Wednesday Art Class

We had Art Class yesterday afternoon. This week, I did two lessons from Artistic Pursuits, K-3, Book 1 for the boys' class. Now, these boys are 4th -5th graders, but the K-3 book has fun projects that introduce art concepts, so as in many situations when you homeschool - just disregard the grade designation on the book if it fits your purposes!!! We talked about FORM as opposed to SHAPE, and created 3-D paper sculptures of animals. Note to self - make a sample of such projects before class! We started out using construction paper, but it was too flimsy for this project, so we had to discard the creations halfway through and start over with colored card stock, which worked much better. We did use construction paper for the details, though. For the second project, we talked about IMAGINATION, and they drew a place they would like to go. They sketched first with pencil, then colored with watercolor crayons, which dissolve into paint when a wet paintbrush is stroked over the colors on the paper.

For the girls, I did a lesson on LINE from the Artistic Pursuits Senior High Book. I am going to move down to the Junior High Book, again because I think it gives more foundation in technique, but I had to order that book and it only just arrived. But the girls learned a bit about line and practiced making different kinds of lines with their HB and 4B drawing pencils. They did 10 min. sketches of interesting objects, and then tried their hand at self-portrait line drawings from a photograph. This was a little more difficult for them, I think because they want themselves to lood good! And they couldn't quite get it to look the way they wanted. But overall, they did a really good job and hopefully will see lots of improvement in their drawing skills over time. It will be interesting to compare drawings done now with ones done a year from now. ( hopefully they'll like the changes they see! )