Thursday, March 14, 2019

ARTistic Pursuit Inc. - Art of the Modern Age Curriculum Review




We recently had the opportunity to review the Art of the Modern Age from the K-3rd Grade Level - Volumes 1 - 8 series from ARTtistic Pursuits Inc.  ARTistic Pursuits Inc. has taken the work out of teaching art! 


Art of the Modern Age (Volume 7) is written for Grades K-3.  It is part of the elementary art series.  In Art of the Modern Age, students are introduced to the medium of acrylic paints.  The 18 lessons invite student's to learn more about modern artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Kandinsky and Georgia O'Keefe.  Mixed throughout the lessons are six different video instructions (on two DVDs included in the book) that give extra visual display to students.

The amount of time that each lesson takes really depends on your artist in training.  The first video lesson in Art of the Modern Age introduced the kids to mixing colors.  There are no expensive art supplies needed for this curriculum.  Thicker watercolor/acrylic paper is recommended, good set of art paint brushes and inexpensive acrylic paints.  I find those on clearance or stock up when they are on sale.  They use thick paper plates or we used cardboard cereal box panels as their paint mixing palates.

The video was roughly 15 minutes long, and set the stage for the girls first project.


Since Art of the Modern Age is Volume 7 in the series, drawing/sketching skills were something that your would want your student to already have a basic understanding of prior to starting.  There are several projects that center around basic drawing/sketching skills.  In the project below, the girls were supposed to find something in the kitchen to sketch and paint.




They learned about Paul Cezanne and his work with still life painting.  So they gathered fruit and got started on another project.




Georges-Pierre Seurat


Each lesson includes information about the artist and some examples of their artwork.  The pages are easy to understand and meant to not be overwhelming to younger students.   You can see below how simple, yet informative the beginning lesson pages are on Van Gogh.  There is not a video for every lesson.  The video emphasize skills your student will be learning as they work their way through the book.  Van Gogh was still in the area of mixing paint for various colors, and also brush strokes.  You could easily re-watch the video if your student does need reminders about those skills.


The project for each lesson is easily explained and examples are given for the student to see and give them ideas on what they could potentially create.  Caty opted to really try to re-create Starry Night.  First she sketched an outline....


Then started adding her color in short strokes. 


Almost finished, but we had another discussion about the stroke style of Van Gogh.


And she added more detail, while the paint was still wet (just like Van Gogh), giving the painting more of a flowing feeling.


Like I mentioned earlier, the instructions and learning materials easily work with those who love art and even with those who are not fans of art.  If you have a student who has short attention span, the lesson may take 10-15 minutes to teach.  The amount of time to complete the assignment for each lesson really does vary depending on your student's creativity level.  Caty loves art, but some days her attention is better than others.  She would sometimes come back and split a project over two sessions.  Both girls really enjoyed all the projects that we have completed, and we look forward to the others as we keep working our way through Art of the Modern Age each week.

We have had the privilege to review other levels of the K-3rd grade level series from ARTistic Pursuits, and I absolutely love all of that we have tried.  Minus gathering supplies, most of the work is done for your to make planning easier.  If you really do not want to shop for supplies, you can even purchase supply kits directly from ARTistic Pursuits when you purchase your curriculum levels. 

Art of the Middle Ages

ARTistic Pursuits definitely has taken the strain out of teaching art for the non-creative parent/teacher.  With everything laid out and so easy to use, I cannot recommend this budget-friendly program enough.  Lydia will soon be starting the middle school level composition program to help fine-tune her drawing. 

The Schoolhouse Review Crew were given the opportunity to review several of the levels in the K-3rd Grade level series.  Click on the link below to read more about the different levels and how families used these products with their children.

Kindergarten to Third Grade Art following History in Chronological Order {ARTistic Pursuits Inc. Reviews}
Crew Disclaimer


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