Using a grid to draw

In our Art Appreciation lessons we love to copy great art works and images.  An easy way to accurately copy pictures is by using a grid.  Here are some of our Peerneef artworks we painted using a grid ~

Instead of drawing the grid from scratch each time, I created transparent grid lines on MSWord in several sizes which you can lay over any image.  Here’s your free download ~ Transparent grid

To create your own grid over a picture  do the following ~

1. Download and save the Transparent Grid to your computer.
2. Open a new Word document.
3. Insert the image you want to use for your art work.  You need to click”Wrap Text” on the top menu and select “In Front of Text” so that you can freely move and position your image.
4. Open the Transparent Grid doc and select and copy the grid size best suited for your image. (Use the very small blocks for very detailed pictures, or the large grid blocks for larger shaped images)
5. Paste the grid over your image and position as needed.
6. Save.
7. You can work directly from your computer screen onto your own art paper or print out your image with the grid.

Here’s an important CHEAT ~ You can create a pencil sketch of your image using the free photo editing package “Picasa“.

Open the image in Picasa, select the blue icon “Even more fun and useful image processing” button, click the “Pencil Sketch” option, and “Save as”.  Now insert this outline image in your grid for even easier copying!

Prepare your own art page and create a grid to match your printout, in the same ratio of blocks across in rows and down the side, but these blocks can be larger than your printout if you want to enlarge your image.  In other words, if your grid image has 4 blocks across and 5 blocks down, then your art page should also have 4 across and 5 down.  If the printout grid lines are 2 x 2 cm, you can create your art page grid lines 4 x 4 cm (or larger) so that your new image is larger and fills your art page.

Now you are ready to sketch the image on your grid printout or on your computer screen.

• Work block by block, copying the lines, angles and shapes in that block.
• Use where the shapes intersect the grid lines as your measure.
• Work with the large shapes first and then add the details.
• Once you have your outline, gently erase the grid lines and you are ready to paint!

But there is an easier way! Art Tutor has an excellent Grid Tool that does this all for you ~ http://www.griddrawingtool.com/   Simply follow the step-by-step tutor and download and save your grid image to your computer.

So now you can recreate any image or picture on your page using the grid lines as guides to make your own art!  Enjoy!

Blessings, Nadene

South African Artists

New Package Release!

Introducing a brand new package ~ South African Artists  Art History & Appreciation study which covers 18 notable South African artists from the 19^th century to modern contemporary artists.  This artist study is designed for middle and high school students for Art History & Art Appreciation.   South African Famous Artists will work perfectly for the Little Footprints, Footprints on our Land and Footprints into the 21st Century curriculums.

We follow a Charlotte Mason approach where we study and appreciate one artist for a month.  Each week we view one new art work and I encourage detailed observations, discussions, further research, narrations, and supporting art activities for that art work.

The download includes detailed biographies, Internet links and at least 4 examples of each artist’s works, as well as a blank biography page for narrations and notes.Here is a free sample for you to download ~ South African Artists Sample

I highly recommend Willemien Kruger’s Homeschooling Curriculum Guide.com  where she features her mom’s Elna Venter’s booklets South African Art Series For Children featuring several South African artists.

Pop over to my Packages Page to purchase this download.

Blessings,  Nadene

Spring Bouquet Alisa Burke-Style

I subscribe to Alisa Burke‘s blog and receive her inspiration almost daily in my inbox!     She is a prolific artist and we often create motivated by ideas, such as here  and our first bouquets.

This week we were inspired by her post “A peek into my process” ~

Kate, who loves to pick and arrange flowers from my garden, collected an amazing array of brightly colored and textured spring flowers.

She used Alisa’s process, and took apart the petals and painted color testers.  She then painted a beautiful bouquet.

Lara painted her bouquet and created detailed outlines. 

Somehow, she and Kate “swapped ” their styles from their previous bouquet paintings.  I used my waterproof black ink in my fountain pen and sketched all the flowers. Using waterpaints, I painted the flowers and leaf-shaped background. We really enjoyed painting our flowers!

Pop over to my Art Page for all my art inspiration lessons and downloads.

Blessings,

Bouquet Art Alisa Burke-style

We have done loads of Alisa Burke–inspired art, as seen here .   She is a prolific artist, creating art and posting her sketchbook pages, her art processes and designs, studio updates, tips, fabulous tutorials and art ideas on her blog almost daily.

Her ideas often spark a creative art ideas for us, and this week we were inspired by her post “a peek inside my sketchbook – one bouquet 3 ways“.

I used a glorious bouquet of pincushion proteas and king proteas, now sadly fading, as  my bouquet inspiration. 

Lara and Kate created their own bouquets with loose watercolors on their page and black pen details ~

Find a contemporary artist for new ideas, new techniques or approaches to art.

Pop over to my Art Page for all my art inspiration lessons and downloads.

Blessings,

Klimt’s Tree of Life

Continuing from our previous Summer Art Klimt painting,

we painted our own versions of Klimt’s

Tree of Life

I printed out an outline picture found on Google and we both had fun painting!

Lara painted her tree “ombre” colors.

I painted my background in gold, typical, I felt, of Klimt’s style.

Here’s another Klimt Art project  found on Deep Space Sparkle.

Blessings,

New Music and Art Timeline

I created a new Music and Art Timeline.   This is a helpful Fine Arts tool, identifying both famous musicians and their music styles, as well as famous artists and their masterpieces displayed in parallel.

How to use the timeline:

• Print out and bind as is, or add to a Book of Centuries.
• Cut and paste the pages side-by-side/ under each other as a visual Fine Arts timeline.
• Add artwork thumbnails to a timeline on a wall.
• Cut the artworks and paste them on cards and let children match the artists to the eras.

Here is the download ~Art and Music Timeline, fresh and newly updated!

Recently Homeschool Freebies of the Day featured my Art Era Timelines to email subscribers.  Subscribers often get links to special freebies that you will not find openly on the Internet, so it is worth joining their subscription list!

Blessings, Nadene

Alisa Burke Art Inspiration

Each month I try to introduce my children to a new contemporary artist for new ideas, new techniques or approaches to art.  (Pop over to my Art Page for all my art posts.)

Although I have recently shared about Jane Davenport and her “Beautiful Faces”, this post is about an artist I discovered last year and who profoundly influenced me …

Alisa Burke is an awesome contemporary artist!  

She is a prolific artist, creating art and posting her sketchbook pages, her art processes and designs, studio updates, tips, fabulous tutorials and art ideas on her blog almost daily.

Anyone who knows me personally will have noticed the impact of her art, style and fashion in my life. In fact, I literally remodeled my wardrobe according to an “Alisa Burke Look”!  Here’s a page I put together from her Fashion Friday posts ~

I even figured out her style “formula” = Crisp white or black + geometric patterns / polka dots / stripes +  a pop of bold, clear color = I am a serious fan!

Of course, we have done quite a lot of Alisa Burke-inspired art here at home ~

She and her hubby and little 3-year-old often do collaborative art, which is really amazing.

 

Kate recently created these painting based on Alisa’s and her hubby’s latest collaboration ~

And here’s Kate’s art inspired by Alisa’s beautiful portrait above ~

 

 

Another stunning Alisa-inspired portrait done by Kate ~

And here’s my doodle page of art inspired by Alisa Burke ~

Expand your artistic wings and use some contemporary artist inspiration and fly!  It is wonderful to learn and experience art through someone else’s discoveries and creativity!

Blessings,

Notice Board – Famous Artists & Composer

Here is the last post featuring our new homeschooling notice board ~

Famous Artist & Composer

Our Famous Artist studies have been really rich and rewarding.  This year I selected several famous artists, as well as some featured in Patti’s posts on All Things Bright and Beautiful. (Patti prepares a weekly art, music and poetry study with links & sources – all done for you!)

After I read a brief biography as an introduction to a famous artist, we chose one famous artwork and study it quietly (either in an art book, a postcard-sized printout, online or as an image saved as a screen saver).  I encourage my children to try to re-create the painting as a detailed, visual, mental image and ask them to tell me what they noticed in the painting, and importantly, what feelings the colours, textures, objects, placement, space, and details in the painting created.  My kids enjoy creative discussions about the mood of the painting, or how it made them feel. I encourage them to form a personal connection with the artwork.

Sometimes we may do an art appreciation lesson where I may trace an outline of the picture and they can paint or colour it for themselves.  We also jot and paste a thumbnail of the artist in our Book of Centuries.  We record the artist and we sometimes refer to my Art Era Timelines. Usually, I am quite happy that they simply recognize the artist and the famous art pieces.

Our music appreciation lessons are very informal.  We simply listen to one of “VOX Music Masters” CD’s, which tell the musician’s life story over his music, while we paint or sketch, or I play a featured music piece each week. Sometimes we watch a YouTube video of a famous music selection.  My children enjoy occasionally filling in a music appreciation notebook page.  You can download all my Famous Musician pages free.

My aim is to instil a love of beautiful music in their hearts and minds.  It is easy – use the hard work and efforts of others like Barb of Harmony Fine Arts.  She has wonderful free Fine Arts plans!

I want to encourage you to conduct your art and music appreciation lessons very informally.  Surround your children with rich, beautiful music and art and cultivate a wonderful fine arts appreciation in your homeschooling!

Much grace, Nadene

Previous Notice Board posts include ~

• Current Affairs
• Nature Study
• Bible Study
• Latin words

Wonderful Works of William-Adolphe Bouguereau

This year we started our art appreciation with works from William Adolphe Bouguereau, a very successful French painter of the 1850’s Paris Salon.

His paintings are beautiful and my daughters have loved looking at his works.

My youngest daughter chose “The Hard Lesson” for our most recent art appreciation lesson.  She orally narrated her observations and agreed to paint her own copy of the painting.

Instead of drawing or tracing an outline of this artwork, I used Picasa‘s “pencil outline” editing option and created a very quick full-page illustration.

Miss.L11 painted her picture, while I used chalk pastels for my painting.  We listened to Brahms as we quietly painted.  An hour or less later, our paintings were finished and hanging on our Art Gallery wall (well, actually on our school room door).  Not a ‘hard lesson’ at all!

And here are your free pages ~

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau Biography & Picture Study
  – includes a blank biography notebooking page and postcard-sized pictures for picture study

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau Wall Chart – includes a brief biography and mini gallery of his paintings
• “The Hard Lesson” outline picture ~ William-Adolphe Bouguereau – Hard Lesson
• Other Famous Artists free pages

May you enjoy this easy lesson in your Fine Arts!

Blessings and much grace,

Pastel Art Appreciation of John Singer Sargent

Chalk pastel art is very popular in our home!

My children begged me for another chalk pastel lesson for our weekly art appreciation …

After viewing several of John Singer Sargent’s paintings, we voted and then, because we couldn’t settle on one, we chose to do 2 paintings ~

Miss.T18 and Miss.K14 focused on “Rosina” 

while Miss.L11 and I selected “A Gust of Wind“

Miss.K used her new birthday gift; her nifty aluminium, collapsible easel to prop up the printouts.

(My hubby and I agreed to buy our 14-year-old some quality birthday gifts to encourage her natural creativity!  Along with the easel which comes in a lovely carry bag,  she  received some canvasses, acrylic paints and a lovely set of drawing pencils.

I purchased some very basic leather tools for her ~ a bag of mixed leather pieces, some needles, waxed thread, special leather pen and eraser, eyelets and studs and an assortment of brads and buckles.)

But, back to Sargent’s art appreciation lessons …

Here are the “Rosina” chalk pastel paintings ~

And here are our “A Gust of Wind” chalk pastel paintings.

This week, my youngest did not once worry or fret about her art work.

Here are free downloads ~

• John Singer Sargent biography page
  
• John Singer Sargent wall chart

The reason my older daughters love chalk pastels is that they can cover ‘mistakes’ with extra layers.  They even use an eraser and rub out small sections!  Because it has a ‘loose’ feel, they do not feel that they have to get the details perfect, but I am stunned by the clarity and detail they achieve.

Chalk pastels are a simple medium which produce  gorgeous effects.  I love the color combinations, the smudged effect when you rub an area, the quick way you can cover a whole page with the side of the chalk .

We use all three types ~ the basic chalk pieces, really good quality wrapped chalk pieces and my extra-special set of chalk pencils.  We have discovered that one cannot really use the chalk pencils over other chalked areas, so now we save the area where we want to use the pencils for the last phase, when we ‘pull out’ the details.

We each use a section of toilet paper to keep our hands fairly clean, and we quickly wipe the dust off  the plastic tablecloth with a damp cloth.

I really encourage you to try chalk pastels for some of the less detailed, precise art works you and your children may study!

Blessings,