US Art History

Homeschool Review Crew

My kids love art.  They love drawing and coloring but I’m not good at it.  At all.  So I love programs that help me help my kids.  Recently we’ve been using a new US Art History through an ARTistic Pursuits Inc. review with the Homeschool Review Crew.  We received a hardback copy of Art in America, K-3 Vol. 8.  This is part of the  K-3rd Grade Level, Volumes 1-8.  

About the Program

We love the ARTistic Pursuits products.  My kids love to draw and I’m good at stick people and that’s about it.  I can draw a pretty nice stick house too.  While the program says it’s good for grades K-3 we use it for all ages.  It’s a hardback book with both a blu ray and a dvd instruction video.  We use the blu ray one.

This particular book deals with drawing with pencils.  We chose it partly for that reason.  My children love to use colored pencils so I knew we’d always have the materials on hand to do this handy US Art History lesson.  And because I’m a homeschool mom I can totally turn it into more than an art lesson.  It’s a gift we all possess. 

For most of the lessons we’ve done you need nothing more than colored pencils, graphite pencils, and drawing paper.  Plus other things that you would commonly have at home.  

The series is made to be used in order starting with book one.  We have used other books from them and chose this one due to interest and not which one should have come next.  

Our Thoughts

Our favorite lesson dealt with shading and drawing an object.  My kids each chose something to draw.  We watched the whole video once and then went back and paused it at each step until they were completed.  Toddler through the fourteen year old all participated.  This includes one of the cats. 

I am very impressed with these videos and what my kids can learn and do while watching them.  

Some things I really appreciate are that if you want you can buy the book and all supplies needed, just supplies, or just the book from their website.  There are not any art stores that I know of near us so I tend to buy all my supplies online.  I love the one stop shop type shopping so this appeals to me.  

One of the reasons we love this program so much is that it doesn’t just give you instructions in a book.  The videos are key.  That’s how my children are learning.  They are watching and then doing.  It appeals to their learning senses.  It’s not boring or too “grown up”.  But rather they’re engaging and short videos and appeal to kids to want to emulate them.

I am so impressed in how well my kids can draw from watching these only once.  These photos are showing our first attempts at these lessons.  Each time my kids try afterwards they get a bit better.  Even my five-year old’s first attempts put mine to shame.  

I love all the detail they can capture, the joy they have drawing, and seeing them note how they have improved.  

I never would have chosen something as detailed as this owl, but my 12-year-old son did amazing.  We need to work on shading and white space still.  but wow.  Just wow from this mama of stick people.  Thanks ARTistic pursuits!

To make this more of a study we look up the featured artists and their works.  We research the art techniques and when they came about, how they’ve changed, people famous for using them, etc.  Hopefully I can take some of the older children to an art gallery/museum this spring. 

Learn More

Interested?  Intriqued?  Check out all the Homeschool Review Crew linked up blog posts on the main blog.  There you’ll find reviews of all the different volumes so you can see which would be the best fit for your family.  You can also find ARTistic Pursuits on facebook, twitter, and instagram. 

You can also check out our other reviews.  

Volume 3

old program