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A few months ago My Big Helper suddenly developed an interest in art.
I'm not sure where this came from, exactly, but I wasn't expecting it. As a preschooler she loved to sing, perform 'shows' for us here at home, and write. She loved helping me in the kitchen and doing projects of all kinds and being together, but art never stood out as anything special to her. If anything, the standouts were writing and singing.
Those things were crowded out of her in the busyness of public school, and I prayed that they'd return when we began to have school here at home.
It didn't turn out exactly as I planned, though, because she fell in love with science at the co-op we joined for her brother's sake, and on top of that, I got blindsided with a love of art.
At first I rather panicked. Art is not exactly my area of expertise, but after thinking about it for a while, I decided that we could figure this out. After all, I did ten years of ceramics in 4-H and painted t-shirts and wooden watermelons and sheep on a whole host of other wooden things, so surely I could keep up with an eight-year-old, right? I once drew a picture of van Gogh in art camp; I could research some artists and their work and their art styles and ...
Suddenly I was overwhelmed.
When our See The Light Art Class DVDs arrived, they were a major blessing, and I began to calm down. I purchased an 'art around the world' kind of book so that we could incorporate art into our regular studies and began to breathe again.
Then I found the Harmony Fine Arts blog that gives weekly art assignments, points you to tips, and then hosts a digital 'art show,' of sorts, the following week.
The format is structured enough that My Big Helper can follow along and study the tips as she wants, but loose enough that we can all play around with the assignments together. This week the three of us had fun trying out oil pastels for the very first time.
In fact, My Little Man, who has never expressed an interest in art and has been quite adamant about not getting messy or handling smelly things, made four pictures with the pastels this week!
This week the assignment was to use oil pastels and make a picture of sunflowers. My Big Helper began by sketching her picture with a pencil, and I could see her using information that the teacher in the Art Class DVDs had provided.
My Big Helper colored, shaded, and blended for hours to get her picture just the way she wanted it. She was thrilled with the way that it came out and wants to hang it in a prominent place in our house- before selling it at her next lemonade stand to raise money for a mission trip to Haiti.
I love seeing my Big Helper so excited about her artwork - and to see her little brother's enthusiasm grow, too. I love even more that Barb at Harmony Fine Arts makes it so easy to teach a variety of art skills to our kids - and provides a great forum where they can share their work.
My Big Helper's finished sunflower piece.
This morning their sunflower pictures will go live in Barb's virtual art show. You can see them here. Wanna join in? There's no registration required, no commitment, and it's totally free.
This is the best kind of art show.
For more GratiTuesday, visit Heavenly Homemakers.
**Be sure to check out my art giveaway starting today at noon!
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