ARTistic Pursuits - Review

I unfortunately was not born with an artistic talent. I can sew, play instruments, cook, but art is not my fortay. One of my older daughters somehow gained an amazing art talent though. Because of my lack of skill when it comes to teaching art, I've used different curriculum over the years to help out with homeschooling this subject. Our family knows the name of ARTistics Pursuits Inc. quite well. We have used and reviewed several of their books over the years (links will be included at the end of previous reviews). Recently, we had the chance to try out one of their books from their newest series, ARTistic Pursuits Art Instruction Books with DVD and Blu-Ray. There are 4 books so far in the series and we specifically used the book Art for Children, Building a Visual Vocabulary.

ARTistic Pursuits-High School Book 1

My children all enjoy completing art projects but I have one child in particular who is gifted in art so I find myself needing extra support when it comes to working with her for art projects. We recently had the chance to review a specific product for my 9th grader, High School 9-12, Book 1; Elements of Art and Composition from ARTistic Pursuits. 

What is it?

This book is a 92 page soft cover book that is comb bound. It is a full year curriculum with a schedule laid out in the beginning of the book explaining that you could do 2 classes a week for 36 weeks (each class about an hour long). Or you could chose to modify it best to fit your homeschool. Also contained at the beginning of the book (as well as on their website for each book) is a list of art supplies for each semester so you know before even purchasing the book what you will need. The supplies for this book are easy to purchase and happen to be things we already had on hand from previous art classes.

The beauty of this curriculum is that the student can do it all on their own! Each of the 16 units contains 4 lessons focusing on:

• Building a Visual Vocabulary- here they are encouraged to pay attention to the world around them and use their observations to come up with an art project.

• Art Appreciation and Art History- students are given brief history lessons and show copies of artists drawing both in black and white and color.

• Techniques- here they are taught about the materials and how to use them to create projects.

• Application- this is the wrapping up part of each section where the students take all they have learned to do a final project.

Each lesson is clearly marked by a number and every lesson has a "try this" assignment that is marked in red making it easy for the student to follow along knowing where their assignment is at. Also scattered throughout the book are actual drawings from other students who did these lessons. It gives the students ideas of what the lessons can look like completed.

How we used it

My 9th grader couldn't wait to receive the book and as soon as she did, she paged through the whole thing. Since this review was just 6 weeks long, she picked out the lessons that interested her the most to start with. She would sit down for an afternoon of several hours pouring over several lessons while working on a project. This girl can get herself lost in art that's how much she enjoys it!

Her latest fascination is black and white sketches. While she perused a lot of the curriculum, she honed in on unit 14, proportions in the face. She's really been into sketching faces lately so she soaked up how this section explained drawing face in correct proportions. She also loved drawing different expressions.

Some of her other projects she completed:

We really enjoy ARTistic Pursuits style, very simple to pick up the book and go with no prep work once you have the art supplies. Their friendly conversational tone in the book makes the reading easy and engaging. Because it's non-consumable, you can use this with many children over the years. They have curriculum geared for preschoolers all the way through high school.

ARTistic Pursuits in not a stranger in our home. Check out our previous reviews on the Sculpture Technique Book and Middle School Book 1.

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ARTistic Pursuits- Sculpture Technique: Model

Art is one of my children's favorite subjects. When they were young, it was easy for me to come up with projects for them to complete. They also were quite creative on their own by just giving them some supplies and letting them go at it. As they got older though, I knew we needed some more direction with an art curriculum to expand their horizons with projects that were more complex than I could come up with. We were recently asked to review an art curriculum from ARTistic Pursuits called Sculpture Technique: Model which was just published this past January!

What is it?
ARTistic Pursuits is a full art curriculum for preschoolers thru 12th grade. The specific book we reviewed, Sculpture Technique: Model is an 83 page book containing both colored pictures as well as sketched pictures in black and white. It is comb-bound which makes it great for laying flat, especially while working on an art project so you can easily reference the pictures. This book is geared for ages 11-18 and covers 3 units about:

-Creating Mass with Putty
-Creating Scale with Clay
-Creating Surface with Fiber

The beginning of the book lists the contents as well as the supplies you need for each unit:

In the back of the book, it breaks down each unit into weekly lessons stretching out over 36 weeks. I love this aspect as I don't need to plan anything out! If you complete this whole book, it would easily make 1 full credit for high school art.

At the end of each unit, there is an evaluation for the student to complete on a separate sheet of paper (the answers are listed in the back of the book). The great thing about the ARTistic Pursuits books is that they are non-consumable so once you buy the book, you can use it for all your children over the years! This is one of the reasons this art curriculum is affordable. Another aspect that saves time with this art curriculum is that on the ARTistic Pursuits website, they have are supply packs that you can purchase that provides all the supplies needed for each book. They also list a website that you can click on the book you want and it has a shopping cart ready to order of the needed supplies.

How we used it:

I asked my older children which unit they wanted to work on for this review as you can do the units in any order. They chose the unit on creating scale in clay. I used the website that had the supplies ready to purchase and ordered online quite effortlessly. The unit starts off talking about the elements of sculpture and how it relates to scale. It also discusses materials that can be used in sculptures as well as an in-depth description of the tools & techniques used to create different pieces of art. Safety is also covered (who knew that dust from dried clay can be harmful!)

After the above is discussed in the book, it then goes on to share the different methods of creating works of clay and shows ideas of projects you can make using:

-Pinch Method

-Slab Method

-Paper Armature

-Coil Method

How to paint a finished project is also explained as well. At the beginning of each project, it lists in detail which tools are needed as well as how much clay & other materials needed. It also reminds the students to keep unused clay covered as this type of clay dries out and isn't the kind that needs baked to harden.

My children really gave thought to what projects they wanted to do and spent time gathering all needed materials before we got the clay out. We also went over how the book said to join pieces by scoring each side that was to be connected.

The above piece was being turned into a coil project which was the beginning stages of a hollow bear.

The containers seen in the above photos were used to help form the different size pots she was making as was instructed in the book. She had made 3 different size pots and when she turned her back, her little sister decided to "reshape" one of her pots (she woke up from her nap before they were done sculpting!) Needless to say, the finished project only had 2 pots. 

Finished coil method project with texturing in the clay.

Painting the finished pots. She had a clay flower on one of them but it fell and broke off.

A rolled out piece of clay using the slab method with etching done & painted.

These projects in total took several days to complete as they needed to slowly dry out while being covered loosely in plastic. Once they were fully dried, they were then painted. We still have clay left and are working on completing a paper armature (I say "we" but it's more momma that is itching to do that project!)

My children enjoyed the lessons & projects they completed from this book and we plan to work on some more clay projects as well as purchase the Durham's rock hard water putty to work on the 1st unit in the book, Creating Mass with Putty.

While there are numerous pictures throughout the book that helped give my children ideas, I think they also would've loved seeing some videos online to see ideas or projects in action. Overall though, we enjoy ARTistic Pursuits art curriculum!

Sculpture Technique: Model can be purchased for $47.95. They also have a full range of other books for preschool thru 12th grade.

ARTistic Pursuits

Art can be an intimidating subject to teach when your kids start getting out of elementary school and past the easier projects, especially if it's not one of your gifts. It can also be expensive to receive art lessons outside of the home as well. While all my children enjoy art & projects, I have one child especially who has taken up a love of sketching the last few years. I had never heard of ARTistic Pursuits until we were recently asked to review them, but from what I could tell by initially perusing their website, this was going to be something Susan was really going to enjoy.

We were given Middle School 6-8 Book 1 to review. Our first impression was that we liked that the book was spiral bound as it would lay flat on the table while she had it open to read or work on sketching. I also loved that the first page listed not only the table of contents but the list of art supplies that were needed as well. We found it very easy to get the needed supplies and if you don't have an art supply store near you, ARTistic pursuits has supply kits you can purchase. Susan was excited to learn how to use some of the new art supplies she had never seen before such as the different range of pencil grades and sandpaper block.

This book has 16 units with 4 lessons in each unit. The recommend schedule for the curriculum is 2 lessons per week, each taking about an hour, making this a full year class. The middle school book 1 focuses on the element of art and composition. Each of the 4 lessons in each unit covers specific topics:
-Building a visual vocabulary
-Art appreciation and history
-Techniques
-Application

An elephant paints with leaves falling all around from the trees.  This is from unit 1 where she had to draw an elephant and focus on placement as well as where she placed the other objects.

What I loved about this book is that it isn't a "how to draw" book but really delved deep in getting the student to focus on their world around them & to dig deeper into observation while reading about other art projects and history then applying them to her own project.  This book got Susan looking past an actual object and focusing on shapes and lines and how to use those when it came to sketching.

I liked the fact that this was an all-in-one art course that had everything laid out where I didn't have to do anything except make sure she had the needed supplies and answer questions she might have had. It is also a non-consumable book so I have no doubt my other children will use this as soon as Susan puts it down long enough for them to read & use it. This curriculum would be great for any student who enjoys art and has a desire to learn more beyond the basics. 

I was lucky to snap the few pictures I did as she was often off on her own somewhere working on her sketches and lessons alone.

 ARTistic Pursuits has a full range of curriculum for preschool all the way up to high school. The cost of the Middle School 6-8 Book 1 is $47.95, a bargain for a full years worth of art lessons.