Today I have a lovely information book about The Renaissance to share with you.  This book is part of the Odysseys in Art series, and talks about the art movement that began in the 1420's.

Anne Fitzpatrick shares the Renaissance with us through word in image. 

In this book one would find lots of vibrant images.  16 full colour images scattered throughout the book, some as single pages, others as double pages.

Each image comes with commentary about the picture as well as some of the history around it. 

I loved this statement at the beginning of the book "The history of the world can be told through accounts of great battles, the lives of kings and queens, and this discoveries and inventions of scientists and explorers.  But the history of the way people think and feel about themselves and world is told through art." (p9)

So the words in books tell the story, but so do the images made in the time period.  They tell the story and if you think about the pictures, how the people felt about it.   It's a great way to add to any study of history.  :)

As you read the book, you will notice words in red, these words are part of the glossary found in the back of the book.

I love how cultural history is combined with the art history.  It weaves together so well and provides depth to the art work of this time period.

Occasionally red pages pop up in the book.

As you can see, these pages show art work, along with some history.   It fits together so nicely.   Me... who enjoys art but doesn't think about it a whole lot, found this book so interesting to combine the art with the history in time.

A fun fact: Tommaso Guido was nicknamed Masaccio which means Clumsy Tom because he was so obsessed with art that he didn't take care of anything else.   He would combine the style of different artists when we worked on frescos.   He died suddenly at age 27.

And did you know that the folks who invented painting with oil tried to keep it a secret?     Oh the intrigue in the world of art.  Seriously... I learned things I never even dreamed of.  :)

So, if you are looking for a good book with fun facts and great images, that ties history and art together well, this book will meet that end quite nicely. 

Now you might be asking, like I did, when I first got up and saw this headline..."Who is Annie Pootoogook and why is it so important that she died?"

Therefore I went searching for why and discovered that she was an Inuit artist, who changed how Inuit art is done or portrayed.

Usually when on see Inuit/Intuk art here in Canada it's a lot like this: Click images to go to the source for each

Images about their gods or the stuff of old they they had in their lives.

Then Annie Pootoogook came along.   Things changed.  She did some of this

But she mostly did illustrations/pictures like this, please click images to go to sources, thanks.    Ms. Pootoogook came from a family with artist talent, her uncle, her mom, her gramma all "did art" in their own way.   So it was "in her blood".  :)

See the difference?   Modern life and living. Pictures from her life that she was living.  Life in the street (she was homeless for a good spell).   Places she would go to.  Things that she had and what not.  She used colour, mostly in solid patterns.

For a glimpse into her life, I found this post interesting reading.

Her work here on earth is done, her body was found this morning in a river.   I found the story of her life sad, but her art interesting eh?  :)

You know how I've invited you in the past to get a subsciption to SchoolhouseTeachers.com?   Well...here's ANOTHER reason (not that you really need one) to get a subscription, not only do you get over 275 courses to choose from, to work through on your own schedule, but you get access to World Book E-books.  AND get this... THEY HAVE AN ART SECTION!!!!!!   How great is that eh?  :)

They have at least five books there, but there are tons more in different areas, but since we're talking art here, we'll talk art.  :)

I specifically checked out this one.

I liked what I saw.

Good information, a variety of activities and information. 
It would be good pair this book, or at least look at it, when studying different cultures.  Would be a great add-on you know, or even just a stand alone unit.

I liked the variety of the activities, stitching, painting, and so much more.

I strongly urge you to check out SchoolhouseTeachers.com.   These really cool art books to check out, over 275 courses and tons of world book ebooks to add to your resource list.  Good stuff seriously!

Five minute Friday is upon us again!  WOOT WOOT.  :)
Today's word is heal.   Note: I suffered a burn on holidays so will be including pictures of that.  :)

Go
This summer my family and I went camping.
We went up to Grundy Lake Provincial Park and we had a lot of fun.
We fished, kayaked, attended programs and made meals, some of which were bread based.
I hadn't made sun-bread before and thought it would be fun to try.
The first time I did it... It worked!!!   No mishaps, just lovely bread for us to try.

I'm thinking that my initial success made me somewhat less than cautious.
I ended up with a rather bad burn with this second loaf because I wasn't careful about what I was doing.

It is still healing and it's been more than a month since it happened.

You know what... healing takes time.
When it happened it was sore and difficult to work with physically but I was also mentally beating myself up because my injury didn't only affect me, it also affected my family.

It took time for me to get past that, I actually had a BAD day while camping, feeling horrid and sore and sad...and my fellows were kind and patient with me.

As I think about this word heal that memory comes back to me and helps me to realize and important fact.  God is kind and patient with us you know.  We have a major wound, called SIN in our lives.   And God patiently and kindly heals our wound.  He occasionally will give us a whack and tell us to move forward, but generally speaking he just helps us along our journey to healing.   It's not a would that will heal quickly, like I imagine my burn will be fully healed in another month.   In fact, our wound of sin won't be completely fully healed until we reach heaven (or Christ returns).  

But we had an advocate on our side (Jesus) if we call ourselves God's children.   We have a kind and patient God on our side who continually calls us to perfection.  AND we have the Holy Spirit residing within, easing the pain, peeling away the scabs of our injury, helping us to heal and be what we are supposed to be.

Good is not?

STOP

Did you know that in the East Village of San Diego there are a whack of murals painted?   I hadn't a clue until I read this book, Maybe Something Beautiful is the story of Rafael and Candice Lopez and how they worked together to form the Urban Art Trail.

Let me give you some of the background story.  This book was inspired by the story of the change made to San Diego.   

It all began in 1997 in the East Village of downtown San Diego. Downtown San Diego was still considered a scary place. Local drug dealers were using electrical boxes found on virtually every corner as makeshift offices. .... A local publisher named Rex Edhlund created a paper called D-Town, the Downtown Paper to collect the thoughts of these like minded individuals.... Candace Lopez. In her monthly column, Nurture the Neighborhood, she launched the Urban Art Trail.

A local graphic design professor at San Diego City College, Candace had the idea to cover the metal obstructions with colorful graphics and enlisted the help of her students at San Diego City College and the American Institute of Graphic Arts San Diego. Securing permission from the Centre City Development Corporation and utility companies over on hundred volunteers initially transformed the blight with powerful artwork.  (source)

Can you imagine what a tremendous change that would have made?   Painting ugly, gang marked electrical boxes over in brightly coloured murals?   Addling light and colour and removing the "this is ours" mindset from the folks doing business around them.

If you go to this page you can see some of the art they did to change a community.

I read this book, and my 11 year old came over to see what I was looking at.  He read the story and said "MOM, that's a really nice book.   It was nice how they all helped each other.".  

And that's the book, a girl, with a thought about adding colour to the grey, dismal world around her, and she gets help from a man, and then they draw in all sorts of other people, and before you know it, there are splashes of bright colour everywhere.   I can just sit back and imagine the joy and gasps of amazement that would bring.

The joy and amazement is brought out in this book so very clearly.   And the Muralist said as his eyes sparkled ""You, my friends, are all artists" he told them.  "The world is your canvas."  He smiled wide, then pulled everything together in big, sweeping motions."

Can't you just see it?   The brightness against that dismal dirty grey?   Just see it.  :)

My affiliate links are below.   I provide them just to be helpful, and any proceeds don't affect your bottom line, and just help me out as well.  :)

Hey folks,

Just wanted to let you know for the next few weeks, I am going to be doing a series on art books and arty type things on my blog.  I HOPE to post something every Wednesday, but sometimes life might interfere (bear with me then eh?).

I do need to come up with a cool image, but I think this one will do as a holding place, at least for now.  If you have any suggestions, fire them my way eh?

Anyways, I'll be starting it next week, so for now let me remind you of some of my art posts over the past year.

A review of four art books.

Gryphon House, Global Art.

Art Attack Videos.

How to draw with your funny bone. 

Art into Science.

Review for ArtAchieve.

I either shared this one on facebook or instagram as I was working n it.   This one was just fun to do.   Figuring out the colour flowers intrigued me just enough.  :)   This one came out of the Be Still book.  

 This rabbit was an interesting challenge, I did it all in varying shades of brown, or "tanned" versions of another colour.   I am mostly happy with how it turned out but wishing I did the rabbit cheeks a bit differently.

I started this chicken ages ago and then got stuck on how to do the tail.   I finished him while watching my boy swim in the lake.   It turned out fairly well I think.  This one and the rabbit came out of Animal Kingdom.

I have to admit, my lad "tisked" at me while I was working on this owl.   He tisked enough that I handed it over to him to finish.  I'll have to show you the final result when he finally gets it completed.  He's not as focused as I am when trying to finish up a page though so it may take a while.   This came out of the Art Therapy Book.

Here are affiliate links for the books I used, in case you want to look for them.

Imagine this... You have a child who is good at art, but is reaching that stage where he wants to try new things, but has a mother who isn't quite up different ways to do art and doesn't have the inspiration for it either?   Enter in The Entire Level I course of ArtAchieve... it has been a blessing to a lad and his mother.  :)

ArtAchieve: What is it?

• Inspired by art from all around the world
• help people like me teach art to my lad
• includes helpful links to make the art lesson broader, covering social studies, science and language arts
  
• it is an online art drawing program from children from kindergarten age up through to adults of any age.
  
• Lessons are presented in video and power-presentation formats
  

What is included in the Entire Level I course?

• Shading Rounded Objects (this is also a free lesson)
  
• The hungarian Insects
  
• The Haitian Gecko
  
• The dragonfly from Ecuador
  
• The Chinese Dragon
  
• The Owl from Bali
  
• The Kitenge Tree Wall Hanging from Tanzania
  
• The Plate from Nepal
  
• Four Suns with Four Faces
  
• The Sheep from Wales

Each Lesson has four sections to it.

   I really appreciated the layout of this on-line art curriculum, I loved that we could go as fast or as slowly as we wanted to.

We started out each lesson watching the video lesson.  This gave us an opportunity to just see what we were going to do and get the ideas into our heads.  We would talk about the new techniques we would be learning and make sure we had the needed supplies.

We'd research the topic of the lesson... geckos, suns in art, and dragonflies.   Seeing how people have used them in art and observing them in the wild (via video in the case of geckos).   We did science (studying geckos and dragonflies), Geography (learning about where the art inspiration came from, seeing where that was in the world), art (seeing how the sun has been used in various art forms) and more.  Art, interwoven into so many subject areas.  I can totally see this being used in a co-op situation if you have a screen big enough for all the children to view.

We worked out way slowly through each of the lessons using the power point presentation.   We really liked how we could go slide by slide, skip ahead, go back and double check what we are doing.   Using out touch screen laptop was very beneficial in this, helping us flip through the slides quickly.

And to be honest, I have to admit that I really liked that ability to slow down and go at our own pace, it fit into how we do school and life.  :)

Working on the four suns project was a great way to show my lad how two people can approach the same project with the same instructions and come out with a completely different project.  It taught him a bit about planning ahead, and when that doesn't pan out the way you thought it would, how to regroup and figure out how to make it work.   I LOVE the vibrancy in my son's four suns work (he didn't want me to show the finished work).  He is SO detail oriented... I think the final result turned out splendidly but all he sees is the bobble he made on the cool side...  In my eye the colours on his just pop out and say HEY, look at me!!

I have to admit, that there were areas that my son struggled with. This provided us with an opportunity to talk to John and discover that he's a very helpful and friendly fellow.

Rules for drawing stymied my lad:
Silence?   Playing Music?   MOM!!!!
Some of you don't know me or my boy well enough to know that we are chatterers.   We like to talk about all sorts of things while working, and most often it's not connected with the task at hand.   So the idea of playing music or working in silence was an anathema to us.   So we asked John why this was a recommendation. 
His words: Maybe a story is a helpful way to answer this. When I learned to play tennis, I was constantly saying things like, “Oh, no!” and “Come on! That was terrible!” as I swatted at the ball. A friend advised me to hum while I played, and for me that humming ushered in a big step of progress in my playing. Why? Because while I hummed (while I was caught up in the tune) I wasn’t able to engage in all the negative talk. The negative talk got in the way of being playful, thinking visually/spatially, and being aware of how the game was going. The negative talk turned play into work, and made me a poor player. Humming made me more playful; it made the game almost like a dance. As the game became more fun and playful, my skills advanced rapidly.
       Playing music during art can work in a similar fashion, if we let it. It also helps us make that mind shift from verbal/analytical thought to spatial thought. If it helps to hum along with the music, do so. If you prefer to simply hum, like I did in tennis, skip playing music, and simply hum.
My son couldn't work his head around humming and doing art, so we gave up on that idea, and has been learning that silence sometimes helps with concentration, but we still chatter.. it's part of who we are.  :)   

As you go through the lessons, John makes them as helpful as he can.  Providing lists of supplies needed, practice sheets for drawing and basic instructions for what to do with your paint is too thin, not the right shade and such like.   Many different techniques are included into each art work, from learning the cool and warm colours, shading, blending and much more.

Our most recent project, the dragonflies, we haven't finished yet.   My son is not convinced that adding water colours to the oil pastels will work well, so he's been testing it out on "bad drawings".   What colours he wants to use, how much, in what patterns and will it affect his dragonfly?   He's worked hard on it and isn't convinced it "isn't perfect" but is starting to think it "might be okay".   It's hard sometimes when you are a perfectionist and you're engaged in a medium for the first time.   It's been a great project for him though, as he's seeing how science and art go hand in hand... from learning about the object we're drawing, to finding ways to draw circles in decreasing sizes, mixing colours, figuring out thickness of paint and water and how to combine the two, and through it all...needing to breathe out his frustration and relax.

The relaxation techniques that he hated when we started have become a part of doing art now.  As John told us "it’s a way of helping us be more aware. First, we take time to be aware of our breathing, and that aids in slowing us down; it sets us up for being aware and taking time to look carefully when we get into the drawing, to notice how a color is working, etc."

We received a years access to the entire lesson I art drawing lessons from ArtAchieve. 

I fully anticipate completing the rest of the art projects. 

Over the next three weeks I anticipate finishing another project with our International Student who is visiting us from France.

It will be a great way to practice English and to have fun learning.  He's quite curious about the fact that we school at home as he's never heard of such a thing before. 

Did you know that you can purchase individual lessons?  I know awesome eh?   You can also try out sample lessons from each of the levels.  

The site is easy to navigate, so I recommend you visit them and check out the individual lessons.   Each bundle of lessons is priced differently ($27 and up), as are the individual lessons ($4 each and up).   All available for a full year.

99 people from the TOS crew have been reviewing three of the different levels the ArtAchieve offers. 

Entire Level I
Entire Level II
Entire Level III

Click on the banner below to learn more

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Somehow I brought into the world a creative lad.   He has a story for everything, he draws, makes movies, builds armour, designs elaborate lives for his papercraft characters and generally is just a fun lad to be around.   He is also sensitive and easily stressed so one finds ways to keep down the tensions and make learning doable.    Me.. who doesn't DO art well, is finding ways to DO art with this lad.

Here is a glimpse into our world.

One thing I added this year was "Be Creative Everyday".   Just stopping and drawing for 15 minutes at least three days a week.  I had hoped to make it five days a week but since Mondays and Fridays we do things differently and Wednesdays we are often at the Foodbank helping out something needed to shift.     

Fridays is our "Do Things Differently Day"   We do art studying Canada and doing our math journal.     I have to admit that we haven't been doing our math journal lately as we've been filling our time with other things.  :)

We been playing math games both in real life, using android apps as well as playing board games.  :)   BUT this is NOT a math post, this is an art post. 

So let me think.. how else do we add art to our days?

My son draws on my tablet, we have a number of art apps that he uses.    He's recently added a new one where he can act out a scene and add audio to it.   In that program he can also animate drawings.

Art seems to happy everywhere I turn around in this house, from happy faces drawn on squash, to papercraft creations helping us with our school work, it's all good stuff.   He's breaking me out of my cozy non-arty shell (other than the let's go to the museum and ooh and ahh over what others have done thing I do).  :)

My post from the VCF from two years ago can be found here.

Some other artsy posts you might enjoy
Learning to do a caricature.
four wonderful art books.
Art Attack Videos.
Christmas Craft Fun.
Real life homeschool: Art.

I love this quote from Art Before Breakfast, by Danny Gregory.

This book was my inspiration for a change in our schooling days.   Having a creative lad, who plays and builds paper craft toys regularly, who uses them to help learn math and play games, who extensively borrows my tablet to use different drawing apps made the change all the easier.

Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays I set the timer for 15 minutes and we "do art".   We get our inspiration from a number of different sources, but predominately from the books below.

My son doesn't like to write in books (or draw for that matter).   So all we use these books for is ideas.    Using art sketch paper gives us more room to draw and and detail.  My boy using a full sheet and me using a half sheet.

My son's favourite Idea book is the 642 places to draw book.   It is simply a bunch of blank pages with ideas printed in the upper corner of each section.    We simply leaf through the pages until we hit one that intrigues.   This one was "draw a greenhouse with exotic plants"

I have to admit, some of the idea presented to us make my lad scoff.   The idea of drawing what he had for lunch... he just really can't see the point of it.     Whereas a windy day has the lad grinning at the possibilities...

Other ideas intrigue him... but "they don't leave enough room for me to draw what I want mom!"   This is why using a sketchbook is so handy.   Inspiration doesn't have to be limited by lack of room.  :)

I have to admit, it's simply fun to draw.   I don't much care WHAT I draw, as long as I have an idea of what to do.   (I know.. sometimes I'm limited)    It's actually rather neat some of the ideas presented to us.   LIke the fun of drawing the home of a hobbit. :)

The Art Before Breakfast is a rather neat book.   It talks about all the different ways you can do art, as well as talking about different art techniques.   It shows options for how to encourage doing art spontaneously ... draw your children, draw your pet, draw your morning coffee, draw the stranger or a friend, draw the animals that you see and more.   Just draw, and draw some more.      Then to make sure you don't get stuck in a rut draw with something unusual like lipstick, mud or a paintbrush.

There are so many ways to draw, so many things to see and do and recreate.

For 15 minutes every day... just draw.

I have found it makes for a more settled boy if I give him time to just create, and because we have these lovely books for inspiration it takes the pressure off of having to come up with ideas on our own.

All these lovely books were sent out to me by Raincoast books.  

Product Details:
PocketDoodles for Christmas.  By Anita Wood.  
642 Places to draw.  Published by Chronicle books.
Art Before Breakfast.   by Danny Gregory.
Doodle Your Day.   By Anita Wood.