Art Instruction Books with DVD and BluRay: An ARTistic Pursuits Inc. Review

Art is often so neglected in our education.  For some, it doesn't seem like real learning and for others it is just so daunting a subject to teach.  The truth is, it should be neither!  Exploring the arts and having fun is so important to brain development and learning.  A good way to make that happen is to find good resources.  We are reviewing a standard in homeschool art curriculum, ARTistic Pursuits Inc. again and this time they have added a video feature!  The Artistic Pursuits Art Instruction Books with DVD and BluRay series includes: 

• Art for Children, Building a Visual Vocabulary
• Art of the Ancients
• Art of the Middle Ages
• Artists that Shaped the Italian Renaissance

For this review we received Art for Children, Building a Visual Vocabulary, the first in the series. It sets the framework for the other books by solidifying the student in the terms and ideas works of art are built on.  It includes 12 lessons in the book and 6 corresponding video lessons on DVD and BluRay. The materials required are listed in the front, but also individually as needed in each lesson.  The videos lessons introduce the new materials or mediums used and demonstrates how students are to use them.  Each non-video lesson takes about 10 minutes to complete.

What We Thought

My kids love art so they are probably going to like anything related to art.  They indeed did enjoy working in through these lessons, especially the video ones.  The landscape picture below was made by my 7 year old simply from watching the #3 video lesson and without any help from me.  One of the goals of ARTistic Pursuits Inc. is to teach children to make works of art, not just imitations.  I was really impressed by this particular picture of my son's because of the detail in the background that, knowing him, doesn't usually get noticed.

The interesting thing about the video lessons combined with the regular lessons is the varying ways this resource can be used in a day.  There is regular opportunities for different kinds of feedback.  With the videos I could have the kids watch one, but they had the opportunity to pause or go back to see exactly how something was done or just work on their own.  The regular lessons required my involvement at least to introduce and set up the project, before they work on their own for a while.  Each video and non-video lesson are simple enough that I can do it beforehand or with them.

The video lessons are also nice when the kids just want to go on an art binge.  The photo above (lesson #6) was from one such day when they watched all the videos and did parts of all the projects in one day. I'm pretty sure it would be different if I assigned them several different projects, but this way was somehow really appealing.  

ARTistic Pursuits Inc. is a wonderful resource for art education and makes the process so accessible.  If you are interested in finding out more about them or other books available, check out the Crew Members reviews below!

Keep Up With ARTistic Pursuits, Inc. on Social Media: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtisticPursuitsInc     @ArtisticPursuitsInc.
Twitter:  @ARTistic Pursui1