Creating a Masterpiece - Review

The latest curriculum that we added to our homeschool has been by far one of my most funnest reviews this year! We were able to take a subject and make it something for the whole family to do together, me included! The kids and I definitely made some memories and had a blast while completing a variety of art lessons via the Monthly Plan from Creating a Masterpiece.

Note, this is not my child but the photo that the vendor asked we share.


Creating a Masterpiece is an online instructional art curriculum. It is geared for all ages and I can personally say even *I* enjoyed it and learned things as I did the lessons along with my children.  The art lessons are taught via streaming videos by artist Sharon Hofer. There are 5 different levels of projects to complete, each one getting a bit more involved. Also included is a beginners level and an art in history level, with a total of over 144 lessons available. 



Each of the levels showcase a photo of what the finished project will look like. Sharon works with such a large variety of art mediums such as:

  • Acrylic
  • Batik
  • Block Printing
  • Carving
  • Conte' Crayon
  • Copper Tooling
  • Glass Mosaic
  • Gouache
  • Ink
  • Mixed Media
  • Oil Painting
  • Oil Pastel
  • Pencil/Charcoal
  • Sculpture
  • Silk Painting
  • Soft Pastel
  • Watercolor
  • Wood Burning

Each of the projects are further broken down into lesson segments. Some of the lessons you can complete in a short 30 minute sitting, other lessons take longer to include drying time between the videos. Sharon did a great job at not only explaining and teaching how to do things but also the why behind it. We enjoyed watching her teach and felt like she was right in our home with us. 

The projects are also divided by the art medium so if you wanted to work on just a pencil/charcoal project, you could click on that section to see what projects are offered. She does recommend getting good, quality art supplies to create the best possible masterpiece and she also explained what happens when you don't use quality supplies. She recommends specific brands but I was surprisingly able to grab quality supplies at Walmart. (I've bought supplies online from the place she recommends but we were too excited to get started on our first project and didn't want to wait a few days for shipping). 😊



Another handy aspect to this art curriculum is the fact that she has a link to click on that lists all the supplies you need for each project. This was handy as I stood in the store trying to figure out what all I needed to buy for our second project (as it was a last minute idea as I was shopping).  I was able to quickly pull up on my phone and scroll to the project we wanted to complete to see what I needed to purchase. If you are doing this project with more than 1 child, it breaks it down as to how much of each supply you need in total.



Once I purchased all our supplies, I set up my laptop on our kitchen table so we could stream the video lessons as we worked on our painting. The first project we chose was the acrylic lighthouse. We are big caribbean, beach people so this was right up our alley.

I have to say, I've seen the popularity of people going to these painting parties with friends, and this seemed like it was that same style where the artist walks you through each steps as your group each paints their own version. 

As Sharon explained each step, we often paused the video so we could work on it ourselves. (she suggested using water jugs in place of easels.) She explained different techniques such as making the focal point of your picture NOT in the center, how to blend to create a reflection in water, etc.





We were all pretty excited at how our finished projects came out, especially considering I only have 1 child who was born with the artistic gene (she didn't do this project but created something else while we worked on this and helped give us some tips as we worked on it). 



It total, we worked on this for almost 2 hours one afternoon. We would love to see some more scenes like this one offered for the acrylic category.

This was my finished project! I found it so much fun & relaxing to complete!

Our next project we worked on was an African Sunset. This was fairly easy but we had trouble getting the paint to blow for the tree the way she described. I have no doubt it can work as others have done it. We really learned how to use watercolors by wetting the paper first as well as wetting the paint to help blend it. One thing we did that I don't recall seeing suggested in this video is we taped our watercolor paper to cardboard using painters tape. My one daughter who took formal art lessons for a few months told us to do this as the paper will end up buckling as it gets wet and while Sharon said you could iron it later, we didn't want to bother with that. We kept the cardboard to use for future watercolor projects.






Our third project was Floral Medley . This was a fairly quick project to complete.


There are a variety of plans you can purchase. You can get access to all the levels for $39.99 a month, or a years membership to all the levels for $349 a year or just access to one level for a year for $119. Because you can use this for all your children at the same time, these quality art lessons are very affordable!! (I can tell you this costs less than what I paid for my 1 daughter to take lessons and my kids got more projects completed than what she did).

We are still working at completing some more of the art lessons as we have had such a great time learning about different techniques and would highly recommend this online art curriculum to other families!

Connect with Creating a Masterpiece on Facebook.


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1 comment

  1. Ohhhh, I can't wait to see more of what you do as a family! The art projects are stunning and I am so very proud of your students. Please, send me pictures of more of your projects as you complete them. You have no idea of how encouraged I feel when I see Creating a Masterpiece blessing others.

    Sharon Hofer, Creating a Masterpiece

    ReplyDelete

I enjoy hearing from each & every one of you! Thanks for taking the time to comment. :)