Art Gallery

The boys have been taking art classes at the Art League here in town and they entered a contest. It was so cute to see every one's art work displayed on the walls. I only took one picture of the art work because I thought this one was much funnier. So this was on Sunday after morning of going to our meeting so that is the reason we are dressed.

There was another couple of our friends there so it was even
more fun. Can I say it was funner? hehehe Anyway, we had gone to have lunch in town and were stuffed. We all looked at all the walls of art work and then stood around talking to the friends there. Hubby was tired as you can see from this picture. I just had to take it. The kids thought it was so funny that they had to do a picture together.

So this was a post about art but ended up being about being just plain tired. Don't they all look so funny? He woke up while this was going on and smiled but I made him close his eyes back up for the picture. I'm glad we had a willing participant. This just makes me laugh.

Nice but sad

On Monday the boys got to go to a special art class day. Their art teacher got permission to take them to a private collection of animals. They were there to draw animals and to see all these animals these individuals hunted from other countries.

I didn't get to go but made hubby take my camera. I could not miss out on this. I didn't know there would be so many animals.

They had fun drawing and being somewhere different. Of course, there had to be a silly picture in the bunch. hehehe

Art Fun

The boys had a fun time at art class. Can you tell by the look on their faces. I can never take a picture of my middle son without that look. hehehe Today they learned about shading and shapes. I am so glad that this class is only for our kids. That way there is no holiday stuff to deal with. I didn't realize how many kids we have that homeschool here in our town in both english congregations. I love it!

Art

We have been using Artistic Pursuits this year. Since we have never really used watercolor that much before it has been fun to use this book this year. We have done lots of watercolor paintings. This was a watercolor wash. You basically wet the paper then add color and move it around. It's been fun getting all the boys in on this.
You can see the color going up with the wet paper.
They figured that if you put dots of color it would move around because of the wet paper. So they started doing lots of dots.
We had fun. All of us had fun seeing the colors blend on their own.

All Done

The boys are very proud of their fresco paintings. The older one loves to paint mountains and snow. I guess he remembers our trip to Canada. The younger one loves to paint trees. He also loves to climb them. By the way, I know I'm not the only one with that many books. Just a glimpse into our wonderful library and the boys artwork this week.

Do I have time for Art?

Preparing fresco background.

Have you ever said, "I just don't have time for art," or "Our curriculum doesn't include art." I am one that thinks no matter what, art is very important in our daily lives.

Does it have to be structured? NO not really. You could be studying geography and decided to make a paper mache world. What about drawing a map and coloring it in? Then there is history. The sit down and hurry up and do your work so you can get done way to do it would be, "read this and do a report on this person." Have you thought of making a diorama of that time? Then there are classes some take on watercolor, pottery, flower arranging, sewing, crochet classes and so many more.

We are using Artistic Pursuits and so far are loving it. Not only do we learn about an artist from history but also get to do a project. This is the best kind of learning. When you are learning about something and you include a hands on fun project. Today we are making a "fresco." Although my boys would love to paint on the walls, I draw the line there. They each have their own board that they put spackling on it and it's outside drying right now.

Not only did we learn about Giotto but are making a fresco and while spreading the spackling also learned another lesson. My son commented that it was hard work trying to get all the spackling on the board and for it to spread out smoothly. My light bulb went off here. I had to include a life lesson in this one.

Although it is a lot of work to get the board done right and smooth when you finally get to paint, it will look so good if you spend some time preparing the background. Same as anything we do, if we take our time cultivating and preparing in all we do the end product will be wonderful. That is what Jehovah our God expects of us. He expects our best in all we do.

He was happy to get the work done and not only did he learn about Giotto and how hard spackling is to work with but he also learned that we must work hard at all we do if we want please our God. Pretty good lesson, don't you think?

Stay tuned for our next post on our finished product. By the way, the spackling we got is pink and when it dries it turns white.

Fun with Art

For art this year we decided on Artistic Pursuits K-3 book two. With all that has been going on we hadn't gotten much done so today we got back into doing it. We did lesson 3 which was about Giotto. We read a little about him and then did the project. It was scratch art. This is the boys coloring their black oil pastel over their first colors.

Here is the finished product. They were proud of their artwork today. Do you see the smiles?

This is the first year we try Artistic Pursuits and we are enjoying it. Tomorrow we start on lesson 4 which has a Fresco project. My boys want to actually draw on the walls. A big HA to them.

A nice series of books that we use to learn about different artists is Getting To Know The World's Greatest Artists and for this lesson it is the one about Giotto. I like this book for its wonderful photographs of this artists work and the ease of reading for the littler ones.

Can't wait till tomorrow to continue our art!