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.

Creating a Masterpiece - Monthly Online Art Plan Review

We had the opportunity to review the online Monthly Plan from Creating a Masterpiece.  I'm always looking for extra help in planning or do give myself a break in planning.  The Monthly Plan option has really provided me a break on lesson planning, and I have even been able to take advantage of some relaxing lessons myself.

The girls love to paint.  But sometimes their creativity hits a wall.  Or they just want to use the same mediums repeatedly.  Creating a Masterpiece has been such a wonderful addition to our weekly art lessons.

Ms. Hofer has created step-by-step detailed art lessons for a variety of ages and skill levels.  When you log in, you have a choice of several different building projects.  You can choose from Beginner level through more advanced.  We were mainly in the Beginner level projects.

The kids were easily able to choose what project that we would like to tackle that day.  The materials needed could be seen before we even clicked on the project.  All of the projects we did, needed really no extra special materials we did not already have in our art box.  Most projects require watercolors, charcoal, ink, oil pastels, or chalk pastels.  But in the more advanced levels, there are clay and even carving projects in wood included.

Each lesson has a series of videos with steps to create your own masterpiece.  They were easy to follow, and we could watch them right on our laptop.  A list of supplies needed to complete the project you selected is given.  Also any helpful tips to make your learning experience more successful are also provided.  These could be anything from how to dab your watercolor if you get too much water or even how to level out the legs on your clay statue.

Your child can choose to complete a project all at once, or they can do it over a series of steps.  Most of the projects are broken down into anywhere from 3 to 7 lessons.  Making it a lot easier to avoid frustration with those who may have attention issues.  Each lesson for a project varied in length.  Some were longer at around 20 minutes, while others were shorter.  So very manageable.

We were able to complete several projects together during the last week fews.  We completed projects using acrylics, oil pastels and even ink.  The ink I think was one of our favorite projects.

During our ink project, we were attempting to do a painting of peacock feathers.  I honestly didn't think we would have any resemblance to this project when we were finished, but the kids still thought it was cool since they were painting with ink!  Another different medium to show that art is more than markers, colored pencils and paint.

The kids have really been enjoying the projects that we have worked on so far, including the watercolor candle that we completed with oil pastels.

The ease of use with Creating a Masterpiece has been wonderful.  I literally spend about 5 - 10 minutes either searching for a project or allowing them to vote on one.  Since we keep most of the supplies on hand, it's pretty easy for us in that way.  But you could easily substitute out some of the material types, including the types of paints used.  Or even for the candle project, crayons could have been used also.

I look forward to continuing to use Creating a Masterpiece with the kids.  We were given the opportunity to use the Monthly Plan.  This runs $39.95.  It gives us access to all levels of the Creating a Masterpiece program.  That is access to 7 levels of programs from Beginners through Level 5 and also Art History.  This will provide many lessons for all art levels in your home.  If you have art lovers in your home, the content that you receive really makes this an affordable option.  Creating a Masterpiece would make a great gift for that art lover in your home.

Creating a Masterpiece also has other options available, including purchasing a single level for one year, for the cost of $119.00.  Or to save money on the monthly plan, you can purchase a full year, all access plan for $349.00.

I look forward to continuing to use Creating a Masterpiece with the kids.  Creating a Masterpiece has allowed me to sit down and actually enjoy our art class also, since I also sit down with the kids and Create my own works right alongside them.  So I can really relax and learn, instead of just being the teacher all of the time.  Caty really likes this part of using Creating a Masterpiece...... "Mommy art".

You can watch a sample video instruction on the Creating a Masterpiece website.  You can create a free account to watch a beginning lesson video.  This will allow you to get a feel for Ms. Hofer's teaching style without investing a bunch of money first.

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to try out Creating a Masterpiece.  Take some time to click below and see how they enjoyed this program in their homes.