Art Tidbits

By Charlotte Ostermann

 

*  Need a light box to trace drawings?  Get a clear clipboard to lay over a lamp, or - on a sunny day - tape original and paper on a window to trace.

 

*  Capture shadows - find a pretty shadow and lay your paper wherever it falls (so the shadow is cast onto the paper).  Trace it, then take it home and color in either the shadow or the space around it in a solid color. You may need a cutting board or other portable hard surface to lay under your paper as you trace.

 

*  Office Depot has great prices on Berol Prismacolor pencils.  Look there for Mr. Sketch broad, slant-tip markers…the only inexpensive ones I've found (most markers have changed to a big, pointy tip that doesn't give the same thick-thin line options as these).

 

*  Uniframe - from Hobby Lobby - take a foam board, a mat board, a piece of plexiglass and a collection of your kids' pictures and add the uniframe to the back to hang.  You can choose the size of the finished unit….good for odd-sized works, collections, frequent display changes.

 

*  Do it yourself 'carbon paper':  Go over the back of your design with the side of a pencil to cover it with lead.  Place this 'master' design-up/lead-down wherever you want to place it on another paper.  Trace over the design, pull off the master and, voila!, a pencil copy which you can trace over, color in, or repeat all over the page.  You'll need to re-load the master with graphite to repeat the design.

 

*  I have Calvert School's Discovering Art videos if anyone wants to borrow them.  They introduce various art concepts that are probably also introduced in other resources, but are well done in short segments to reinforce whatever else you do with art.

 

*  'Narrate' works of art (a la Charlotte Mason) just as you do readings.  Spend time looking at an art print, mentioning what you observe about color, subject, proportion, balance, perspective, symbolism and whatever you know about the artist.  Set it aside and listen to the kids' version.

 

*  On-line art lessons and project ideas:  http://www.homeschoolarts.com

 

*  Art Extension Press - one hundred 3" x 4" full color art prints for $22.50 - make a small photo album of prints for toddlers, get two sets and use for matching activities, put a print in a plastic sleeve and use wipe-off fine tip markers to highlight particular elements for discussion, etc….  

http://www.home-school.com/Mall/Artext

 

*  Quick sketches: set a timer for three minutes, everybody finds something in the room to sketch, when the timer rings pick new targets and set it again - repeat as long as it's fun, then compare sketches.  This helps break down perfectionist inhibitions to drawing and gives lots of quick, fun practice looking for the main contour lines of familiar objects.  This is more fun with more than one person racing around sketching, and most fun if one of them is Mom or Dad!