I got real excited to try this new art program.  It is bright, on a plastic binder, with "jelly-proof" (or paint-proof) plastic cover over it.  I glanced through the introduction and the beginning, and got real excited to start.

So, like any good homeschooling mommy (har! har!), on Friday morning I opened the book to see what we needed for materials for art lesson 1 that afternoon.  ::sigh:: I keep a fairly well-stocked art supply bin, but it was calling for things I did not have. So, that afternoon found us, instead of doing art, driving to our local art supply store to buy art supplies.  Now, mind you, I was very single-mindedly buying what I needed for Lesson 1. [Foreshadowing here...] Ebony pencils. Store 1 didn't have them. (Had to actually go out again on Saturday to a different store to finally find them. Since I was there, I went along and purchased a pad of art paper and a new pink eraser, as recommended in the curriculum for the lesson, even though I already have some art paper and a old pink eraser at home somewhere, but don't know where it is...)

Got home, now time to make dinner, and Art Lesson 1 did not get done.  Weekend, and art-hating child says he isn't going to do "school work", it's the week-end. (My girls would NEVER have called art "school work"!)  Monday comes, and the schedule's so tight during the week that I can't turn my attention to art until Friday again, when I have it scheduled.

So, Friday comes around again, and we finally do lesson 1. DS (Dear Son) does well as I work my way through the lesson, sits with me and studies the nice painting, listens while I talk about aspects of the art. The I turn the page and get to the hands-on stuff, and he balks.  "I'm not going to do that. Can I just draw what I want?"  ::sigh::  Okay, I do a drawing like the assignment, and he draws a cartoon. I figure, okay, at least he's doing art.

Lesson 2. As per Lesson 1, Friday morning I open the book to preview the lesson. As per the above-mentioned foreshadowing, I read it only to find that it calls for another art supply that I do  not own.  Too busy to go to the store Friday. No art lesson. Shop on Saturday, this time to purchase water-color pencils. While I'm at it, I purchase some other stuff too. (Are you seeing a pattern here? Every lesson is taking me two weeks to get done. Plus, I'm going to the art store once for each lesson, buying stuff I would not have purchased had I not gone, all because I thought I'd be better off not buying the supplies for the art curriculum all at once. For me that was a big mistake!)

So week 4 now finds me doing art Lesson 2.  Same deal -- we really do well as we work our way through the first page(s), studying the artwork and such. Then, flip the page to the hands-on section. "I'm not doing that. Can't I just draw what I want?"  ::sigh:: Back to this again.  So, DS draws a comic strip while I try to draw a nice picture worthy of water color.  Now that I think of it, this lesson must seem to my son a lot like colorig, which I already stated, he doesn't like to do...

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Anyway, overview: The good, the bad, the ugly...

Good things about this curriculum:

• It is very Charlotte Mason-ish, which fits with the curriculum I am using right now (Ambleside Online).
  
• It has you study classical paintings and talk about them, then implement some aspect of the art topic into a project or a new skill.
• It's instructions are very good. It walks the teacher through what to say, and there is a way or the homeschooling mom to interact with the child, introducepaintings, discuss aspects about it.
• The lesson applies something related to the painting the child examined.

Disadvantages:

• Now, don't chop my head off, but it called for uniquely different art supplies, which was a pain, but okay I guess. I still want to get to projects further along in the book.

Really, that's about it.  All the other disadvantages have nothing to do with the curriculum, sugh as "Needs some preparation (such as to the local Art/Craft sign on...) which is to be expected.

The other issues are all "user error", like not reading the lessons in advance, and not buying the supplies in advance, or like not purchasing the necessary supplies in advance. The curriculum certainly can't be blamed for that...

So, from this mom and this son, this product gets two thumbs up, and two thumbs down (from my son, who just wants to draw cartoons right now, and nothing else...)

I'd hint that maybe he has a future as a cartoonist, but frankly, he's really not all that great. Not entirely out of the question, since he has time to work on it, but for now it's not going to make it into the Sunday Funnies.

So, summer stretches out before me, and I want to do more art with this guy, and create a box full of art projects he can enter in the county fair in August. And he will probably balk all summer, declaring that he doesn't want to "do school" during summer break. ::sigh:: So, maybe I'll work with him on this in the fall, too, even though it says it is for K-3, and he'll be in 4th then. I do really love the art pages and art-study that guides the parent through it. So, that's it for now. Thanks for reading.

Flybaby