Art Study Archives - Page 3 of 3

Summer’s on its way!

March 1, 2012Tracy

I’ve got it. I’ve got it bad—the summer itch. The weather has been so beautiful lately that I can hardly contain myself. I absolutely can’t wait for summer and summer school!

Call me a glutton for punishment, but I’ve loved our year-round school. And after last summer’s frolicks, the kids can’t wait either.

Now for the record, my idea of summer school is not to maintain the same schedule. Oh, no. Instead, I use the summer to tackle all of the fun we couldn’t cram into the year: nature study, drawing, art, and music. For instance, last summer we did a nature study and learned about our five senses, studied Van Gogh’s art and Handel’s Water Music, and continued our phonics lessons.

Why do summer school at all?

For one, I honestly can’t stand spending the first six weeks of a school year re-learning everything we covered the year before.
Two, I love the structure that school brings to our day. We all miss it. The kids can’t stand taking Saturdays off (I draw the line there). Though we definitely enjoy our breaks, after a little vacation we’re all starving for that structure once more.
And then, we honestly just have fun. I’m not saying that we don’t have any struggles or that every day is a walk in the park; but overall, we have fun learning together. If it’s been awhile since we’ve enjoyed school, I re-evaluate everything.

What’s up for this summer’s fun?

Monet and Mendelssohn, more nature study (continuing our study of the animal classifications in our own backyard), and we’ll finish up our geography study with a summer of U.S. geography (learning the 50 states and some history facts). Cuisenaire rods for math, maybe some drawing. My son will continue his phonics and reading, and we may experiment with some cursive writing since he’s been curious about it lately.

How do we plan to tackle all of that and still have time to play?

I recently ran across a brilliant scheduling concept dubbed “one more thing.” This homeschool mom tackles the electives after lunch, only one per day—a day for art, a day for music, a day for experiments, a day for whatever! I immediately saw the potential of this concept, allowing me to fit in all of the fun that appeals to me.

I plan on having a schedule to follow (which I’ll post a little later) but no daily lesson plans necessarily. I have an overall curriculum, but I don’t want to be regimented by a daily list of items to check off. We’ll tackle phonics, math, and nature study every day; the other subjects will fall into our “one more thing” routine (i.e. U.S. geo-1 day/wk; art/music or drawing/music-2 days/wk; cursive-2 days/wk).

Phonics and math will take about an hour altogether; nature study will take as long as we want it to (nature study = explore the outdoors). Then our “one more thing” will take about 1/2 hour max. Really, it’s not much school time at all, but it makes for a lot of fun memories.

What am I using? (In other words, how do I budget summer school?)

That’s a great question, and honestly summer plans could easily push the budget a little bit. But when planning last year and this year, I asked two questions: What do I want to teach? and What do I have to teach with? Sometimes, what I want to teach changes after I look at what I have (or what I can pick up for cheap). So here’s what I’m using and how much it will cost.

Monet and Mendelssohn:

Summer 2009 Art and Music Appreciation from Harmony Fine Arts Plans (free)

Nature Study:

Nature Study Notebooking Pages ($10.95)

Library books and Handbook of Nature Study (on my Kindle computer app)

U.S. Geography:

50-states puzzle (I already own)

U.S. States song from Geography Songs (I own and have been using all year)

Drawing:

I Can Draw (I already own)

Cursive:

K4 Cursive Writing Tablet and Writing with Phonics- A Beka

I bought it last year for K4 and put it on hold when my son had trouble, but I’ve also found some great cursive writing worksheets.

Math:

Play with cuisinaire rods and review in a living math setting

Phonics:

A Beka 1st grade phonics (purchased from my school year budget)

So, the running total for our summer of fun? $10.95

I absolutely can’t wait for summer! Popsicles, pool, and summer school—it’s going to be way too much fun.

Appreciating Renoir

October 12, 2011Tracy

We’ve been working on our second piece of art from Renoir, Still Life with a Bouquet. And my little artists have been meticulously creating their own rendition.

I was thrilled with the little one’s project this time. In my last post on art, I mentioned how she likes to express her creativity. But this time, she really got into the project. I worked with her a good deal, helping to point out the colors. And the fact that she had new coloring pencils probably helped.

Still Life2 — With the little one, my priority is just to get her to match the colors with the original.

The challenge with my son right now is getting him to relax when he colors. He doesn’t think he has colored a page unless it is covered with the richest, waxiest color his crayon can produce. And he attempts this same strategy with his coloring pencils. Of course, it kills his hand muscles. To combat that, we’ve been discussing the light and dark areas in the picture, and I’ve been showing him how to hold his pencil to change the intensity of his color.

Still Life1 — For my son, the task is to get him to recognize lights and darks.

He loves this activity, and contentedly spends days at at a time creating his final piece.

Renoir and Vivaldi

September 29, 2011Tracy2 Comments

We’ve initiated our new art and music study over the last several days, beginning with Renoir and Vivaldi in these first few weeks.

Renoir

Our first assignment was a picture study and coloring page of Renoir’s “The Girl with the Watering Can.”

What do you talk about in a picture study with a four year old and a three year old? I keep it pretty simple.

First, I usually ask them questions about the picture. Who’s in the picture? What is the girl holding? Where do you think she is? What makes you think she’s in a garden? etc.

Next, I ask them about colors, lighting, or anything unusual about the picture. For this one, the kids were fascinated that that her boots were black and her dress was blue. My fashion-conscious daughter really thought she ought to have had blue boots.

And last, I have them choose a part of the picture that is their favorite. The whole exercise probably takes us maybe ten minutes. I don’t drag it out. I just want them to get used to looking for details.

Over the next few days, we continued our picture study by coloring a picture of Renoir’s painting. I love this exercise because it really gives me a good look at the different personalities of my children. My son is Mr. Meticulous, and he scrutinizes every inch of the original to match it as closely as he can. And he does fret if he can’t find the right color to use to match the picture. My daughter, on the other hand, is a true artist and balks at the thought of anyone telling her how she ought to color her picture. She HATES to match the colors, and in this instance, showed her distaste by purposely scribbling outside the lines. And, I might add, included all the colors of the rainbow in the margins around the picture. But regardless, I know she will remember that blue dress with the black boots for a long time to come.

She finished her picture in two days (she was done with it after the first day, but I stretched it to two days). My son, however, took the whole week. And why not? It was because of his precision that it took so long. I just gave the little one some extra coloring pages to make up the difference in days.

Vivaldi

For Vivaldi, we’ve danced to the music, listened to it a number of times, and read his biography in Lives of the Musicians. Our facts to remember: He was called “The Red Priest” because of his red hair and red robes; he worked most of his life in an orphanage for girls; and he played the violin. I picked simple facts that I knew would stand out to my kids.

Next, we’re tackling a little music theory this year, too. We clapped out quarter notes and half notes and will gradually add in the rest as time allows.

Art and music time is my fun time. I’m not at all worried about sticking to a schedule; it’s just a fun subject to open our day with.

Homeschool Art: Teaching Van Gogh to little ones

June 9, 2011Tracy

I’ve been teaching Van Gogh to my little ones recently, beginning with his painting of the “Bedroom in Arles.”

For his biography, I picked up a great resource at our book fair– Van Gogh: My Sticker Art Gallery. His pieces of art are stickers that can be added to the gallery spread telling about that period of the artist’s life.

Gallery Spread for Van Gogh’s early life

Van Gogh in Stickers — Van Gogh Gallery Stickers

I emphasized three facts about Van Gogh our first week: he grew up in Holland; his little brother and best friend’s name was Theo; he liked to paint poor, hard workers. We also did a picture study of Van Gogh’s “Potato Eaters” painting. In other words, we looked at the hands of the workers and described them; looked at the room and the lighting and discussed what that told us about the people; looked at their meal and discussed why they were eating potatoes.

For our picture study of the “Bedroom,” I had two main activities. First, the kids colored pictures of the “Bedroom,” noticing colors and details. I had read about the painting earlier in my prep and brought out a few key ideas, like the fact that he painted with colors he liked (rather than the actual colors that he saw), colors that reflected the mood of his room–peaceful and happy.

Picture Study "Bedroom" — Four year old’s work is on the left; two year old’s work is on the right.

They both did an awesome job with this, much better than I even anticipated. My four year old especially enjoyed this activity; it really appealed to his detailed personality.

Our second aspect of the study was from Spot the Differences Art Masterpieces. In this activity, the kids compared the original piece to a “fraud.” I really liked how this activity is subtly training them what to look for in a picture. For instance, the colors of the details and the personality of the artist (simplistic and very orderly vs. messy or disordered)–simple concepts right on their level.

During our second week, I ran across an idea on the website Art Explorer that suggested making a bedroom shadow box. It was so much fun, and an extremely effective way of teaching Van Gogh and his self-expression in his paintings.

Supplies: You’ll need a shoe box or something similar. I did not have a shoe box and had to improvise with lids from a box of cards and pieces of cardstock. You’ll also need paint, paintbrushes, and magazine pictures of furnishings.

Day 1: Because my kids are so young, I had pages of furniture pictures already torn from magazines and let them choose from the stack.

I tried not to intervene too much, since the whole idea of the project was to create a “bedroom” that was a self-portrait. It really was fun to see how much the “bedrooms” and their furnishings told of their personalities. I even let the Little One add a dog to her bedroom. After all, placing a large dog in the midst of the room did tell a lot about her. Though I did draw the line when my son wanted three beds in his room in case “the neighbors wanted to spend the night”; I did, however, let him choose a set of bunk beds.

Day 2: Taking a sharpie, I drew a box around the pictures that each of them wanted to use, making it easier for them to cut them out on their own. Little One still needed some help, but my son did most of the cutting himself.

Day 3: The kids chose the colors for their walls and floor, then painted away. I used plastic bags for their art aprons and a piece of Pallete art paper (similar to wax paper) that I had left over from college art classes. We really survived with very little incident.

Pink walls, pink floor–no surprise to anyone who knows her. Very Van Gogh-ish.

This was the extent of the mess at the end of the day.

Prep for Day 4: Meanwhile, I pasted the magazine pictures to cardstock. Then, I cut out the furnishings once more, leaving about a 1/2″ of space at the bottom. The extra would be folded over and glued to the floor of the bedrooms to make a 3-D effect.

Day 4: Once the bedrooms were dry, we got out our furnishings and the hot glue gun. I pasted the pieces in where they directed, with only a little bit of suggestion and intervention. Then, with our completed projects, we had a little “show and tell.” They each presented their rooms (why they chose the pieces for their rooms), we got pictures, and then we closed with a short review of Van Gogh.

It was a great finish to our study, and I can’t wait to launch into our next Van Gogh painting study. Here’s a close-up of the end results.

The boy’s room: minimalist, neat and ordered, with a little Curious George monkey in the corner

The girl’s room: bright, fun, full, with a huge love of nature

Our third week of teaching Van Gogh, we studied his self-portraits. I pulled out my Usborne First Book of Art and read the pages on “Faces” and self-portraits. We looked at Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s painting “Summer” which is a painting of fruits and vegetables made to look like a person’s profile.

So we did a funny fruit face of our own.

I cut out a couple of big faces that I found in some magazine adds, plus lots of fruit and vegetable and flower pictures from magazines. Then, we matched the shapes of the fruit to the shapes of the facial features—and did a lot of laughing!

My final week of teaching Van Gogh, we finally made it to his sunflowers. I have been looking forward to this craft all summer long.

Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings are probably among his most recognizable, and this fun craft is done in a style reminiscent of his. I got the idea, once again, from my Usborne First Book of Art.

First, you’ll need to cut the sponges into petal shapes. I did one for each color because I didn’t want to have to worry about rinsing before each layer.

Second, you’ll need yellow, orange, and green paint. Add a little (emphasis on little) flour to the paint to thicken it.

Third, layer the yellow and then the orange petals in a circle. Add the green “leaves.”

Last, I got out an assortment of colors and let the kids fingerpaint the centers of the flowers.

And the result, our own Van Gogh sunflowers!

I was really pleased with this craft. Not only was it simple for them to do, but it really was pretty controlled when it came to the mess. And the result was awesome.

We’ve had a great time covering the life and work of Van Gogh in a littles-friendly way. I love including fine art in our homeschool studies, and teaching Van Gogh has been a great place to start.