ARTistic Pursuits - Early Elementary K-3, Book 3: Modern Painting and Sculpture Review

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For the last 15 years artist and homeschooling parent Brenda Ellis has made quality art instruction and projects available to every family through ARTistic Pursuits. ARTistic Pursuits utilizes all of the elements of art: composition, history, and media to teach children to think artistically. 

A moms review: 
Both my 8 and 6 year old love art and they each have their own unique artistic abilities. Art is actually the one subject that we do just about everyday whether it's drawing in our nature journals, building
Lego creations or decorating our driveway with sidewalk chalk. Art is a big deal for our entire family! For the last several weeks we have been utilizing the Early Elementary K-3, Book 3: Modern Painting and Sculpture book by ARTistic Pursuits. The ARTistic Pursuits art program is fabulous and one that we have been utilizing well before this review. The curriculum encourages creative discovery which is exactly what an art curriculum should be all about!

The K-3 art curriculum books are designed for children in grades K-3rd. And each lesson is intended to be completed in a week, however if your children love art as much as mine do they will want to complete 3-4 in one week. My favorite thing about the ARTistic Pursuits homeschool art curriculum is that it teaches children the technical side of art and also art history, art vocabulary and the materials that are used to create art. The ARTistic Pursuits books are non-consumable so one book can serve the entire family. The are books are spiral bound and feature sharp color images and clear text printed on bright heavy-weight paper.

The Early Elementary K-3, Book 3: Modern Painting and Sculpture contains 36 lessons with projects and explores ideas that help children understand why modern art looks so different from earlier works.
The book starts out with two pages for parents. The first page provides the material list which is broken down into color coded groups. You will see the color coded groups throughout the book on the project pages, along with a specific list of what is needed to complete each project. These are pretty simple materials and most can be purchased at your local art supply store or directly from the ARTistic Pursuits website. Many of the supplies we already had on hand. Next is an explanation of how the book is broken down and how the curriculum is to be used. This particular book is broken into two main sections: Impressionist Painting and Sculpture (including Post-Impressionist) and Modern Painting and Sculpture.

Next the fun begins!! First students will learn about, "Impressionist Painting and Sculpture." They will learn about art and the subject, lines and solid shapes, various artists (including Monet, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Degas), paint techniques, light, sculpture, color and more.

In the next section, "Modern Painting and Sculpture," children will learn about fauvism, abstract art, realism, sculpture and more. We haven't made it to these lessons yet but I am pretty excited about them because these are some of my personal favorites.

Each lesson varies slightly. The majority of the lessons contain 1-2 two pages of text along with a photo of a piece of artwork with discussion questions, which is then followed by a project. Other lessons contain just a project which introduce a painting or sculpting technique. The lessons are written to the student so NO parent preparation is needed!!! Be sure to check out the samples to get a better idea of how the lessons work.

In the back of the book there is some additional information for parents about what happened to art after 1960 as well as a reading list of books and videos that compliment the lessons in the book.                

ARTistic Pursuits offers art curriculum options for every age and grade level from Preschool through Senior High. There are 13 books total and the two newest book additions are Sculpture Technique: Construct and Sculpture Technique: Model designed for children ages 11-18.

Gwyn (8 yrs old) review:

I really liked the art lessons in our new book. We even visited a few local art museum so we could explore artwork more. We made lots of pictures and even our own color wheel.

Links to follow:
-ARTistic Pursuits Website
-ARTistic Pursuits Facebook

Where to buy:

The books can be purchased directly from the ARTistic Pursuits website and cost $47.95. Not sure what art supplies you need to purchase ARTistic Pursuits has you covered there too with their Art Supply Packs.

Click here for more ARTistic Pursuits reviews from the The Schoolhouse Review Crew.