ARTistic Pursuits - Middle School 6-8 Book One - The Elements of Art and Composition Review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

We are HUGE fans of art and drawing. So I was excited to get a chance to review ARTistic Pursuits, Middle School 6-8 Book One, The Elements of Art and Composition.   

Art can be so many things.  It can help a person express their personality.  It can tell a story.  It can be used for advertising.  Art is really all around us.  Caty and Lydia loves to work on art projects and drawing.  With all the craziness of the pandemic, they missed out finishing their in-class class they were taking in drawing.  Middle School 6-8 Book One, The Elements of Art and Composition has filled that void they were missing out on.  And their drawing has continued to flourish with it's help.

The supplies needed for most projects are pretty simple and straightforward.  The Middle School 6-8 Book One, The Elements of Art and Composition strictly focuses on drawing.  Simple materials of drawing pencils, ink, brushes, paper, erasers, The elements of space, line, adding texture, balance, symmetry, asymmetry, space with depth, perspective, and proportion are topics that are covered throughout each of the lessons.

Lessons encourage creativity and really looking at the world around you are. Using observational skills.

Other elements of art are explored, including art history and artist studies.  Students really dig into and look at artists and art culture as they are working on their drawing.

Scattered throughout the lessons is information on how to use what could be new to them art supplies.  Such as using a graphite pencil.  Or painting with ink. These are new mediums for many students.  These materials are not your standard No 2 pencil, and ARTistic Pursuits wants to make sure students feel confident using these items.

Each lesson does have an assigned project.  Reference materials are suggested for the student to look to when working on their assignment.

Caty is sketching all the time now.  She also has a new love of adding ink to her drawings.  She requested a special ink art pen, because she said the brush wasn't fine enough to add details.

The girls are really enjoying working through the Middle School 6-8 Book One - The Elements of Art and Composition.  I am very happy with all the creativity that it has encouraged for them.  And if you have kids on the spectrum, you know that they sometimes find it difficult to be as creative as other kids their age.  

If you are looking for a budget friendly option for art lessons, you need to check out all the materials that ARTistic Pursuits has to offer.  They have a wonderful selection of materials from Pre-school through high school.  Materials that you can use with all your children.  Definitely a money saver when you can reuse materials.

Still not sure if ARTistic Pursuits will be a fit for your family, visit their blog and check out some free video lessons for beginning drawing for students.  This is a special 16 week summer series!!

If you are more of a parent (like me) that does not like to wait for the mail, ARTistic Pursuits now offers online classes.  They have all of their K-3 level books available as online courses.  

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to review products from ARTistic Pursuits. Click on the link below to see what products they used and how they used them in their homes.

Beyond the Stick Figure Art School - Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course Review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.



Art can be a subject that is difficult to teach.  We had a chance review the Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course PLUS 3 Bonus Courses from Beyond the Stick Figure Art School.  This program helps even the most art challenged individuals and gives them confidence and skill.

With Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course students and adults are given the opportunity to get lessons that can take their very basic attempts at drawing and turn them into realistic masterpieces.

There are more than 180 individual lessons that are online video based.  Each lesson is short (so great for short attention spans), and depending on the section you are using, each "day" or lesson can continue to build on another.

Included in the course are techniques in drawing, using watercolor, acrylic, and even 3D with clay.

Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course is suitable for all ages, even adults.  In several of the videos that we watched, she even made suggestions for new artists so that younger kids will not get overwhelmed with too large of a sheet of paper.

The materials needed vary per the project that you are doing.  There is a small investment in Prismacolor markers for the drawing projects.  You will also need water color and acrylic paints and paper to match as well.  Ms Sally wants to teach young children how to use these better made materials.  During her lessons, she reminds the students to listen for the click when they are closing their markers.  

I have been enjoying Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course right alongside the girls.  The first section includes a drawing book that you can download and print to use along side.  

We have been moving slowly through the course, and I really like how the teacher encouraged the students to look around themselves.  I know my circles are not as perfect as daVinci could draw, but this inspired me to doodle more.  Art is something I love, and now I have found myself doodling more.  The girls are sketching more after going through the first two sections of the course.  Caty is just randomly sketching (for fun...lol), and Lydia has begun tackling illustrations for a story that she is writing for 4H.  

It is encouraged for families to purchase the Prisma markers, but do not let this stop you.  Prisma markers are affordable.  But I found for the short drawings, I was able to use regular markers.  The girls both have the bigger Prisma sets, and Caty does have a Copic set, but I didn't want to invest in a large set for myself until I knew if I would use them a lot.  I was able to work alongside them.  My colors may not have been the same, but I did alright.

That brings up another plus for this program, younger students can work alongside older students.  This program is great for families with multiple grade levels.  Art can easily be done together and does not need to be overwhelming.  Art needs to be fun and not forced.  The simple and fun projects can really draw even the most art resistant student into the mix of learning.

The girls and I look forward as we continue through Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course.  The easy to use web classroom is great.  And the girls love building their art portfolios.

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to review Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course in their homes.  Click on the link below to see how they used this program and how they felt about it.

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.

Shopping for Art Curriculum

Some people choose to just let art projects to just happen.  Whatever they want to do on a whim.  Others though, need preparation and planning.  When we started our Art History this year, I definitely at least needed a basic outline plan of what we were going to do.

A friend shared this book online and I ordered it right away!  Vincent's Starry Night and other Stories.

I used this to make our outline for the year.  I had a few projects in mind as I was going through the list, but usually planned out a month in advance.  I really liked this book.  It gave a little story for each.  We also watched a quick biography video on all the artists that we could and looked up their art work.  Another suggestion I got from a friend was to print coloring pages of each artist's work and let the kids color those.  So that is what we did for most of the artists.  We all know that Pinterest is the mecca of art projects!!  So I would surf around if I didn't have any ideas and borrow from here and there to create our projects each week.

Behold the Beauty Art Curriculum - I used this along with the above book.  It was a great addition to our year this year.  This copy is for Grades 4 - 6, but you can also purchase for lower grade levels and beginning artists.

Behold the Beauty - Kindergarten to Grade 1

Great American Artists

Discovering Great Artists

Online resource.... Art Hub for Kids ... the girls love drawing these pictures!  Their Youtube channel is jammed packed with fun art lessons.

Artistic Pursuits is a wonderful program.  Projects are completely laid out for you.  So very little planning needed, other than pre-reading lesson and collecting supplies

You honestly could find thousands of tutorials on Youtube to help with drawing basics.  There are also online schools such as Outschool.com that also offers several levels of drawing classes.  (Remember Youtube is FREE for almost all the videos, so that is always budget friendly!!)

You can read more reviews both at the 

Cathy Duffy Reviews

and also

Homeschool Review Crew