in pursuit of wild things

I am not much of an artist and am even worse at teaching art to my scholars. I struggle getting art lessons in each week but maybe it is because I haven’t found the right curriculum to use. So I was really excited to get the opportunity to review an art instruction DVD from See The Light. For this review I received the Art Projects: Sunflowers DVD (valued at $14.99). The four lessons (about 30 minutes each) on this DVD is centered around Vincent Van Gogh’s painting style using oil pastels taught by Pat Knepley. By the end of the lessons my budding little artists and friends all produced a lovely portrait of sunflowers in the style of Van Gogh.

Only one of my kiddos met the age requirements for this review so I borrowed four older homeschoolers to complete this review. You can see everyone’s finished projects in the gallery below.  We all met up at Mrs. Cuddle-me’s home over four days to work on the project together. Even though the lessons are about thirty minutes each we spent about an hour for each session. The company recommends the Art Projects set for ages ten and up and I would really recommend sticking to their suggestion. My youngest had a difficult time staying focused but he did enjoy creating his artwork and wants me to purchase the rest of the set. All seven participants enjoyed the art class and so did the moms. My favorite part was that I did not have to teach any art…all instruction was on the DVD. After Mrs. Knepley gave instructions we would just pause the DVD and let the crew work. I also liked the bits of Scripture sprinkled throughout the lessons and the passages she used could be related to the life of the artist or the art being created at that moment by the students. Mrs. Knepley also discussed a bit about Vincent Van Gogh but not enough to be thorough. She did say enough for my crew to be interested in him and ask several questions about the artist. We spent some time together on the computer looking at his art work. As a homeschool mom I am always impressed when a curriculum excites and inspires my children to want to learn more and seek further knowledge on the given subject. See The Light does just that.

The Art Projects curriculum meets and exceeds the National Visual Arts standards for students nine and older. This set also fulfills (60+ hours with suggested add-ins) the high school fine arts half credit. There is a link to a PDF document on the Art Projects page showing how to use the curriculum to meet the high school requirements (also check the requirements for your state and any institute of higher learning you are considering). One of the moms in my group was happy to learn about See The Light and since she is planning for high school next year she intends to use this curriculum for her boys. As a reviewer that makes me really happy. I am overjoyed when I’ve helped connect a family to a curriculum or product that fits their needs. We enjoyed meeting together as a group for these lessons and may consider using these as a group for an art co-op.

See The Light also has a Bible Stories art Curriculum and an Art Class art curriculum (which precedes Art Projects). They are also running a special on their Art Projects DVDs as a DVD-of-the-month deal. We are looking forward to using this curriculum in the future. I may start with the Bible Stories set…

To see the rest of the teams reviews of See The Light just click on the legal notice below.