Art

Raven & Friends

April 29, 2026 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product Raven & Friends through Harbour Publishing. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so, and it is so much appreciated.

Oh, I can hardly wait to tell you what I have for you today. Harbour Publishing is providing TWO copies of this fantastic colouring book for you today. Two winners!! Details will follow.

But first let me give you a quick rundown. Raven & Friends is a Roy Henry Vickers Colouring book for kids. BUT don’t let the “KIDS” label fool you. ANYONE can enjoy colouring this book. Thick pages, that are animal focused, with perorated edges, that aren’t just in landscape mode. These are images that if you colour them in carefully you can frame and display on your walls for all to see. Or do what a friend of mine does, colour them in, write on the back, and send them off as friendly snail mail. 🙂 Make a friend smile!

The Basic Details for Raven & Friends

Raven & Friends is a A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring book for kids. Put out by Harbour Publishing you get 64 pages, single sided, animal prints to fill out. Printed on a thick paper that won’t bleed through, suitable for colouring with markers or colouring pencils. The book itself is 12 x 0.27 x 9 inches. You’ll find images of foxes, whales, birds, bears, insects and more. A whole plethora of wildlife to suit your fancy. Not only that, you’ll get some lessons in artistry as well!

Now just who is Roy Henry Vickers? He is world renown for his work as a printmaker, painter, carver, designer, author, and sought-after keynote speaker. A man of mixed heritage with a mom of mixed European descent and a father from Haida, Heiltsuk, and Tsimshian ancestry. You can see samples of his work on his website and perhaps gain some ideas for colouring!

Digging Deeper

Learn to do art with Mr. Vickers! Three pages of instructions to guide you through some of his basic forms. Practice what you learn and maybe you can make your own art too! I love how Vickers emphasizes how much he (and other artists) need to practice their art so they can do it well.

The designs are simple enough to appeal to younger children, and yet interesting enough to appeal to all ages. There is complexity in the simpleness of this native art form. In the weaving together of different simple shapes to form a more complex whole.

I thoroughly appreciate that not every spot on the page is filled with something to colour in. This leaves room to add your own design, or colour more simply, or use pages are part of a nature journal. Just what do you know about foxes, orcas, or eagles? Add in the details of when you’ve seen a raven, butterfly, or chased a rascally squirrel. Colouring books are meant to have fun with you know!! 🙂

Imagination Flows

While most of the pictures are presented in landscape layout, some are not giving further height to images. You can just imaging having a campfire while the aurora borealis flows in the night sky can’t you?

As a Canadian these images make me feel right at home. All these animals and experiences can be found in Canada, though some might mean taking a trip depending on where you live in this vast land.

As a former homeschooling parent I very much appreciate how this colouring book can be used in a wide variety of ways with a curriculum.

giving children something to do as they listen to a story being read
being an addition to nature study, being added to a nature journal, or a guide to the animals around us.
as a start (or end) to a unit study about Canadian animals
a way to learn about and/or practice first nations art
a rabbit trail into learning about natural dyes and learning to create art with them
(and so much more). How would you incorporate this lovely book into your learning?

Some Companion books you might appreciate alongside Raven & Friends would be:

The giveaway is simple. Like, comment and share! Share my blog post, share my social media (facebook, facebook business, or instagram). Comment on blog post something that intrigues you or who the book would be for. Only caveat is this: you need to live in Canada! Coast to Coast

Art is Life

April 17, 2021 By Annette1 4 Comments

Free Product received from Raincoast books for my review. Affiliate links will be used in this review. No added cost to you, but it does help pay the bills. 🙂

Art is Life tells the story of the life of artist Keith Haring. A vibrant active man with a huge love for art and the expression of it. This is a picture book that helps to tell part of his story. Come see!

48 pages round-out this art biography of Keith Haring. Keith believed that art is life, and life is art, and he wanted everyone to experience the joy of it. Author Tami Lewis Brown helped us see his vibrancy and drive to do art. Illustrator Keith Negley brought that vibrancy and drive to life! We got to see Keith’s work brought to the forefront while Mr. Negley helped us see him live his life. Thoughtfully produced for 4-7 year olds by Farrar Straus Giroux.

My Review of Art is Life is on behalf of Raincoast Books.

Every artist portrays the world that he sees differently. Keith started from the time he was young, showing his view of the world in bright colours and bold lines.

You’ll find the font an excellent size for reading with a child at your side, or to a group of children gathered in close. Wouldn’t it be fun to read it and then have children practice doing art like Keith?

Throughout the pages of Art is Life you’ll find references to Keith’s desire to share art with the world. In some ways, it makes the rest of the book seem less bright. In reality though, the artwork throughout compliments nicely. One can see the darkness of the subway, the lightness of chalk on dark panels. Children also learn that sometimes… doing art without permission has consequences.

Should you get Art is Life?

I always like, when I’m reviewing a biographical picture book, when the author includes a fuller biography of the individual. In doing so, a fuller presentation of the individual is given. This book left me with the complete picture.

The author and illustrator did an excellent job of conveying the enthusiasm that Keith Haring had for life. Everything he did showed how much he wanted others to enjoy art as well. If you want to inspire the love of sharing art with others, Keith Haring’s story will do that!

This book would be great as part of a series on artists, what drives their passions, and how they inspired others. The harder details about Keith Haring’s life are explained in the author’s note.

Would you like a quick intro to Keith Haring? I found this youtube video on him.

Children’s Craft Books

January 25, 2021 By Annette1 4 Comments

It is wintertime and therefore the time to spend time with friends and family indoors, or to broaden one’s studies with making crafts to round out your studies. I thought it was about time for me to share with you some of the children’s craft books we have used and/or reviewed over the years.

Affiliate links will be used.

Children’s Craft Books from My Shelves

Over the years, I have collected arts and crafts books from all over the place. Thrift stores, yard sales, gifts from friends and families. I simply adore many of the OLD arts/crafts books as they don’t tend to require specialty items. Don’t you just adore crafts that you can simply from what you have at hand?

I have a great collection of come to me used books. Papercraft, woodcrafts, gifts to make, and lots of eclectic books.

The oldest book I have is this McCalls Golden book called “Do it Book”. It has probably seen the most use in our house. Old crafts that are just interesting to do. From cities to build, to bears to sew and stuff, to projects to paint. Masks to make, circuses to create, with templates and ideas galore. When I got it you could tell how well-loved it was, I had to scratch away some paint! 🙂 Imagine my surprise when I found it on amazon yet!

Most of my books are not that old though. The complete book of arts and crafts is probably one of the youngest books and is great for children 5-9 years old. Paper, painting, wood, nature, holidays, toys and sewing. All sorts of activities to inspire the creative mind.

Specialty books like Geography, woodcraft and papercraft help to enhance skills or knowledge in a given area.

Adventures in Art has a wide variety of art projects that we used in our worldwide explorations.

Review Books you shouldn’t miss

What makes a review book on arts and crafts stand out for me and make it to my art shelf?

Needs to contain at least one of the following, preferrably more.

encourage thinking outside the box and not merely be about copying the idea presented
teach necessary skills
to be somewhat out of the box (such as using duct tape)
provide variety

Books that have met that criteria. I have linked them to my review.

Doll Crafts. I used this in a doll making class.
Global Art. So much fun making minion inspired art!
Fine Art Adventures.
Hands-on Art. Made hieroglyphs!
Get Into Art Places.
Geography Through Art. We’ve used a fair bit.
Duct Tape Engineer. Just a very cool book to use. 🙂
642 Things to Draw. Sheer inspiration value.
Draw Paint Print. used a lot in art co-op classes
Art Play. Another good co-op book.
Illustration Workshop.

What about You?

How about you? What children’s craft books would you recommend? Do you have favourites or special things you watch for in your craft books for your children?

Want to Learn Art?

June 12, 2019 By Annette1 3 Comments

Art, it’s a wonderful part of the life don’t you find? Today I am focusing on visual arts like drawing, painting, sculpting and what not. Things you look at and make with your hands, feet or mouth. 🙂 Not everyone does art the same way do they? So if you want to learn art, here are some places to go.

Art for Elementary School

Visit The Met’s Timeline of Art history for art stories, history and art pieces.
National Art Gallery has a kids art zone. Projects for children.
Deep Space Sparkle – Art lessons divided by level, subject and technique.
KinderArt has all sorts of art projects for kindergarten and up.
Happiness is Homemade has 36 lessons for the school year.
Art to Remember has all sorts of interesting projects to try.
Art Projects for Kids – blog posts with art projects for children.
Kids art. Art projects and lessons.
Jerry’s Artarama. 2000 free video art Lessons.

Scrapcoloring online might intrigue your students.
Toy Theatre lets you play around with art, and sometimes math.
Aminah’s World has a real world abstract feel to it.

Art for Middle School

Check out The Incredible Art Department for an extensive list of middle school art projects.
KinderArt also has middle school art projects.
The Virtual Instructor has art for middle school and high school.
At Bomomo they can experiment with abstract art.

Art For High School

Dick Blick has a variety of lesson plans and projects for students to engage in.
high school art lessons on youtube covers a wide variety of topics.
KinderArt isn’t just for littles, has highschool as well.
Kosmic Dreams has a few lessons.

Book Reviews you might want to check out

I adore the 642 Things to draw series. I’ve reviewed a few of them and think they are fantastic for inspiring conversation and imagination over an art prompt idea. You will find one review here. And another here. Grab up a couple of drawing pages, sit down and draw. Talk about how an art prompt inspired you. Laugh, be amazed, and just draw.

Draw, Print, Paint like the Great artists continues to be a favourite of mine. And this Zentangles book made for a really fun class at HOPE days that I would happily do again. I had a series of How to Draw books that we used for ideas when stuck. Fine Art Adventures was a great book as well that we have used. You must check out this Doll Crafts book as well. So many great ideas for making dolls! Don’t fail to check out the Get into Art Places book. These are just a few of the great books I’ve been honoured to review.

If you want to learn art, there are so many ways to do so. 🙂

SchoolhouseTeachers has over 20 art classes as well as many art components mixed into her other courses. Some of the teachers are Art Achieve, Jan Bower, Everyday Easels, Inkscape and Studio for Teens. Do check out their amazing deal. $5 for a month of art? Videos and on-line lessons. Access wherever you go. It’s a great deal eh? Get all your school needs met in one place.

And do some art!

Want to Learn Some Specifics?

The Art of Gardening

May 29, 2019 By Annette1 8 Comments

Do you recall my post from a couple of weeks ago? I talked about what’s been keeping me busy lately? Well seeing as it’s Wednesday I and normally (when I have arty type books) do an art post, I figured gardening is another type of an art form isn’t it? At least the art of gardening seems real to me.

I’ve been busy moving gardens around. They used to be vertical to the rabbitry but I found that didn’t leave me a lot of space for when I do a major clean up. Easy for me to trip and fall. I thought I’d move them horizontal and see how much room that left me. TONS more room! 🙂

So here’s the old way they were set up looking out from the rabbitry.

And the new way I have them set up, again looking out from the rabbitry.

What I’ve ended up giving myself is an extra two feet for maneuvering rabbitry items in and out. I have goals to rearrange where the mice are, and where our pet rabbit Wafer’s cage are but that will take time, some figuring out and room to move. That bare patch of dirt below is the room I gained, isn’t it great?

You may have noticed those white barrels. My goal is to paint them some lovely colour (whatever is recycleable paint cans) at some point, probably not til late August for me to get that done. These three above hold my mint. I think it will make them more containable! Mint spreads fast if you let it.

Art of gardening

This is my newest bed, well okay, perhaps not my NEWEST bed, but it’s my “make me smile” bed. Buttercups, allium, irises, lilies and daisy type flowers. They make my heart smile when they flower. Isn’t that what art does? Make a heart smile? Gardening does it for me.

And of course my metal chicken! I have other garden things to put in here yet, but just haven’t gotten them in yet from my original perennial bed. My mom gave me those green chickens that are hidden under a coreopsis plant. Brilliant yellow flowers will come out in July (if this wet weather ever goes away).

I used to have a lovely BIG rooster in my perennial bed. But chicken met active boys and unfixable damage happened so I lost that lovely big rooster. I was rather sad but accidents happen when boys are having fun, apologies happened and life moves on. Someday I hope to replace him.

IGNORE the weeds PLEASE! I haven’t gotten to them yet, but do enjoy my purple allium. Isn’t it lovely? 🙂

Behind the perennial bed I have my fruit bushes. Gooseberry, black currant and goji berry. I am hopeful this year to get more than TWO goji berries. They do have a lovely taste. If they don’t start producing better I’ll be getting rid of them. I’ll give them this year and next to prove themselves. A friend told me I have berries coming, so maybe I need to yell at the squirrels and birds faster. 🙂 My red currants are on the other side of the yard. Bigger bushes so they need more room to spread out.

Next Project

I’m actually divided on what my next project is. The biggest part of me wants to move these three small gardens and then move the pond up two feet and three feet longer. I’ve done a bit of research on how to make a better pond and want to put that knowledge to work.

BUT then again, I have a front bed that needs some rather significant work on it. I’m kinda wondering if that will need to wait until the fall though. Bushes to move, new ones to start. If I bend down a branch and weight it on the ground I can start a new bush and kill off the old one…. the original is too close to the house. I want the bush, but not the work of digging it all up, so if I can get a new one growing then I have less work overall.

So overall I think pond and small gardens first. Oh that reminds me.. I need to bring my dahlias up out of the basement!

I have convinced out bumble bee to let me move her home (hence the bare patch in-between the gardens). She didn’t sting me when I moved her home and I’ve seen her going in and out from where I moved her hollow log too, so that was a huge YAY for me. 🙂

This fellow here is a big part of my reason to change up our pond. I want to make a deeper end so that we can put in water lilies and other pond plants. I want to encourage dragonflies, water striders, frogs, toads and other such critters to come hang out. It doesn’t need to be pretty (though that would be nice) but it mostly needs to be inviting. Right now our goldfish & catfish are happy, but I want more critters. I also love the moss growing. I have NO CLUE why, but it makes me happy so it stays.

Did you know that SchoolhouseTeachers. com has a huge selection are gardening helps? Free organizers, copywork, colouring pages, and plant observations pages as well as member only resources for square foot gardens, raised beds, sensory gardens, designs for garden containers and so much more. It’s remarkable the number of resources they have. I may have my lad work through some of it to get a horticultural credit.

Builds By The Lad

April 24, 2019 By Annette1 6 Comments

Nerfed Sniper Rifle. This thing works amazingly well! It shoots really far and accurately. Took him a day thinking, permission to rework his marshmallow shooter and a day’s solid labour.

His shield, which I just think is amazing. This project took him about a week from start to finish.

He’s also made this highly accurate crossbow. It took him a long time to make it. This is the second one he’s made and you could tell that he learned a lot from the first one. Better cordage, better shafts and a more accurate trigger system. It’s well made and he won a first place with his cadet corp.

The lad asked me today why I take pictures of the things he builds. I said “it’s cause I’m proud of you”.

His response what that he doesn’t want everyone knows all his business. He DID give me permission to do ONE post but I’m not to share it everywhere and make a big deal about it. 🙂 He also doesn’t want it on facebook and what not. I’ve gotta respect his business right? 🙂

The New Jumbo Book of Easy Crafts

January 30, 2019 By Annette1 8 Comments

Looking for easy to make crafts for a variety of ages? Enter in The New Jumbo Book of Easy Crafts. 150 crafts of a wide variety to entertain and educate the children and youth in your life.

The New Jumbo Book of Easy Crafts give you over 150 crafts to choose from. With clear step-by-step instructions, crafts organized into four themed sections, and detailed colourful illustrations, even the littlest hands can make a big impression.

Four sections divide up the 150 crafts provided in this book.

Imagine and Create
Wear and Use
Make and Play
Decorate and Celebrate

Imagine and Create contains crafts such as wiggling caterpillar, egg-cup chick and rock painting.

Wear and Use gives us pasta jewelry, magic wands and decorated baskets.

Make and Play gives us sock sacks, marble mazes, puzzles, folded frog puppets and much more.

Decorate and Celebrate allows us to make decorated eggs, doily angels, paper cutouts and party favours.

Clear materials lists and instructions makes the completion of each craft a breeze. The full colour pictures put words into image helping to reinforce each step to the completion of a successful craft.

My Thoughts

I like this book! The sheer variety of crafts available and the ease of use make this book a keeper in my eyes. Judy Ann Sadler did an excellent job of putting these crafts together, and Caroline Price’s illustrations brought it all very much to life. The only thing I would have liked would have been to see actual photographs of the finished craft.

Crafts that I want to do… button puppy! It’s too cute! Bead buddies intrigues me for a doll class I still want to teach. The Pom-pom bear would just be fun to give a try to, brings back memories of games I used to play with my lad.

Art