A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Art Series

Art Book Series: Claude Monet:Sunshine and Waterlilies

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The small book on Claude Monet is written as though a young person was writing a report for school, complete with what she likes and doesn’t like about Monet’s painting and some of the food he liked it eat.   It covers from his early years til the end of his life.

It’s a rather neat little book just packed full of pictures and text about Monet.  Did you know that Monet had a temper and if he didn’t like his work he’d rip it up or throw it into the river (if out in a boat mind you).

One of the nice touches I thought the comparison of Renoit and Monet doing the same scene.  Each artist had his own touch.    Both I think are great.  Two friends who often painted together. Neighbours, Friends, Rivals, both Impressionists.

I love the multitude of images and the easy read font.  I found it fascinating seeing Monet’s early work and how much it changed the longer he was an artist.   

For instance this early one : La Pointe De La Heve at Low Tide
As Opposed this later one: San Giorgio Maggorie by Twilight.

Monet was well known for liking to paint the same scene at different times of the day. He loved to be outdoors painting rather than indoors doing portraits or still-life images.  It took a long time for his style of art work to be accepted, but when they did, it enabled him to build an awning to sit under when he painted, it meant he didn’t need to live with friends or only eat beans for months on end.

This was a very interesting book that piqued my (and my son’s) interest in Monet.

 Claude Monet: Sunshine and Waterlilies
Author: Steven Packard
Illustrator: True Kelley
Published by Grosset & Dunlop
Series: Smart about Art
32 pages

Where to find it:
Amazon.ca: Claude Monet: Sunshine and Waterlilies

Amazon.com: Claude Monet: Sunshine and Waterlilies (Smart About Art)

Here’s a neat series of videos about Monet:

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 Series: 1-2-3 Draw

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 Today I have a book from my own collection. 1-2-3 Draw, a  neat coil bound book that teaches the student how to draw a variety of objects. 

One of the things I like about this book is how it LIES FLAT.  Oh heavens, too many art books don’t which means you need to weight down the book in order to use it effectively.   Having a coil ring art book makes it easy to display if showing a classroom or to lie flat as you learn.

Five sections to choose from including: wild animals, dinosaurs, farm animals, knights/castles and vehicles.

It’s a book of simple line drawings, walking the student through a series of circles and lines to help them accomplish their drawings.  Learning the technique for one animal, object or person will help them learn how to do it for others.

Followed by inspiration on how to put it all together.   Each section ended with a picture of how you might put it all together.  

Not only that, as you learned to draw an animal, object or item, you were given a brief spot of information about it.

 All in all a good book to learn how to draw different things.  The only thing my son and I dislike is that some of the animals are a bit disproportionate (legs being too long for the body), but that is easy enough to fix eh?  🙂

 1-2-3 Draw: Super Fun Stuff
 Author: Freddie Levin
Publisher: Peel Productions, Inc.

Five books in one

 
 
Where to Find it?
Amazon.ca: 1-2-3 Draw Super Fun Stuff: 5 Books in One

Amazon.com: 1-2-3 Draw Super Fun Stuff: 5 Books in One

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 Series: Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting

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It is my total delight to introduce DoodleMom to you, also known as Kirsten to the blog today. I put a call out for people to do an art book post for the blog and Kirsten stepped up to the challenge. 🙂

Kirsten blogs at  DoodleMom’s Homeschooling Life and is a new to me blogger this year.  Let me tell you…she is a gal who makes me think and ponder in a way I sometimes don’t expect and that is a good thing eh?  🙂  Keeps me from being stagnant and who wants that eh?

 Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting

I did not notice until recently that a very proper and very, very smart nun with a history of teaching English and Art was also a master of polite sarcasm. 

My kids and I were watching Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting (available free on Docuwatch) and reading another chapter in her book of the same name. Art history with Sister Wendy reinforces and makes additional connections to the events and people of the history the kids are learning, as well as helping them to understand composition and technique. And Sister Wendy is also teaching my kids the fine art of polite sarcasm. 

My children sat on either side of me, magnifying glasses in hand so they could investigate each tiny detail of the paintings discussed in the text. We were looking over Sister Wendy’s comparison of illuminations from England, France, Ireland, and Spain, all from the same rough time period.
And we came to this statement, “Like the Irish monks, the British also produced manuscripts of great beauty, this being one of the very few periods in which the least visual of national groups, the English speakers, attained international fame as artists.”
“Hmmm,” I thought to myself.
As we continued, my children began to pick up on the sarcasm as well. 

We got to the section discussing the Bayeux Tapestry and Sister Wendy wrote, “It displays the same jerky animation that we find in English manuscripts. A sort of Anglo-Saxon glorified comic strip…”
Finally we read through the section on French illumination in which Sister Wendy wrote, “A lovely missal survives…,” and “…with a magnificent pictorial “O” and…”
“OK,” said my son. “She definitely likes the French best and the English least.”  While her sarcasm stings and is quite apparent, it is also exceedingly polite. A grand way to show her preferences and dislikes. 

And, once my children recognized her sarcasm, the whole activity of studying art became an interactive one. First understanding Sister Wendy’s preferences, the reasons behind them, enjoying her wit, and finally forming their own opinions on the art or artist in question.
All in all, a perfect way to study art.

Where to Find More

Book:
Amazon.ca: Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting

Amazon.com: Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting

Documentary: Sister Wendy`s Story of Painting (6 episodes)

 

 

About Kirsten

Kirsten West is a Christian Homeschooling Mom who blogs at DoodleMom’s Homeschooling Life. 

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/

Draw & Discover by Yasmeen Ismail

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 I have a DELIGHTFUL series of books for you to learn about today.  Draw and Discover books by Yasmeen Ismail.   Each book has it’s own theme from emotions, directions, or even perspective. 

I have got to walk you through these books that are geared for the younger crowd! 

One of the aspects of these books that I like is they use simple drawings and text to allow children the freedom to explore the meaning of a word using whatever they want to draw to do so. 🙂   Great paper… a thicker quality that will resist leaking through, ripping, and multiple pencil erasures.

 
The pages leave plenty of room for drawing and colouring. 

There is so much room given for children to express their creative side while learning new words.     Why not use art to help teach?

Each book is 56-64 pages long with a two page spread to help explore a single emotion (excited, sad, proud etc), or opposite words (up/down, push/pull etc). 

If you have a singleton child it is definitely a use it up as you go book, or if you have multiple children, you could use it as a springboard to developing your own pages.

Each book has a hard fly (front and back)that could be used as a book mark or a “put behind the page” sheet to prevent leaking of paint or markers to the next page.
That fly contains all the words used within the book as well, making it a good “let’s look ahead page” or a “let’s review what we’ve learned page”. 

The three books are called:
  
Happy, Sad, Feeling Glad.  Cat and Dog lead the way of exploration.
Inside, Outside, Upside Down.  Bear, Rabbit and Duck are the guides.
Push, Pull, Empty, Full.   Rabbit, Duck and Bear show the way.

All published by Laurence King.   Geared for ages 4-7 years old.  56-64 pages long.  
Everything in these books is designed to get children thinking, doodling, drawing, colouring and learning.   An innovative series by a remarkable children’s author: Yasmeen Ismail.
 

This review is part of an Art series is part of an on-going series of Art books reviewed for your pleasure and resource.    You can find more books here and here. 

Art Series: Fantastic Planets

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I so much enjoy my colouring book Fantastic Collections so when I saw I could review Fantastic Planet I was delighted!  This book is part of a series produced by Chronicle books.    This review is part of an Art series is part of an on-going series of Art books reviewed for your pleasure and resource.    You can find more books here and here.

 Book Synopsis:
Bestselling author Steve McDonald uses his unique photo-based
illustration style to celebrate the fantastic places, flora, and fauna
of the natural world around us. Here are inspiring, fun-to-color images
of lush jungles, teeming reefs, desert landscapes, fruitful orchards,
sun-dappled forests, spectacular waterfalls, majestic trees, tulip
fields, animal migrations, and much more.

My thoughts:

This is a GREAT colouring book.. seriously.
Fantastic images to fill in, that take the whole page, not just part of it.
High quality paper and images…wow… the images. 

I found myself hard pressed to pick which images I wanted to share with you.

 Back to back pictures that fill the page so you have no wasted space.   In the crease of the book one can find a description of what the image is about.

For instance, these alligators are from The Florida Everglades.   Can you see how an image like this might be fun to add to a study on Florida or Alligators?

These books are meant for adults, but I’ve known young teens who have done a stellar job with them.   Just a simply delightful colouring book.   The detail and imagery is simply a delight to fill in, knowing that by the end I will have a picture of a real thing.  

My son loves the tangle of snakes he discovered, my hubby the wolves and the landscape scences, I have a friend I’d love to send the elephants to, if I could figure out how to get it to her undamaged.  🙂   Some of these images, I see them and think, wouldn’t that be nice to add to a study someone is doing on Africa, Indonesia, China and more?  A nice add on for science and geography eh?

So if you like colouring books, my advice is to get this book, You’ll enjoy it.  Draw nature, explore this planet that we live on, and take some time…just for you.  🙂

 
Fantastic Planet: A Coloring Book of Places Real and Imagined
 Steve McDonald
 Chronicle Books
11.48 x 11.87
60 pages

 Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

Art Series: 642 Things about Me.

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You know how art is about more than drawing, painting, cutting, gluing and making.  How art is also about words and how to use them beautifully?   Here is a book to encourage beauty in both of those formats for your young artists and writers.    642 things about me.

Chronicle Books has come out with another 642 things book!    This one is geared for the 8-12 year old writer and artist.    

As you can see there is plenty of space to write and to draw, sometimes to do both for the same topic.

Some of the things you might be asked to write about are:

  • something you collect
  • a cheer you could chant
  • describe what thunder sounds like
  • the music at the dentist office

Things to write and draw

  • an historical figure image, quote, question to ask
  • an artist that inspires, art work, a project you could do

Things you can draw:

  • treasure chest at the bottom of the ocean
  • colossal bike ramp
  • flag of your country
  • a valentine 
  • a merit badge for bravery

So many things to write, to draw.
So many things to see and to listen for.  Thoughts to consider, quotes that inspire.

Get this book into the hands of your young artist and watch them get busy being inspired to learn, draw, grow, and develop.  A good thing yes?

You can find my reviews on 
642 Big Things to Draw
642 Places to Draw.

If looking for the complete series of the 642 books visit Chronicle books.

642 Things About Me: Young Writer’s & Artist’s Edition
Chronicle Books
7.5 x 8.95 
304 pages
Ages 8-12

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

 

Art Series: Earth-Space Coloring Book

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 Imagine a book where you could combine a love of learning, with a love of colouring.   Right now my son is big into astronomy…he’s having fun doing experiments, reading and listening, watching youtube videos…and now he can see pictures of what he is learning about in a softcover colouring book AND if he were so inclined…try to replicate what he sees.

Allow me to introduce to you a  new colouring book.   Earth-Space.  This lovely book is put together by Chronicle Books.

This book is beautiful.   The images of space that are photographs taken from the Archives of NASA.  They are breathtakingly beautiful.

Each picture is labelled so we know just what we are looking at.   We see earth from space, corona australis, the orion nebula, stellar snowflake cluster and so much more.

Some of the images are so close you could almost reach out and touch them, while others really point out the grandeur of God to me…that he could make something so interesting to look at, like the Caterpillar of dust and gas.

Each page opens into two page, the first page of the natural phenomena, the second with it broken down into simple lines.   This breaks the natural beauty seem more attainable to colour.  I have to admit though, I felt intimidated by the idea of trying to replicate the variety of colours presented.  BUT since each image is broken down simple lines, it is easier diverge… take for instance the image of rings of Saturn seen below…the colouring page does not depict ALL the rings, so you can use the colours you have at hand, or if desired…you could completely change it up.  It’s a colouring book… do what you want eh?

As you can see, each colouring page is done with simple lines.  Allowing each area to be coloured in sections, or swirls or whatever you wish.   These lines give you connecting points to the real picture so you can build off that.

Just a fascinating colouring book, that at first (to me looked intimidating) but as I continued to look through and think about it, I just found it fascinating as it’s different then other colouring books, it’s more free form with the lines just providing a grounding to base one’s work off of.  Mix colours, don’t be constrained by lines, and just have fun recreating.

I can EASILY see this being used in an astronomy class with students as well.  Even just to look at the pictures to show the beauty that can be found in the galaxy above us.  🙂


Earth Space Coloring book: Photographs from the Archives of NASA.

Published by Chronicle Books.
Pages: 80
Size 8.63 x 11

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books