A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Art

Culture Happens

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Over this past year we’ve added some “Culture” to our lives.   We’ve done this mostly through the Centre in the Square, but have added some other venues as well.  We are trying to make more “Culture Happen” in our lives.

This year we took advantage of the Centre in the Square in Kitchener’s new subscriber package.   This package said that if you bought one package, you got a second package free.  WOOT WOOT!   That means that sometimes dad takes mom out on a date, and sometimes he takes son out on a date.  🙂   It was a wonderful deal, cheaper than going out to the movies and just as fun.

We taken in a few concerts so far.

Dancing through the Decades dad and I went to.  We had a blast.  Just so much fun.  I wanted to dance but my body was hollering at me to just set still, so I did but had a hoot watching the Dancers up front.

Dad and son went to another …they got all dressed up and fancy like.  Enjoyed a nice meal out and came back full of laughter and conversation.

We all went to the behind the scenes subscribers night.  Learning all the special things that make the Centre in the Square the world-class place that it is.   It was a rather neat event.

Other events we’ve taken in:

The Musical Little Women at the Christian High School.

There was something else… the musical night here in town at Christmas.   Singing, readings, lots of music.  🙂

I am hopeful this year to find a theatre production or two that is affordable to go to with the lad, take in a play or two now that he’s getting older and more aware of what is going on.  Would be fun to see his reaction now that he’s a bit older again to some of the longer plays that say…. Stratford Theatre puts on like the Shakespeare, or the comedies.  Time will tell.  

 

Art Book: Things I Love, an imaginative illustration journal

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Draw, Color, Sticker has put out a sketchbook called Things I love.  This is a book meant to guide you in your search to find your inner doodle.  So join me as I walk you through this imaginative illustration journal.

The first half of this book is done in four page sets.  One two page set with completed illustrations so you can fill in the colours and let your mind wander about how you might like to set up the page, the next two page spread gets you started off, but then allows you to recreate the first two page spread or to change it to suit your personal tastes.

Color, Draw, Create… add stickers… there’s 500 of them in the last half of the book to add. These stickers are designed to coordinate with the pages in the book.  Done up in with a lot of pink, blue and yellow. Simple drawings to enhance the drawings already there.

My thoughts:

I honestly don’t know what age this is geared for, and so it’s hard for me to judge the sketchbook well.  The drawings in it are simplistic and yet a bit complicated so at first glance I might think it’s geared for children, but then at a second glance I think perhaps good for older individuals.  So it’s really hard to say.  My younger sister thought it was a book geared for students age 5-9 years.  Just the right age to get them started, with stickers to inspire them on their journey.  🙂

Things I love Sketchbook: An Imaginative Illustration Journal
Series: Draw, Color & Sticker
Caralyn Gavin
Quarry Books
Softcover, 64 pages
Art, drawing, artist, 

Review for: Quarto Group

 

STEM: 3D viewer by Tinker Crates

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My son and I have been doing KiwiCrates for a while now, and last year finally upgraded to doing the TinkerCrates. Tinker Crates are for kids 9-16.  They are a bit more involved and have a fair number of projects available to them in the TinkerZine.

When we first started doing the crates, the lad needed a lot of support from me in order to finish them, so I think it is just superb watching his confidence blossom.  It admittedly took a while for my sensitive minded boy to realize that as much as mom LIKES building these crates with him, I also LOVED watching him branch out on his own with Tinker Crates.  Now of course, there is no stopping him.

Recently he took on this project “3D Viewer”

It was great to watch him work through the stages to building it, step by step.  He played close attention to the instructions. The instructions are so clear, and the images show the pieces exactly, so properly making the3D viewer is pretty easy to do “as long as you pay attention, make sure you tell them that part okay mom?”.   So pay attention, don’t miss steps, and you can make your own 3D Viewer.

Slowly but surely it came together.   Piece upon piece, fitting together just perfectly.

It hardly seemed like anytime had passed and he was calling me “come see mom, come see”.  And low and behold we had a 3D viewer.

Once he finished this big build he turned his attention to the smaller activities found in the tinker zine.   Here he learned about perspective by looking at some art, and playing with 3D mirrors.

My son really likes the tinkerzines because “they tell you stuff, like more about what you just built, and teach you new ways to look at stuff”.   “They give you good small projects to try too”.

After seeing how perspective was influenced by a 3d mirror he had a chance to try his hand at drawing within that knowledge.  It worked!   I’m glad he figured it out because I struggled with this one.  He’s got a better grasp on the spatial aspect of things I guess.

  To see this viewer being built, check out this video.

Anyways, Tinker Crates are a great monthly addition to our home.  I hope you will consider them for your home as well.  They are a great way to involve your children in a monthly STEM project and have fun learning.  Foster that independence, learn some good science, you never know where it will take you.

In case you are curious, Kiwi Crates also makes crates for children of all ages and interests.  Cricket, Koala, Kiwi, Doodle and Tinker.  I am tempted to get the doodle crate as well….just to see what type of activities they put in them for artists to do.   But so far, the Tinker Crates are a hit.

Now if you want to round our your experiences with Tinker Crates, NotebookingPages.com will be on sale January 24-26. Here you can find all sorts of notebookingpages to help round our your studies with the Tinker Crate.  It’s worth your time to check out their lifetime membership.

Art Book: Maya Lin – Thinking With Her Hands

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Have you ever visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C.?   Have you seen it’s mirrored surfaces and how it brings the past toward the present, bringing unity?  In Maya Lin: Thinking With Her Hands, we learn the story of the artist behind this memorial.

This was a very interesting book to read, it was fascinating to see into the mind of a young woman as she worked on her skills in architecture and design, seeing her reasoning behind why she builds memorials the way she does.   I just love stories about the why of how people do things, it’s always a fascinating look into the mind and will of another person.  I thought it clever the way the chapters were labeled with building mediums. 🙂

We are brought from her early life, onwards to her current projects.  Well-written text with good illustrations brought her life and her work into clarity.  Written on a level for middle school and high school students to easily read and understand. As an adult, I was able to read through the book in about an hour.

I loved the graphics…all the real life pictures along with the occasional topographical map, brought her work to understanding in my mind, about the effort involved to bring her concepts to life.  She built so many sculptures, and takes her time working to truly understand the project before making a decision about how to approach it.  I appreciated the fact that she used all sorts of mediums to convey her thoughts.. moulding the ground, building with various materials, utilizing water, weather, and more. 

The typeface used was a clear and not muddied, very easy to read.  You need to check out a map she was working with to create a sculpture using the earth?  Neat eh?

One of the elements I most appreciated was how they showed Maya Lin’s determination to have her work presented in the way she deemed best WHILE she took her opponents thoughts into perspective.  Not forcing her own way, but using their thoughts to improve her own work.   It shows humility combined with skill.. and that’s a good thing to have eh?

My Thoughts:

This would be an excellent book to have any middle schooler read and think about it. It’s good to see how people think about how their past can affect their future, and how even a school project can get you noticed. Maya Lin took a chance and succeeded. Taking in advise from others and knowing how to stick to your goals and ideas, and how to modify them if needed. It would be a nice add-on to a study of the Vietnam War as well as other memorials scattered around the United States. 

Maya Lin: Thinking with her hands
Susan Goldman Rubin
Chronicle Books 
Age 10+
112 pages, hardcover
Biography, art, Architect, architecture
Middle School

Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Where can you buy it?  

Amazon link.

Art Books off Weebly Account

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Okay, I have been doing art books on my blog in life FOREVER.  🙂   I love reviewing art books, there are so many options out there it’s amazing.  Some books are good, others are meh, but it’s good to review them eh?

I haven’t been able to figure out how to get my weebly posts over here at this point so I thought I’d just a link here and then people can go there to look if they have an art book they want to look at.  Who knows, maybe some day I’ll do an actual page just simply listing them off.. that’d be kinda neat too eh?

Anyways, art books from my weebly account can be found here.  Also here.

Art Book: Meet Cindy Sherman

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Cindy Sherman, an chameleon of a person who is also an artist and a photographer… likes to do things in her own way, allowing people to interpret her art in their own way.   In this book children are invited to see her art and say what they think of it.    Today I invite you to bring YOUR students along to interpret her art in their own way as well.  Meet Cindy Sherman: Artist, Photographer, Chameleon.

I half expect Cindy and I might get along as I also like to let individuals do art in their own way.  Giving parameters and lessons and letting them live out their vision of how they think it can be worked out.   It’s what makes art fun.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading the comments from different children about her work, some of them making up stories to go behind what they see, others describing colours and attitudes, and still others describing their emotion at the image.   That mix in attitudes and emotion intrigue me when it comes to introducing children to art. 

We are introduced to Cindy Sherman in all her many forms, and her life as she explored art.   Starting a child playing dress up to an adult experienced in her craft. A child could easily read this book as the language is written at a good level for upper elementary and middle school students.  We read of the work she did and HOW she went about achieving her ends.. from scouring thrift stores, to covering the walls of her room with images from the past, getting friends to help her take pictures in different locations.   She explores what makes a person…can a person wearing a wig and beard dressed in men’s clothes really be the same as the lady wearing a lovely dress and done up all nice?

Now, all this said, I can’t say I really appreciate all of her work, but I do appreciate the sentiment behind her work and therefore, should I ever see her work it gives me a glimpse into her mindset and therefore helps me appreciate what her aim is.   People being people without worrying about the window-dressing.  🙂

Cindy is a persistent lady with a vision of what she wants to accomplish in her art.  This book is well worth giving any prospective art student as an encouragement to them to continue in their endeavors. 

  
Meet Cindy Sherman: Artist, Photographer, Chameleon
Jan Greenburg & Sandra Jordan
Roaring Book Press
64 pages, ages 7-12
art, softcover, opinion, artist, middle school

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

Activities to Help with Snowflake Bentley

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Thank you Leah for helping me out on my blog today.  Welcome!
I love biographies. Even young children can appreciate them when you read aloud a great picture book biography. When you add some fun and academic activities after you read, you can turn the biography into a great learning opportunity. 

The children’s book Snowflake Bentley is the story of Wilson Bentley, a boy who grew up in Vermont. As a boy he loved the beauty of snowflakes and longed to one day capture their artistry with a camera so that others could appreciate it. As a grown man, Wilson, nicknamed Snowflake Bentley, was able to demonstrate this beauty through his skill as a scientist and artist.

 
Snowflake art and science activities
 
These activities will help you to explore the science and art of snowflakes with your kids after you read the book Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. 

Snowflake Art Activities

Make beautiful crayon resist snowflakes with the instructions at Classic Play.
 
 
Find some great printable snowflake templates at What Mommy Does. Kids could color or paint these or decorate them with glitter.
 
Make snowflake art on canvas with this fun activity from Kids Activities Woo!
 
 
Use pattern blocks to make snowflakes with the templates here at Moms Have Questions Too.

Snowflake Science Activities

 
Little Bins for Little Hands has instructions for making snowflakes with salt crystals.
 
 
 
Kids can learn about symmetry and do some STEM exploration with the Snowflake Tinker Tray idea at What Can We Do With Paper and Glue.
 
Explore how much water is in snow with this experiment from Discover. Learn. Connect.
 
Enjoy reading Snowflake Bentley and learning about the beauty and science of snowflakes with these activities.

Leah Courtney is a homeschooling mom of four. Her days are filled with being a mom, homemaker, and teacher. In her (very rare) free time, she enjoys blogging, reading, and reviewing books and curricula. These days she’s learning the joys of being a mom of teens. You can read about her family and homeschooling life at As We Walk Along the Road.