What do you think of their ideas? What do they say to you?

March Mystery Artist is Here!

March's Mystery Artist is a personal favorite of mine. 

One of my art bucket list items to see some of their work in person!  

The MFA might just make that happen very soon (hint, hint!)

I lived from 1907-1957.

I was a Mexican self-portrait artist.

Mexican culture and tradition are important in my artwork.

I was in a serious traffic accident as a teenager which influenced a large amount of my art.

"I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."

Kindergartners are Mixing Colors!

How can we use the primary colors to create all other colors?

Kindergarten artists are learning about using the primary colors to make orange, green, and purple, the secondary colors.  We started out by watching this collaborative video between Sesame Street and OK Go.

Watch it as a family, its so fun!

These young artists doubled as scientists and underwent color mixing experiments. I borrowed this paint pallet set up from teach kids art.  It worked out so well and helped each student mix their colors successfully. 

Each color circle was then turned into a little bird.

Finally birds were adorned with complementary color feathers. We watched a special ballad about complementary colors to learn which color pairs complement each other.  K's loved watching these video's and would love to share them with you.

So many skills were learned: primary, secondary, and complementary colors all in one lesson. WOW!

The Year of the Monkey!

How do traditions and holiday celebrations of other cultures compare to our own culture?

Mrs. LaVangie's 2nd grade artists are learning about Chinese New Year and the special dragon dance that often takes place to celebrate the holiday.  Students also learned that it is traditional to hang lanterns and scrolls outside of homes and businesses.

This year 2nd grade artists are integrating both of these traditions to create beautiful dragon lanterns.

Students first created detailed dragon drawings.

Tempera paints were used to add vibrant colors to their dragon paintings.

Finally, a lantern was created and cut from red construction paper to act as an outside layer for these young artists dragon paintings. 

Look closely through the slats and you will see a colorful dragon surprise!

How does your school celebrate Chinese New Year?

Art and books go together like hot cocoa and marshmallows.

Fuller Meadow Kindergarteners have been making up our lack of snow lately with two winter themed projects. Each lesson started with a book and a song for inspiration.

I loved reading Lucky Pennies and Hot Chocolate to my classes, especially when we got to the end! 

This song is from scholastic.com. It went so well with this lesson.

K's created hot chocolate mugs using a resist technique with 

construction paper crayons and watercolor paints. Students even added "marshmallows" to their art to make it authentic!

For their second lesson, they used Jan Brett's The Mitten to inspire their own winter mitten, complete with a favorite winter animal peeping out.
We used the story and this song developed by Nancy Vandenberge to open the lesson.

Next we discussed how each animal can be drawn using different shapes.  The students loved making animals and tucking them in their mittens.

The finished projects were adorable!

What do you think of their winter themed artwork?

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.2: With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details

Gnome Homes!

How can a simple form become the base for a unique sculptural work.

4th Grade artists are busy at work hand building whimsical clay gnome homes.  Students learned to use a basic pinch pot form as a starting point for both the roof and base of their clay sculptures.  Students also experimented with different textures to add designs and realistic details to their works.

Mrs. Magrath's 4th graders turning pinch pots into creative roofs.

The next step was to use the same pinch pot technique to create the bottoms of the homes. Students carved in details like doors and windows. They also learned how to attach pieces of their clay using the slip and score method. Students attached door knobs, curtains, benches, and even tiny pairs of gnome shoes waiting outside the door. I loved seeing all of their creative ideas!

Finally they added color.  Fourth graders choose 3 contrasting colors for their tops 

and used the reverse color pallet for the bottoms.  

The finished projects were adorable and the students were so excited about them!