Simple lessons on teaching the grammer of art.
Welcome!
My name is Anna and I am a previous art teacher and current homeschooling mom.
I’ve created this blog to share art lessons that correlate to the Classical Conversations curriculum and to also give parents simple ways to teach art concepts beyond their CC community day experience. I hope it helps you!
I also publish a series of videos called Mealtime Monets that offer art lessons corresponding to Classical Conversations fine arts curriculum. -Anna
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Cycle 2 Week 14- Gainsborough’s Fanciful Landscapes
Though Thomas Gainsborough’s landscapes might appear simply realistic to us, they have a dream-like, dramatic quality to them. It is said that he even created them at home using pebbles, twigs, and even broccoli to create mini dioramas. The images were very much from inside his own head. For this project, the students will create…
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Cycle 2 Week 14- Botanical Drawings
I love this project. It combines drawing with science and math. It teaches students to carefully study what they see. It allows us to emphasize size and proportion in drawing. Kids will always love to doodle and draw imaginative ideas, and teaching traditional drawing techniques in no way inhibits this. In fact, teaching realistic drawing will…
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Cycle 2 Week 13- Rembrandt’s Portraits
Oh, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Portrait drawing can be the most nerve-wracking art assignment. The features always look a bit wonky, it never looks like the person you are trying to draw, and it can be embarrassing to have to show it off to other kids in class. Though portrait drawing is…
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Mealtime Monet- Shooting Stars in Perspective
(What is this all about? Check out What is Mealtime Monets?) I’ve greatly enjoyed learning about astronomy during Cycle 2. As I say almost every week, I am re-gaining my education by being a part of CC! As an nod to Cycle 2’s outer space facts (and my six-year-old son’s new-found love of drawing stars) this art project…
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Mealtime Monet- Abstract Autumn Leaves
(What is this all about? Check out What is Mealtime Monets?) Autumn is here, and I am already mulching and raking leaves like crazy. Though this project won’t solve the entire problem, it will get your kids to pick up three our four leaves from your yard. “Abstract Fall Leaves” combines the idea of abstract art from week…
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What is Mealtime Monets?
What is “Mealtime Monets”? It is the thing that will save your sanity!!! Ok, I like to exaggerate, but still… it is a tool that will give you free time while your children practice real art skills that relate to Classical Conversations or drawing in general. I’m calling it “Mealtime Monets” because dinner prep is the time…
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Cycle 2 Week 6- Mona Lisa Grid Drawing
I had the chance to visit the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa in person many years ago. What I thought would be a huge and impressive painting was actually a small and somewhat dull portrait. What’s all the fuss with the Mona Lisa? There have been many theories about the woman’s expression, about what…
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Cycle 2 Week 5- Cities in Perspective
Cityscapes are a wonderful way to use perspective drawing techniques. Luckily, the geography for this week is European Cities, a perfect jumping off point for drawing buildings in perspective. The drawings this week are inspired by vintage travel posters. They always have a dynamic sense of depth due to…. you guessed it, perspective! These are the posters…
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Cycle 2 Week 4- Abstract Native American Salmon
For week four, the lesson combines Native American art (timeline card “Early Native Americans”) and abstract art. First, let’s define abstract. It is a category of art that represents imagery in a simplistic or distorted manner. Under this category is non-objective art, which takes out the recognizable image completely, and we are left with just…