Blog

Sep 28 2018

Preschool Bible Lesson: Loyalty

IT ALWAYS WORKS

Character Quality: Loyalty

Bible Verse: Proverbs 17:17 – “A friend loves at all times.”

Materials

Ball, pieces of foam, other small objects to throw up into the air.

Class Preparation

This lesson may be presented anytime you are focusing on the love of God, the sacrifice of Jesus, what true friendship means.

Lesson Procedure

Throw a ball up in the air and catch it several times. Comment to the group, “It seems to work every single time. Yes, every single time I throw the ball up, it always comes down. I wonder if it works that way for everybody.”
Have several children throw the ball up. The same identical thing happens to each of them – the ball always comes down no matter how high it is thrown.
Toss the piece of foam. The same thing happens. Incredible! Have several children try tossing the foam in the air. The same thing happens to them.
Tell the children that this is called “gravity” – a very important word. It means that whatever is thrown up on earth will always come down. God made gravity and that’s the way it works.
The children practice throwing the objects in the air and saying the word “gravity.”
Then tell them, “Just as you can count on gravity because God made it, you can know that no matter what happens, God will always love you. You must always remember that God loved you so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for your sins. If you ask Jesus to forgive you, He will, and He will always stay with you and never, ever leave. Then someday you will be in heaven with Jesus. Jesus in our very best Friend. He always loves us, and He wants us to love others too.”
Then pray and ask the Lord to give each one in the class more love for Him and more love for each other.

Did the children get it? Ask these questions

Recall “What did we throw up into the air?” Balls, foam, etc.

Comprehension “ Why did the balls always come back down?” Because of gravity. Whatever is thrown up on earth comes back down because God made it that way.

Application “When does God love you?” (Children share. Emphasize that God ALWAYS loves you even if God does not like some of the things you do. That’s why He sent Jesus. . . .)

Evaluation “ If you give your life to Jesus, will He be your loyal friend? Will He always be with you?” YES!

For more Art and Bible resources, check out our Bible Stories DVD set:

Art and Bible: Bible Stories 5-DVD Boxed Set

Sep 25 2018

How to Make Homeschool Art Fun

When I taught homeschool art, the first rule I gave my students is, “You’ve got to have fun!” Art Fun

I mean that.

If art class is not fun, there’s really no point in having it. Art is about expressing yourself. It’s about exploring your creativity.

But it’s also about joy.

So how can you make art class fun? Here are five suggestions:

1. Lower your expectations.

I know this seems counterintuitive, but one of the main reasons children become frustrated with art is that they have an unrealistic expectation of what they should be able to do. In other words, there is a tendency toward perfectionism. Make sure your children know that it’s okay to not be perfect.

2. Resist the temptation to criticize.

When your children bring you a picture that they’ve drawn (and that they’re obviously very proud of), don’t single out the one (or more) little things that are wrong and need to be corrected. That’s one of the quickest ways to insure that their love of art class will be short-lived. Instead, find something to praise about the picture.

3. Get messy.

Try finger painting or other abstract art. Not all artwork needs to be representational. Sometimes it’s fun to just play with colors and see what happens.

4. Go outside.

Grab a sketchbook and some colored pencils (or crayons). Then go outside and find something to draw. Let your children choose the subject.

5. Go Fluorescent

Buy a black light, fluorescent tempera paints (or See the Light’s fluorescent pastels) and black poster board. Then darken the room, turn out the lights and do some “glow in the dark” posters.
In other words, don’t always feel like you’ve got to color inside the lines. Art is about self-expression. So have fun!

Now it’s your turn. Leave a comment with YOUR idea for making art class the best part of your child’s day.

Why not start with our 9-DVD set, Art Class?

Art Class 9-DVD Boxed Set

photo credit: WP_20140204_21_45_09_Pro via photopin (license)

Sep 21 2018

More than Words: Illustrating Great Stories (Pt. 2)

Guest post by Pat Knepley – In part one of this post, we looked at three great illustrators. This week we’ll consider four more: N. C. Wyeth, Arthur Rachkam, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Edward Detmold.

N. C. Wyeth

Newell Convers Wyeth was the patriarch of an entire family of successful artists. He and his wife home schooled their children, and included art instruction as the first subject each day. Their son Andrew Wyeth became the most well known American realist painter of the twentieth century. N. C. painted more than 4000 illustrations for publication over his lifetime.

One of his most successful books was when he illustrated the Robert Louis Stevenson classic Treasure Island. Wyeth had a vivid imagination that translated into stunning illustrations filled with compelling characters and exacting detail.

617px-boys_king_arthur_-_n-_c-_wyeth_-_p306 — N. C. Wyeth – *The Boy’s King Arthur*

Wyeth was known for studying every aspect of the genre he was illustrating in order to heighten the realism, even spending some time out west working on a ranch so that the cowboys he drew for his western stories would be true to life.

Arthur Rackham

Arthur Rackham was one of the illustrators during England’s golden age of Book Illustration for the later years of the 19^th century until the start of the Depression. His style of using pen and ink line drawings overlaid with watercolor washes created an ethereal and fanciful look that worked well with the range of stories he illustrated. One of his classics was the fairy tale Rip Van Winkle published in 1905.

Jessie Willcox Smith

Jessie Willcox Smith was an American illustrator known for her works in Women’s magazines and for Children’s literature. Born and educated in Philadelphia, Smith had a long and successful career portraying young children even though she was never a parent herself.

Her rosy-cheeked children graced the covers of many magazines in the early twentieth century, and revealed an intuitive sense of children’s moods and movements. In addition to magazine work, Smith also illustrated classic Children’s literature, such as The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley and Heidi by Johanna Spyri from 1922.

Edward Detmold

Edward J Detmold was born in 1883 in England, and he was a twin. He and his brother were both talented artists with a gift for capturing plants and animals in all their natural beauty. Detmold was influenced by the compositions and color of Japanese prints. In 1909, Detmold illustrated Aesop’s Fables., and since so many of those stories have animals as the main characters, this commission was well suited to Detmold’s skills.

For the home educator, linking art to literature is a natural. Use a book your student is currently reading and have them illustrate one or more scenes. There are two approaches to take with a project like this: illustrate a scene that is described well, making sure the details match; or illustrate a lesser known scene where the artist can fill in details that the author did not take the time to describe.

More imaginative students will like this option. Keep the drawing to simple black pen or a very fine marker over an initial sketch in pencil. The more details added by the young artist, the better! Carefully reading a favorite line, within a chapter so get context, can provide the perfect inspiration (and caption) for a drawing. So start reading some classics and let the words cause your imagination to translate into beautiful pictures.

Try your hand at illustrating a Bible story with Art Projects, Dreams of Joseph:

Art Projects: Dreams of Joseph (Marc Chagall)

Sep 18 2018

Art Tip: Don’t Overwork Pastels

One of the biggest problems of working with soft (chalk) pastels is overworking them. Because pastels cannot be mixed like paint, but must be laid down in layers, sometimes when we try to blend them, we continue until they become muddy and lose definition.

In this, the last of our series, “Six Super Short Art Tips,” Jim shows how to avoid overworking your pastels.

You’ll find more tips on how to properly blend pastels on Art Class DVD #4: Color Blending Techniques.

Art Class Volume 4 – Lessons 13-16: Color Blending Techniques

Sep 14 2018

More than Words: Illustrating Great Stories

Guest post by Pat Knepley

Illustrating Great Stories: Our current culture is overwhelmingly visual, with television and movies accounting for most of the narrative stories we know. Since the time movies were invented in the early part of the twentieth century, many classic pieces of literature have been put to film, and indeed may be have more of a following than the original written work.

Who can read Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of OZ without envisioning Judy Garland as Dorothy, as she played in the 1939 film? Or read Margaret Mitchell’s classic of the antebellum South Gone With The Wind and not imagine Clark Gable as Rhett Butler?

But before the dawn of motion pictures, the only images attached to great works of literature were the ones in the mind of the reader, or the very few that were illustrated.

Illustrations in Classic Literature

Classic Literature is called “classic” because it transcends the time it was written to appeal to a wide audience with a compelling story. Many works of fiction fit the bill – from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll to Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. What makes these works unique is that they were more than words: these two classics contained iconic illustrations.

Most people think of book illustrations as being for young children’s picture books. But there are many classic books for adults that have masterful illustrations that can also be considered classic. For Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the original illustrator was Arthur Rackham. For the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, it was Sidney Paget. The work of these artists did much to popularize these stories even more. Book publishers would often take a book or magazine series that already had commercial appeal and re-introduce it with well-executed drawings that brought the story to a whole new audience.

George Cruikshank

Most scholars agree that it started with the works of Charles Dickens, a writer in 19^th century England. His classic tale of an orphan on the streets of London , Oliver Twist, was illustrated by Dickens’ friend and fellow countryman George Cruikshank. Cruikshank was a caricaturist who made a name for himself going after the politicians of the day in England. But when he illustrated the colorful characters in Oliver Twist in 1838, the entire world was able to see his incredible talent, and enjoy Dickens’ endearing story all the more.

Howard Pyle

Considered the father of American book Illustrators, Howard Pyle was born in Delaware in 1853. From a young age Pyle was more interested in drawing than in his academics, so he was encouraged by his parents as a teenager to study classical art in Philadelphia. He started his art career as an illustrator for several magazines out of New York. In

1884, Pyle wrote and illustrated The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which is a novel that wove English folklore and traditional ballads into an exciting narrative that became an instant classic. Pyle was a master illustrator, and founded his own school in 1900 to train other illustrators. Several of his pupils, including N. C. Wyeth, became famous in their own right following the principles espoused by Pyle.

NEXT WEEK: In Part 2 of this post, we’ll look at three more illustrators, including one of the greatest illustrators of all time: N. C. Wyeth.

Illustrators need to be able to draw people. Learn how with Art Class DVD #9:

Art Class Volume 9 – Lessons 33-36: The Portrait (Faces & Figures)