A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Art

Art Book: Kawaii Doodle Class

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Kawaii Doodle Class is a fun softcover book, that was a pleasure to review.  This book is all about creating cute images from food, drink, nature, monsters, everyday items and more. Zainab Khan shows us how to give these items a cute outlook on life and faces with character. 

Zainab Khan takes items you find in everyday life (plus monsters) and turns them into cute creations in a step by step manner.

 Khan shows us the difference that changing line shape and colour means to the creations we build.

Page after page is filled with delightful creations to make your doodles into items of joy and stories waiting to be told.

Khan closes this book with some fun search and find puzzles.

These pages also give the author a chance to show case how all the doodles can fit together.  I look at them all and see how easily these creations could become characters in a story, just from drawing a few simple lines.  None of the lines in this book are overly complicated, anyone with a will to try can learn from this artist.   Simple lines and basic colours makes for fun, cute creations from anything you can find around you.
Kawaii Doodle Class: Sketching Super-cute tacos, sushi, clouds, flowers, monsters, cosmetics, and more.
Zainab Khan
Publisher: Race Point
Pages:
Age: Elementary and up
Type: Art

Reviewed for: Quarto Group

Where can you find it?
Amazon.ca: Kawaii Doodle Class.
Amazon.com:  Kawaii Doodle Class.
 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Art Book: Playful Painting Pets

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Let’s say you have a pet and you like to paint, but you look at said pet and say “I dunno, How can I show off that silky fur?”   Faye Moorhouse comes to your rescue in Playful Painting: Pets. 

In Playful Painting pets, Ms. Moorhouse demonstrates how to paint a wide variety of cats and dogs, she also shows how to do a smattering of other animals as well.

From Fluffy cats

To furry dogs

Faye Moorhouse gives us many ideas for bringing our beloved pets to life on the pages of our art pads.  

She starts off her book talking about tools and techniques.

She then covers dogs: pugs, german shepherds, labs, beagles, Terriers and more.  Some wearing clothes, others with just their fur.  Moving on to cats such as scruffy cats, persian cats, cats on rugs etc.   Other pets are introduced such as hamsters, budgies and rabbits.

Each section concludes with a gallery of the animals covered. 

The part I liked most in this book was her gallery of how to show off your art work.

 I also really appreciated the tips she put within her instructions.

Her step by step instructions

and the different truisms scattered throughout.

It’s a good book to show you how to bring the pets in your life out on paper. 

Playful Painting: Pets – More than 20 fun and clever painting project for animal lovers.
Faye Moorhouse
type: art/techniques/painting
Pages:144
Age: middle school and up
Publisher: Walter Foster
Series: Playful Painting

Reviewed for: Quarto Group

Where can you find it?
Amazon.ca: Playful Painting: Pets: More than 20 fun and clever painting projects for animal lovers.
Amazon.com: Playful Painting: Pets: More than 20 fun and clever painting projects for animal lovers.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Art Book: It’s Great to Create

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Jon Burgerman has created a really fun art book for us to use.  Coming up with 101 creative exercises for anyone to do as they play around doing art.

art create exercises

It’s Great to Create is not a very large book but it is very packed full of ideas.   From writing upside down, to creating self-portraits using household items, and so much more.

These ideas are divided into 

  • prompts for paper
  • prompts for objects
  • Prompts for indoors and outdoors

Along with various resources you can use.   In this section Mr. Burgerman talks about the items such as pens, pencils, paints, and brushes available as well as other items.  

Can you imagine making a poem using colour?  I want to try this with some 6-8 year olds and see what they come up with!  🙂

 Some of these ideas make me want to do a fun night of 10 minute art challenges with my home school group.   Can you… create with colour, can you do a self-portrait while blind folded, can you make a smudge animal, and so on and so forth.  Wouldn’t that just be a hoot?  Think quick, don’t worry on perfection, just do it!  Remove the fear from art and just have fun.

  
What do you think?   Doesn’t it look like a fun book?   I think so.  🙂

It’s Great to Create: 101 Fun Creative Exercises for Everyone
Jon Burgerman
Chronicle Books
Size: approximately 5 x 4
Age range: all ages
Type: art book
Pages: 224

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books. 

Where can you find it?
Amazon.ca: It’s Great to Create.
Amazon.com:  It’s Great to Create.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Art Book: Spread Your Wings and Fly

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Spread your wings and fly is a unique origami book.   

I honestly didn’t know what I thought of it at first, I expected a typical origami book where it shows a picture of a folded paper creation and then shows you how to make it.

paper crane origami

This book takes a somewhat different tack.

It’s a like a person conducting an individualized workshop that takes into account the merit of the person being taught.

As you continue to work your way through this delightful book you learn how to make an origami crane.  How neat is that?   The pictures show you what to do, the actions remind the reader to consider their own talents and abilities as well, so many life lessons to be found in the building of a paper crane.

 I found the artwork to be ..oh so interesting, so full of images and things to look at, things to consider that went along so well with the accompanying text.

 Look at all the details in the images, aren’t they fantastic?  I can see the interest everyone has in the child on the sidewalk, whatever happened do you think?   The excitement of the dog… just so much to talk about as you work on folding the paper just so to make it look like an ice cream cone.

This book was a delight!  🙂   You really should check it out if you are interested in learning origami, in particular how to make a crane.  

All steps are shown again at the end of the book, so you can concentrate on making the crane without the distraction of the story.

Take it home, enjoy it.

Spread your Wings and Fly
a fold-and-tell story
Author: Mary Chloe Schoolcraft Saunders
Illustrator: Carla McGregor Mihelich
Publisher: Bear Cub Books
Pages: 46
Hardcover

Where can I find it?
Amazon.ca: Spread your wings and fly.
Amazon.com: Spread your wings and fly, a fold-and-tell story. 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Art Book: A First Book of Canadian Art

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A First Book of Canadian Art was put together by Richard Rhodes.

It’s a rather interesting book that is not about doing art, but about seeing what Canadian artists have done. It’s a walk through history from First Peoples through to the 1990’s. 

Types of art as well as individual artists are discussed. I was pleased to find Homer Watson discussed, as I’ve been to the gallery they have set up in his honour in Kitchener.

It’s a great book full of facts and interesting tidbits. Pictures and text laid out well to help the reader understand the history of art in Canada.  The artists mentioned span the forms that art can take from photographers, painters, sculptors and more.

Geared for middle school or for a parent to read with a child, picking out key elements to share, or to at least be able to answer a child’s questions.  It’s a nice book for introducing Canadian artists.

A First Book of Canadian Art.
Richard Rhodes
Series: Wow Canada
Canadian Art Foundation
72 pages
Hardcover, oversized
Published by Owl Books

Where can you find it?
Amazon.ca:  A First Book of Canadian Art.
Amazon.com: A First Book of Canadian Art.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Art Book: StickerBomb Journal Galaxy

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Know what I was doing the other day?   Cleaning off book shelves.  Oh my!  It was amazing the books I pulled off and said “I don’t need to keep this book”.  So out it went.   A good 10 of them were space exploration books, my son is done exploring space so they headed off to the book sale.

When I brought in the mail, this little gem was in the packet from Raincoast.  I looked and thought hmm.. odd little sticker book and then I REALLY looked at it and noticed..it’s not a sticker book, it has sticker for personalization, but it’s really a journal.   How cool would this have been for my boy to use while we were studying space!!

He could have jotted down notes, drawn pictures, pasted in images and what not.  It would have been all contained in one neat looking space oriented journal.

The page quality is wonderful.  Thick without being cumbersome, and 128 pages!!!   So much room seriously!    Even if you didn’t want to use it as part of a study, it’s a great journal just for jotting down notes and what not. 

Four pages of stickers are included to personalize the cover.  That’s over 100 stickers to use to make this journal your own.   I didn’t test to see if the stickers can be removed and reapplied, so if getting it you’d need to test that out on your own. 

My thoughts:
It’s a really nice journal, geared toward children, that would be just lovely for jotting down thoughts, or using as a notebooking spot when doing a space unit study.  🙂

StickerBomb Journal: Galaxy 
Designed by SRK
Published by Laurence King
Pages: 128
Age: any
Approximately 6 x 8 inches.

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time .

Art Book: The Girl Who Drew Butterflies

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When I first got The Girl who Drew Butterflies I thought cool.. an art book!  I’ll get to see lots of pictures of butterflies and be totally amazed.   Little did I know the wonder and joy I would experience when I realized that it was not only an art book but it was also a science book.  A way to combine two loves!  It’s GREAT!!!!

Imagine you live in a time when people aren’t sure where bugs come from, and no one can really answer the questions of a curious girl child.  Maria, who helped her step-father, Jacob Marrel, with his artistry. He liked to draw still life pictures and Maria would often bring in flowers for him to draw, and found the insects that crawled on them fascinating. 

Her interest was fostered as her step-dad was also interested in the insects as he thought they made his pictures come to life, so she was sent out to gather more for him. 

Maria was so curious about where all these insects came from but no one really knew where they came from.   Perhaps from mud or old clothes?    Marel taught Maria the tools of the trade, teaching her everything he knew. But Maria’s mind was captured by the insects around her and she burned to discover the answers to her questions.

She started with silkworms. Watching everything, drawing it too.

Jotting down everything she could. Asking questions, seeking out the answers to her beloved insects.  Learning how to do this AND fulfill the role destined for her by society.

This is a fascinating book.

I learned so much about what was going in the day.  Witch hunts…seeking after women who varied from what society expected of them.  Women had to be so careful in what they did.  Not receiving recognition for the work they did, yet contributing mightily to society around them.

Gradually society shifted opinions, and just as gradually Maria became known as the caterpillar lady.

She learned, and documented how all moths and butterflies went through the same transformation.

Ah… I want to tell you all that I learned but that would spoil the book for you it would!  It’s just a neat book, really.  I so enjoyed it.   Seeing her determination to stick to her love of insects, her patience .. biding her time, watching, observing, starting over, and her stepping out with what she knew.  

She led a fascinating life and ended up drawing/painting so many pictures with plants and their insects.   Showing the world their beauty as she could best show it.

She was simply a fascinating lady, well focused on her life’s passion, and so determined to see it through.

To see all the she saw and be able to document everything… so fantastic!

Read the book, be inspired.  See art teach science something new.

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Marian’s Art Changed Science.
Joyce Sidman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
160 pages.
Age: 10-12 

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books
 

Where can you get it?

Amazon.ca: The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science

Amazon.com: The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science

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This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites