Teach Art At Home Like an Artist!
We at Homeschool Art Class / See the Light Art want to wish you a very special and blessed Christmas! We hope you will enjoy watching this special Christmas chalk drawing from Chalk Artist Gloria Kohlmann.
This time of year, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who came into the world that we might be saved. As a reminder that Jesus is the reason for the season, here’s a short video where Jim draws a Star of Bethlehem that turns into a cross when a black light is turned on.
This effect is super-easy to do. To recreate it, you’ll need to use white chalk and white invislble fluorescent (black light) chalk. You can buy these at EternityArts.com
Since we’re nearing Christmas, I thought I’d post a video I did a few years back, about how to use black light chalk to create a lighted Christmas tree effect. To make the tree light up, you’ll need to use fluorescent pencils or pastels for the lights. And you’ll need a black light. You can purchase these at the See the Light Art store. You can find links to these supplies below the video.
Well, it’s the middle of summer, but we’re going to think about fall today. Fall colors provide us with wonderful subject matter for drawing and painting. One of my favorite things about fall foliage is that it gives me freedom to play with color in an otherwise realistic painting. With that in mind, I’ve done some Internet searching, and here are some resources on how to draw/paint fall leaves and trees. So get out those art supplies and let’s have some fun!
Your younger children may not be ready to draw leaves, but they’ll love the free printable coloring pages that are featured on the following website:
http://www.supercoloring.com/coloring-pages/fall-autumn-leaves
Next, from Wikihow.com, are two simple tutorials about how to draw a maple leaf. Once you’ve drawn the outline, try using some watercolor, markers or crayons to give the leaf a beautiful fall color.
http://www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-Maple-Leaf
This Pinterest page doesn’t have tutorials. What it does have are lots of samples of children’s fall foliage artwork. You’ll find a lot of great ideas as you look through these pages.
http://www.pinterest.com/ms_art/kid-art-trees-leaves-fall/
Finally, here’s an easy to follow demonstration of how to draw an autumn tree. You may need to pause the video a few times to catch up, but it’s a fun project.
Do you know what it feels like to be a pilgrim?
It was the summer of 1975. I was nineteen years old, and I had signed on to a program called Practical Missionary Training (PMT). Co-sponsored by CAM International and Wycliffe Bible Translators, PMT was an eight-week missionary life “sampler” for people who wanted to explore whether God was calling them to the mission field.
Rather than being a simple mission trip, PMT was structured to give a broad exposure to different aspects of missionary life. Even though it was a sampler, each participant’s experience was individualized to a certain degree.
Because at that time I was interested in teaching in a seminary or Bible college, during my eight weeks as a member of PMT I stayed with a missionary family in Guatemala City. My host was a professor at the Central American Theological Seminary. I also lived for two weeks at a Bible institute. The rest of the eight weeks was punctuated with missionary adventures such as two weeks of rustic living at Wycliffe Bible Translators’ jungle camp in southern Mexico, spending a night in a Tzeltal Indian village, and much, much more.
PMT was influential in helping me determine that my ministry call was not to the mission field. It was a great time and it opened my eyes to many things, but after eight weeks in Mexico and Guatemala, I knew that my ministry would be along another path. However, although I concluded that I was not called to missions, PMT taught me something priceless.
It taught me a little of what it feels like to be a pilgrim.
I had taken four years of high school Spanish, but retained little of it. So as we traveled the entire length of Mexico–by bus!–then rolled (in a smaller bus) into Guatemala, I felt more and more estranged from my surroundings. I could speak enough Spanish to find the bathroom and order a “Coca” (Coca-Cola), but that was about it. All around me, people were speaking a language I didn’t understand. Billboards and stores had signs that I couldn’t read.
I couldn’t even watch TV.
It was several weeks into my trip when I realized just how “English-starved” I was.
The missionary couple I stayed with in Guatemala City took me out one evening to a local theatre group’s production of Agatha Christie’s play, Mousetrap. The production was in English, and I was like someone who had crossed a desert and just come upon an oasis. For two to three hours, I soaked it in as the actors performed. I’m a fan of mysteries, but I wouldn’t have cared what the story was about—just as long as I could understand it.
They were speaking my language.
My strongest memory from that entire trip is when I was on a bus and we had just crossed the border back into the United States.
I read every billboard, every street sign, every business sign, you name it. If it was in English, I read it.
I was home. I was back in my native country.
Part of living like a pilgrim is that there is a natural and ongoing homesickness. Even if things are going well, home is always in the back of your mind.
That’s part of what it means for a Christian to live as a pilgrim on this earth. We live in this world, but readily understand and admit that we can never be truly at home here. The world speaks a different language, has a different culture, values different things.
Are you a pilgrim?
I hope so.
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own” (Hebrews 11:13b-14, NIV).
photo credit: Santiago – Lago de Atitlan – Guatemala-7 (image cropped and resized) via photopin (license)
How do you create an artistic composition that is pleasing to the eye? Many artists use a mathematical concept called the golden ratio, (also known as the golden mean, golden rectangle and golden section). This is a close relative to another compositional principle called “the rule of thirds.” In today’s exercise, I’ve included a couple short videos explaining how the golden ratio works.
I’ve also added links to three paintings: one by Claude Monet and two by Russian artist, Pavel Filonov. After you watch the videos, look at each of the paintings and see if you can figure out how the artist used the golden mean or rule of thirds in his compositions.
After you’ve watched the videos, take a look at the following three paintings and see if you can figure out how (or if) the artists implemented the golden mean or rule of thirds in their compositions:
Painting #1: Claude Monet. Shipyard near Honfleur. 1864. Oil on canvas.
Painting #2: Pavel Filonov. Landscape. Wind. 1907. Oil on cardboard.
Painting #3: Pavel Filonov. Self-Portrait. 1925
EXTRA EXERCISE: Once you’ve looked at these paintings, check out some other paintings or drawings and see if you can identify whether the artist used the golden ratio. Then try doing a drawing of your own and using the golden ratio as your composition tool.