1.  Boats in a Gale
   
2.  Fishermen at Sea
   
3.  Fifth Plague of Egypt
   
4. Decline of Carthaginian Empire
   

 5. Rome from the Vatican
6. Boys Catching Crabs
7. The Grand Canal, Venice

Well, I've NEVER claimed to be an artist. EVER. But I do enjoy trying to be artistic from time to time. And as an adult, my desire and enjoyment has grown in drawing and even a bit of painting.

Today while catching up on my RSS reading I was reminded of the art exercises over at Heart of Harmony blog. I've been meaning to try some, but just plain forget. So, soon as I saw last week's assignment  for drawing something upside down, I dug up the necessities (a photo, paper, and pencil) and gave it a try.

Here's my inspirational image (cropped from my church's kidzone newsletter:

And here's my attempt at sketching it while it was upside down:

Bah! No laughing!!!  Not unless YOU attempt it to and blog about it! (and come here and tell me you did so, so I can go look at yours!)

I'm not quite sure what those funny  "sticks" are poking out of the bottom of his oddly-shaped body! LOL

I definitely think I'll have my daughter give this exercise a try. I'll let her pick out what she wants to draw. Hope to blog about it in the near future!

We do a weekly study of an artist I've chosen ala Charlotte Mason style. You can read more about art study at this Ambleside Online webpage.  I found the conference recording on PRINT STUDY to be a wonderful "fire starter" for me. I listen to it (and others) from time to time, just to stay encouraged and focused. ( I have a bunch of these conference sessions loaded to my PDA! It's like a homeschool conference at my fingertips!)

I print out the pieces for each artist we study  to full size 8.5x11" glossy photo paper on my home inkjet printer. They turn out pretty nicely actually. I also gather up a little bit of info for each print if i can find it (medium used, year created, size, maybe any notes specific to that piece, etc.) and copy/paste to a Word document for me to look at for each new print.

Then when it is time for our study, DD brings the artist study folder to me and we begin. If there is a print studied from the previous week, she also brings that with her. (Each week's study hangs on the mini-blinds in the school room. Easy to view each day. I just keep it in a clear page protector and paper clips gently hold it onto the blind. Yes, the mini-blinds still work with it hanging!)

If a new artist is being studied, I'll read from a biography or if I've gotten some books from the library about that artist I'll have her read independently and narrate back to me. Depending on the length of the bio, this might be done a bit each week for the course of the study if needed. A notebook page on the artist is also started during the first week of study and continued till the end of that artist's study.

Each week, I also ask her to recall what she can remember about the previous week's print by that artist. Then I have her silently study a new print.

After her 60 second study and "narration" about the week's print, we look again at the print and she elaborates on the print even further. I jump in with little things from time to time as well. We discuss a variety of elements for the print from questions I have in our artist study notebook, things that just pop into my head, things she comes up with, as well as a little book i got from one of my art classes at college. You can purchase the little booklet called THE GENERIC GAME  here.  (  It is a set of questions that can be used with any piece (or set) of artwork to glean insight from the piece through focused observations and shared reactions to the piece(s). It can be done by individuals or a group, at your home or in a gallery or museum. It is intended to be used over and over again! A nominal fee for the years of use you can get from it.)

To wrap up the artist's study, I have her lay out all the prints on the floor that we've studied the past few weeks. The we go through discussion of various topics of comparisons, contrasts, likes, dislikes, favorite, etc. etc. I am always amazed at that which comes from her mind. She not only has a great attention for details between the prints but also a nice mind for the "big picture" of the body of work we're studying. We have GREAT discussions on this wrap-up day.   Any unfinished parts of the notebook page is completed. Then when all is done, the prints are gathered up, officially added to the artist study notebook behind her artist notebook page and we're done! She likes having her own "portable gallery" of artists that we've studied she can look through at any time. In the future, I plan to also have her "try her hand" at duplicating a chosen print or a style of the studied artist, but for now, this is all we do.

Doing artist study this way has been such a blessing, such a nice, fruitful addition to our homeschooling. Even though it is only once a week it is such a rich time in our week.

So we've finally wrapped up our study of Pieter Breugel.

Here's what we studied for Breugel:

1. Peasant  Wedding
2. Children's Games
3. Census at Bethlehem 
4. Tower of Babel 
5. Hunters in the Snow 

Here's her completed notebook page:

This is an original notebook page I designed. Map image is from the Uncle Josh maps. I just adjust the "pieces studied" section for each new artist. She also has a "table of contents page" for the notebook that she can add each new artist to. I'll try to share a photo of that page sometime, too.

**Edited to add: I've revised the Artist notebooking sheets with a different map so I can share them FREELY with other homeschoolers. You can download them over at my downloads page. **