In Pursuit of ARTistic Pursuits Inc. (Review)

Many of you know how much my older son likes to draw. With that in mind, our family was blessed with the opportunity to review ARTistic Pursuits Inc  Elementary Book 4 - 5 Book One. This is a homeschool curriculum for those artistically and not-so-artistically inclined. Yes, Mom, even if you can't draw a straight line you can help your child grow his knowledge and skill in art.

ARTistic Pursuits Inc Elementary Book 4 - 5 Book One helps kids look at items in their environment in a different way, a more broken down way. Instead of saying "draw a tree" or "draw a farm", it takes each item to show you the various "parts" of the item. Take a dog, for example. You have shade, texture, and the outline. You don't draw a dog, you draw the various pieces of it and end up with a dog. It really used an artists eye to help kids develop their own artistic eye.

Not only does it help a child break down what they want to draw in order to draw better, it gives wonderful examples throughout of other students work and professional pieces. So, a student will have an example of the types of works others have done in the same style. It's great to have art appreciation with art "how-to" all in one place.

My kids enjoyed the pace of the lessons. They started to see lines in their everyday life, shading everywhere, and texture of items they have never seen it in before. They started to do their own steps in their fun art outside of school.

They also really liked getting to use "REAL" art supplies. We try to give them better quality items, but there were a few pieces I haven't seen since my days in art classes. They got to use some items I used in my honors art courses and they are in elementary school. I was concerned about this at first, but they really took to them and listened to me when I talked about the care of their supplies and the use of them. Another thing I liked as a Mom was that the supplies didn't cost me an arm and a leg and I was able to find at Hobby Lobby. They give you exact brands which makes shopping for the supplies a breeze.

Each unit, such as space, line and shape, texture, value, contrast, form, balance, rhythm, edges, overlap, and depth helps kids to take their pieces one step further, to use these different techniques to create more mature looking pieces of art.

Another aspect I liked was that my younger son who is not as artistically inclined as his older brother was able to not only keep up but was able to get better in his own skills, enjoyed the lessons, and wanted more. He didn't get frustrated because of the level it expected, but our older son didn't feel he was being held back at all.

Last, but far from least, is that this is easily a program for the entire family. I loved art as a child and young woman, but I sort of slacked off since having kids. I started to get the yearning to pull out my kids supplies and start working on honing my semi-forgotten skills. I found that the lessons quicker moving for me as it was more like a refresher course, which I loved.

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After you have checked out my review, click the graphic below to read more reviews of this book and on their other books on different levels and topics.