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I will be teaching The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984) to my 9th grade English class. As I was reading books over the summer I was constantly frustrated with my bookmark options as well as my desire to take notes without a worthy piece of paper. I have devised a plan to make the "Beneficial Bookmark" for my students so that I can assist them as they read. The front of the bookmark has spaces for them to fill in as they get to know the text. The back is blank so that they can copy confusing vocabulary words or questions and then bring them to the next class. Here is a copy of my "Beneficial Bookmark" for The House on Mango Street. My thinking is that if my students are constantly seeing the information on the bookmark then they will commit that information to memory. I only have two sections of 9th grade English so I think I will have time to make these bookmarks happen.

I am so excited to see how they work!

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I will be teaching The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984) to my 9th grade English class. As I was reading books over the summer I was constantly frustrated with my bookmark options as well as my desire to take notes without a worthy piece of paper.

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How to make egg tempera paint with an egg yolk and powdered pigments and techniques in using it

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This website is for sale! renaissanceconnection.org is your first and best source for all of the information you're looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, renaissanceconnection.org has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!

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zzz Christinas World Andrew Wyeth large image

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"Christina's World" Andrew Wyeth 1948- One of the Best Portraits of All Time!

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"Christina's World" Andrew Wyeth 1948- One of the Best Portraits of All Time!

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Andrew Wyeth. Christina's World. 1948 | MoMA

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The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist's neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, "was limited physically but by no means spiritually." Wyeth further explained, "The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless."

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15 Steps to Raise the Roof with Perspective Drawing

Imagine a little cottage on a hill. It's got a couple of windows letting in the light, a chimney with a puff of smoke wafting out, an inviting door painted a bright color, and a sweet overhang roof. Now imagine having to draw all of those details in correct perspective. That means angles, geometry, scale, more angles, equations(?), a T-square...I'm starting to panic. Are you starting to panic? Let's don't because Phil Metzger is here to teach us the basics of perspective drawing without the frustration and panic from his book Perspective Without Pain!

Let Phil show you the basics of two-point perspective drawing by constructing a simple house like we were just daydreaming of. We're viewing it from somewhere down the hill; that is, our eye level is below the house. The structure is turned so that it's in two-point perspective-we can see two sides of it. Everything about this house is symmetrical except for the chimney located at one end rather than in the center.

In 15 steps, you'll have that house drawn and you can start adding in all the details that will make it your own. It starts with a good perspective drawing that Phil will teach you and then you take it from there. Enjoy!

Don't forget to get your copy of Perspective Without Pain, one of our top art resources and one that you will keep close at hand in the studio to stave off resentment, cluelessness, and boiling anger (all emotions I felt before I learned Phil's teachings!) regarding perspective drawing-guaranteed!

Learn the basics of two-point perspective drawing: eye level, vanishing points and perspective centers.

What is two-point perspective?

Two-point perspective is a type of linear perspective in which one set of receding lines meets at one vanishing point and another set meets at a second vanishing point, both at eye level.

Getting the Angles Right

I'll tell you a secret: You never have to bother with vanishing points if you get all the angles right in the first place. If a line recedes toward the horizon and you draw it accurately, it will automatically cross the horizon right at the vanishing point. So, although we typically discuss vanishing points as a handy way of visualizing what's going on in linear perspective, it's those slants, or angles, we're really after. Art stores offer a number of gadgets to help get angles right, but you can do just as well with two simple measuring techniques that don't cost anything.

Pencil: Hold a pencil (or any straightedge) at arm's length, elbow locked, and with the pencil parallel to the picture plane. Swivel your wrist to align the pencil with an edge of the object you want to draw. Keeping the pencil at that same slant, move it to your drawing surface and with another pencil copy the angle onto your paper.

Perspective jaws: This is my favorite way of getting angles right. It requires a set of "jaws": two strips of cardboard fastened snugly at one end so you can move the strips apart at any angle you wish. Hold the jaws at arm's length, elbow locked, and align one jaw with any edge of your subject. Then rotate the other jaw to line up with some other edge; now you've got the angle between the two edges. Lower the jaws to your paper and copy the angle. It's practically foolproof!

1. Draw Eye-Level Line, Then Nearest Vertical Edge

First draw a horizontal line indicating eye level. Then establish the nearest vertical edge of the house (A). You could start the house anywhere, but the nearest vertical edge is a convenient place to begin. Since the house is on a hill, let the bottom of the vertical edge end a bit above eye level.

2. Draw One Slope

With a straightedge, try various slopes for the top edge of the box (the house without the gables) until you think the slope looks right. For this exercise, don't worry that the slope you choose might not be quite realistic; if you were drawing from a real house, you would measure the real slope by eye or by using a set of perspective jaws.

3. Draw Other Slope and Mark Vanishing Points

Now draw a slanting line representing the slope on the other face of the box (again, the house without the gables). Where each of the sloping lines crosses the eye-level line, mark a vanishing point. We'll call them VPL (vanishing point left) and VPR (vanishing point right). Those two vanishing points will guide all the rest of the drawing.

4. Draw Bottom Edges of House

Connect the bottom end of the vertical edge A to each of the vanishing points. The walls of the house lie between the pairs of slanted construction lines.

5. Establish Length of Each Side of House

Decide how wide each face of the house should be; then draw vertical lines representing the outer corners. If you were drawing from a real-life subject, you would sight-measure the two sides using the thumb-and-pencil method and compare the widths of the sides to each other and to some other dimension, such as the height (A).

6. Find Perspective Center of Front Wall

Now we have the two walls established (I've colored them for clarity). Next, you'll add the gable. To do this, first find the perspective center of the rectangular wall to which the gable will be added. Do that by finding where the wall's diagonals intersect.

7. Draw Gable

Sight-measure your subject and decide how high the tip of the gable should be. The gable seems a little more than half the height of the wall. Mark the appropriate height along the vertical centerline and connect that point to the two corners of the wall to form the gable in perspective.

8. Add Door

Add a door at the perspective center of the front wall. Start by marking how high you want the door to be (in these illustrations I've made the door and windows large to make the picture clearer). The door should be "centered" around the centerline of the wall-but don't forget that the door itself is in perspective. So just as there is a little less wall to the left of the centerline than to the right, there is also a little less door to the left than to the right. There are complicated constructions to get this exactly right, but for the sake of sanity, just eyeball your drawing and make sure there's a little more door showing to the right of the centerline than to the left.

9. Add Windows

The tops of the windows in the side of this house are at the same height as the door, so draw a line from the door-height line at the corner of the building to VPR. Draw a line for the bottoms of the windows to VPR. The windows fit between these two lines. Because of our perspective, the left window appears a little wider than the right one and space W appears wider than space X. Draw the small window above the door the same way you drew the door.

10. Draw Roof Overhang on Near Side

So far the house has only the foundation for a roof; it needs a roof cap. The roof cap overhangs the house in front and back and on both sides. Such details are important; without them, the house drawing may look like a toy.

First, extend the roof's ridgeline front and rear. Next, draw a line representing the overhang at the side of the house. Draw lines for the overhangs at the front and rear of the house. For our purposes, all these lines may be drawn parallel to their respective nearby basic roof edges. The overhang at the rear should be a little shorter than that at the front since it's in the distance.

11. Draw Roof Overhang on Far Side

To get the other side of the front overhang, draw line H through the tip of the roof cap parallel to the edge of the gable. The question is, how far down does that overhang extend? Take a look at the inset. Imagine a line connecting A and B in the inset and then draw that line (in perspective) on your drawing, again connecting points A and B. Now you know how far down the overhang extends.

12. Finish Roof Overhang

All that remains is to finish the overhang by drawing the (short) line from point A toward VPR. This little line is often drawn incorrectly; many people aim it toward the wrong vanishing point when they are just starting out with perspective drawing.

13. Draw Side Face of Chimney

Draw a construction line for the height of the chimney and aim it toward VPR. Draw another line for the base of the chimney and aim it also toward VPR. Draw two verticals to define the thickness of the chimney. This completes the side of the chimney facing us. Notice the top edges of the chimney are the highest edges above eye level, so they have the steepest slopes of all the receding horizontal lines.

14. Draw Front Face of Chimney

Draw construction line A toward VPL-this is the top edge of the front face of the chimney. Draw line B parallel to the edge of the roof-this is where the chimney intersects the roof. Where B crosses the ridgeline, draw vertical (dotted) line C. What you have so far is the part of the chimney on the near side of the roof.

15. Finish Chimney and Add Some Edges

Finish the chimney by drawing its far vertical edge. Like anything in perspective, the part of the chimney farther away should be slightly narrower than the nearer part (just as we saw in the door and windows). Add a few edges to help give the windows, door and roof a bit of thickness.

Phil Metzger has been painting and selling his artwork for more than 34 years. His work is included in thousands of private and public collections and has earned him honors in national and regional exhibitions. He teaches watercolor and perspective drawing and has written many popular books.

This article is excerpted from his book The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium © 2007 by Phil Metzger, used with permission of North Light Books, an imprint of F+W Media Inc.

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Raise the Roof in 15 Steps of Perspective Drawing

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Imagine a little cottage on a hill. It's got a couple of windows letting in the light, a chimney with a puff of smoke wafting out, an inviting door painted a bright color, and a sweet overhang roof. Now imagine having to draw all of those details in correct perspective.

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How To Draw a Portrait: Step- by- Step Instructions

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How To Draw a Portrait: Step- by- Step Instructions

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G'day mates! While we've introduced to you artists and techniques from all over the U.S., it's always a thrill to go international and feature exciting things going on in the art world in Europe, China, and today, Australia. If you haven't heard of it yet, allow me to introduce you to a hugely popular TV/DVD series known as Colour In Your Life, produced by Graeme Stevenson.

Graeme brings in artists such as David Wells (featured in Pastel Journal and The Artist's Magazine). Watch a free preview of Alvaro Castagnet, Joseph Zbukvic and Herman Pekel-"the three amigos"-painting a cityscape in watercolor together in this clip from Colour In Your Life.

And because I'm such a fan of David Wells also (and I know many of you are, too!), I've included a portrait drawing demonstration he shared with The Artist's Magazine (April 2009), when his work was featured on the unforgettable cover.

Step-by-Step Demonstration: How to Draw a Portrait by David Wells

First I make preliminary sketches in graphite pencil on paper. Sketches like this one help me understand the subject's face and temperament. Once I start with pastels and colored pencils, I work left to right, because I like to rest my hand on the paper.

On Art Spectrum Colourfix coated pastel paper (blue shade), I drew an outline in graphite, with all the excess rubbed off with a kneadable eraser. To block in the darks and midtones in this step, I used raw sienna and yellow ochre pastels (R).

Using a very pale shade of raw umber (R) and white (S) pastels, I then layered from darkest to lightest, right over the top. (I do pastels alla prima, in one layer.)

Next I blended the pigments with my finger. In general, my procedure is to build up the surface by layering from dark to light. I start off with more opaque colors and then work toward transparent colors. The highlights I add at the very end.

For the hand I used white, yellow ochre and burnt sienna pastels (R), as well as burnt umber colored pencil (FC). For the finger- nails, I used the exact same pastel and colored pencils, only mixed differently to get a different effect.

To depict the parasol, I chose pastels and pastel pencils in red and burnt sienna. I also used burnt umber with a few touches of black, and yellow ochre. The white wrap is the same gray-green pastel (FC) I used on the ring. For the hair (I draw every single one!), I used black, burnt umber, raw umber, raw sienna, yellow ochre and white pastels (R).

Then I "ghosted" in the features with burnt umber, black and white colored pencils (FC). Throughout my process, I pick up pastels, pastel pencils and colored pencils at different stages, in order to make the image convincing and the surface complex.

Next I blocked in the eyebrows with burnt umber, yellow ochre and white pastels (R). The eyes are blocked in here as well (the paper is blue). For the lips I chose raw sienna pastel pencil (FCP) and red and white colored pencils (FC). The result looks purple because of the blue surface color of the paper.

Here the left eye is 95-percent finished. I added the same blue pastel (FC) I used for the ring and the necklace, then worked it over with gray-green pastel and black and white colored pencils (FC). I added white pastel (S) and a hint of blue into the whites of the eye.

At this stage, I built up the lips with raw sienna pastel pencil (FCP). I also used red and white colored pencils (FC).

To finish the lips, I used burnt sienna, yellow ochre and white pastels (R), and a peach-yellow-pink pastel (S), plus colored pencils (FC). And now I present JessieCat (below; pastel and colored pencil, 19.75×27.5).

Learn more about David Wells and his art at DavidWellsArt.com.

Discover the "Colour In Your Life" series with North Light Shop.

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Step-by-Step Demonstration: How to Draw a Portrait - Artists Network

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G'day mates! While we've introduced to you artists and techniques from all over the U.S., it's always a thrill to go international and feature exciting things going on in the art world in Europe, China, and today, Australia. If you haven't heard of it yet, allow me to introduce you to a hugely popular TV/DVD ...

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An Excerise that Helps Students Understand Light and Shadow

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Creativity is a blessing and a curse: if you're anything like me, you crave new projects, and always want to have something to be working on. Or your ideas come to you too quickly to respond to them all, and you have a laundry list of projects you want to do. I want to do it all, and sometimes it's hard to focus on just the creative endeavors I'm best at, rather than spreading myself too thin just because I want to make something that's beautiful, or huge, or challenging. It can be overwhelming, but I wouldn't give it up for the world.

When I was high school, my art-of-choice was playing the guitar. I practiced the scales by picking the strings one note at a time, up and down the neck of my acoustic-electric until my fingers were nice and blistered.

When I was in college and my life was filled with the study of dance, I spent hours at the barre, spotted the wall in countless pirouettes and plied until my legs were weak.

It's all for the love of the craft, and painting is no different. "Every great artist has spent hours staring at the apple," says instructor Richard Robinson. "Now it's your turn." Richard goes on to explain how setting up a still life and experimenting with light can be a rewarding exercise in painting.
Still Life Painting Setup
"Set up a still life of a green/yellow pear so that it resembles my photo as closely as possible, paying close attention to the position of the light and shadows," Richard says. "Get a pear and slice the roundness from it with a sharp knife, so that it's not much smaller, and is made up of straight edges rather than curves."

"Replace the pear in your still life with this planed pear," advises Richard. "Using a black marker, draw the pear on paper in just black and white areas, separating the light from the dark. Remember that the half-tone (the area between light and shadow) belongs to the light. Include the cast shadow in your drawing. Squint at your pear to help you see the large masses. You'll notice that the black base is part of the light family except where a shadow is cast upon it. The brown background is in shadow so it, too, becomes part of the shadow family."

Richard breaks down concepts such as this in his instructional videos. North Light Shop is proud to connect you with Richard's following video workshops:
* 4 Landscape Projects from Photographs
* 4 Still Life Projects from Life

Use this expert guidance to learn the best ways to practice painting still lifes and landscapes, and remember that practice makes perfect.

Stay creative,
Cherie

**Subscribe to the Artists Network newsletter for inspiration, instruction, and ideas, and score afree download > Still Life Painting Techniques and Inspiration

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See the Light! In a Still Life Painting, That Is - Artists Network

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Creativity is a blessing and a curse: if you're anything like me, you crave new projects, and always want to have something to be working on. Or your ideas come to you too quickly to respond to them all, and you have a laundry list of projects you want to do.

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10 Visual Literacy Strategies

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Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7: "Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos or maps) with other information in print and digital texts."

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7: "Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words."

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.6: "Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text."

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.1: "Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively."

National Council of Teachers of English Standards (NCTE)

Standard 1: Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts.

The Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning Corporation (McRel)

Standard 9: Uses viewing skills and strategies to interpret visual media.

On their own -- without explicit, intentional and systematic instruction -- students will not develop VL skills because the language for talking about images is so foreign. Ever heard kids debate the object salience and shot angles of a Ryan Gosling meme? To add to the instructional complexity, visuals come in an assortment of formats:

How to Teach Visual Literacy: Visual Thinking Routines

The VL strategies described in the sections that follow are simple to execute, but powerfully effective in helping students interpret images.

The think-aloud strategy -- typically used to model how adept readers make meaning from a text (demonstrated in the following short video) -- can be adapted for "reading" a visual artifact. After you model how to do it, have learners try this approach with a partner. Encourage elaborate responses. If you need a crash course in visual grammar before implementing this strategy in class, build your background knowledge with Discovering How Images Communicate.

Model Think-Aloud strategy from Derek Fernandez on Vimeo.
Visual Thinking Strategies
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a specific approach to whole-class viewing and talking about art that primarily uses these questions:

What's going on in this picture?

What do you see that makes you say that?

What more can we find?

VTS encourages students to think beyond the literal by discussing multiple meanings, metaphors and symbols. Used with all ages -- elementary students (see video below) up to Harvard medical students -- implementation is simple. The New York Times' weekly VTS lessons are a good place to start.
Asking the 4WS
Inspired by Debbie Abilock's Noodletools exercises, I developed the 4WS activity to help students make observations, connections and inferences about an artist's agenda, and develop ideas about a work's significance:

In Five Card Flickr, you are dealt five random photos. To promote VL, have students follow these steps:

1. Jot down one word that they associate with each image.

2. Identify a song that comes to mind for one or more of the images.

3. Describe what all the images have in common.

4. Compare answers with classmates.

During a subsequent discussion, ask students to show what elements of the photo prompted their responses.
Image Analysis Worksheets
To promote analysis of key features specific to different formats, pick an appropriate tool from The National Archives:

Step-by-Step: Working with Images That Matter

The following lesson is partially based on Ann Watts Pailliotet's notion of deep viewing, a process that occurs in three phases:

Literal observation

Interpretation

Evaluation/application

Remember the 1957 photo of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan? Eckford was one of the first African-American students to attend the newly desegregated Little Rock High School. In the photo, you see her entering the school grounds while a throng of white students jeer, most prominently Hazel Bryan, teeth barred, enraged. The photo was disseminated worldwide within a couple of days, uncorking new support for civil rights.

Here are the lesson procedures:
Literal Observation Phase
Give students a hard copy of the Eckford and Bryan photo. To help them internalize the image, tell the learners to study it for one minute before turning it over and doodling a version of it from memory. Next have students write what they literally observe (What is pictured? What type of language is used? How is space used?) into a shared Google Doc.
Interpretation Phase
Copy all the student-generated descriptions from the Google Doc, paste them into Tagxedo, and then project the resulting collaborative word cloud for the class to view. Invite students to interpret the word cloud while periodically re-examining the photo. ( What are the most important words? Which words do you have questions about? Describe your feelings about the photo. What other images are you reminded of, past or present? What messages are implicit and explicit? How did you analyze the photo? What do you understand now that you didn't before?) Then have students help you summarize the conversation.
Evaluation and Application Phase
Direct students to legibly write about the image's relevance on notecards. ( Does the implied purpose of the photo convey ideas that are important? How? Is the image biased? How so?) Take the postcards and pin them around the Eckford and Bryan photo to create an instant bulletin board.

To extend the lesson, show the following six-minute video that narrates how Hazel Bryan, as a twenty-year-old, apologized in person to Elizabeth Eckford. The video features a contemporary photo of both women, mature now, arm in arm, smiling in front of the once infamous Little Rock High School. ( Does the video alter your reactions to the original image? How? Will you approach other socially charged photos differently? Why?)

Final Frame

When reading was taught the traditional way, with printed texts, students accepted the authority of the author and received his or her message as a window on reality. In the 21st century, students need to respectfully question the author's authority, articulate what is represented and how, and infer what has been excluded and why.

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Common Core in Action: 10 Visual Literacy Strategies | Edutopia

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Do you wish your students could better understand and critique the images that saturate their waking life? That's the purpose of visual literacy (VL), to explicitly teach a collection of competencies that will help students think through, think about and think with pictures. Standards Support Visual Literacy Instruction

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The Critical Importance of Visual Arts Education

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20 Ways to Involve Your Family in National Arts

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20 Ways to Involve Your Family in National Arts

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Every kid deserves access to a high-quality arts education.

Research on arts education shows that arts integration in schools improves school climate, student motivation, creativity, perseverance, and achievement in other subjects like math and language arts.

In 2010, Congress established National Arts in Education Week to support access to the arts for all students. There are many ways families can celebrate the arts together during this week or any time of the year.
Here Are 20 Ways To Involve Your Family In National Arts in Education Week (September 13-19)

1. Post a photo of your kid's artwork to Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram. Use the hashtag #ArtsEdWeek.

2. Write a thank you note or email to an arts educator in your kid's life.

3. Share a story of an arts educator who made a difference in your life or your kid's life. Use the hashtag #TeachtheArts.

4. Take a family trip to an arts event, museum or performance. Document it, and share it online.

5. Donate art supplies to your kid's school or an organization that works with kids in your community.

6. Brainstorm ideas for a community that is underserved with the arts. Find a way to bring the arts into their lives.

7. Watch the video campaign Encourage Creativity, Teach the Arts and share it on social media.

8. Create an art wall somewhere in your home where all family members can contribute.

9. Explore kid-friendly art and music videos on Today Box and talk about them with your kids.

10. Take turns bragging about your favorite artist at the dinner table.

11. Learn more about the arts! Join an #ArtsEdChat on Twitter hosted by Americans for the Arts from 8-9 ET Monday through Thursday during #ArtsEdWeek. Follow @JeffMPoulin, Arts Education Program Coordinator for Americans for the Arts for more info.

12. Be informed! Research your state's support for the arts at ArtsEdSearch, the nation's first online research and policy clearinghouse for learning outcomes in the arts.

13. Make a mural as a family. Reclaim a wall and create something together inside or outside of your home.

14. Donate time at your kid's school to help an art educator.

15. Have a dance party. Let each family member take turns playing DJ.

16. Write to your elected officials and advocate for the arts. Your voice matters!

17. Download the official logo for National Arts in Education Week and change your facebook profile photo.

18. Make a family bucket list for arts experiences you want to try as a family. Post it somewhere visible where everyone can see.

19. Dump your recycling on the dining room table. Have a contest to see who can make the best sculpture using recycled materials.

20. Check out some art books from the library. Instead of reading bedtime stories, look at art together and talk about what you see.

We want to hear from you! Let us know what you tried and how it worked out!

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20 Ways To Involve Your Family In National Arts in Education Week

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Every kid deserves access to a high-quality arts education.Research on arts education shows that arts integration in schools improves school climate, student motivation, creativity, perseverance, and achievement in other subjects like math and language arts.In 2010, Congress established National Art...