Sketching Spices

This week's Sketch Tuesday assignment was to sketch a spice or spice jar. The boys both relaxed into this one beautifully and produced these sketches:





Didn't they do well?

If you haven't discovered Sketch Tuesday yet, then hop on over to Harmony Art Mom to find out more :-)

As well as the sketching, both boys have started an art journal. Gman is using his very much in the style of a private diary, so won't be sharing his, but Waif is enjoying using his as a place to experiment with paint, collage and (best of all!) mama's ink and stamps. Yes, it does get messy, but I'm so pleased they both decided to do journals, cos I have found this such fun myself.



On the non-art side of things, both boys are enjoying studying via lapbooks. Waif is busy putting together one on pandas; and Gman is working on two at the moment - one on Buddhism, the other on pandas. I think they will complete these in the next week or so. Project based learning certainly seems to suit their learning style.

In Praise of Sketch Tuesday

I have mentioned before that we participate in Sketch Tuesday over on Barb's Harmony Art Mom blog.  Each Tuesday, Barb sets an assignment of something to sketch, due in the following Monday.  These vary wildy and we always look forward to finding out what the next assignment is going to be.  We also look forward to the slideshow of the previous week's entries and enjoy seeing what ideas others have come up with for the assignment.  What I like about Sketch Tuesday is that it is participation without competition, so there's that feeling of being part of a group of people doing the same thing, without the boys feeling that they are in competition with others.  I also love that Barb allows parents to take part as well so I get to sit down and sketch with the boys every week too :-).  I never did much art as a youngster so now I'm making up for lost time.  It just goes to show that home education is a journey for the whole family, not just the children!

Anyway, enough talk, here are some of the boys' favourite sketches from the past five months we have been taking part:

Here are some of Gman's:



"Sketch Something with Antenna"



"Sketch something you use to treat a cold"



"Sketch something you see on a boat"



"Sketch something you make with water"

And some of Waif's:



"Sketch something with eyes"



"Sketch something you use to clean the house"



"Sketch something beginning with t"



"Sketch something you find in a toolbox"

And just to prove that I join in too, here are some of mine:



"Sketch something you see in an art museum"



"Sketch something with antennae"



"Sketch something you study in science"

Have I convinced you yet?

If you don't already participate, then head on over to Harmony Art Mom and check it out. There's nothing to lose!

Winter Art

Well, I've had a break from posting on this blog...but it hasn't really changed what we do, so thought I would share a few of the boys' latest beauties with you all :-)

Here are some tea light lanterns they decorated yesterday. I can't find link to tutorial but basically you mod-podge the jars, add strips of tissue paper and torn sheet music (this is "Winter Wonderland") plus bits of glitter in our case :-) They look beautiful with the little candles in:



The boys have also made some lovely paintings of winter trees:



(and yes, that is some more glitter!)

We have continued with the Sketch Tuesday and are all seeing real improvements in our sketching abilities. The boys have picked their favourites from recent assignments:

Gman likes his "something to cure a cold" sketch:



And Waif was especially proud of his "something you find in a toolbox":



Oh, and we've been doing more Van Gogh inspired art. Van Gogh is both boys' favourite artist at the moment.

Here's Gman's vase of flowers:



And Waif's:



This will probably be the last post of 2010...see you in 2011. Let's hope it's a good one!

Sketch Tuesday

Having agreed with the boys' request to do some art every day, I was very excited to find out about "Sketch Tuesday". I originally found out about this from this post on Nadene's excellent homeschool blog, Practical Pages, and thought it sounded just the job. Our first assignment was to sketch "something with whiskers". Gman chose to draw a tiger, and Waif quickly followed suit. Here they are at work on their pics:




And here are their completed drawings:




I even had a go and drew this slightly odd looking rabbit:



If you hop (teehee) on over to Harmony Mom's post here you can see the album of people's sketches on this theme. The front cover is Gman's tiger and very proud he is too :-)

This week's assignment is "something that floats". Watch this space!