Drawing Class

Let's talk about art. At home we do a lot of coloring/sketching. We use crayons, markers, pencils - but I have yet to paint. We have also created and molded. We also do art study through Serendipity (a home Waldorf site). I want to get my act together and do more painting and such. I got the itch again just seeing an update from Otherwise Educating and all she and her "things" do. Great job (look at her post)!

Also, sometimes it takes others looking at your child's loves and talents to help a parent see them too. Lovely's teacher last year (even before she knew of our homeschooling plans) begged me to get Lovely into a drawing class. She felt Lovely had a brewing talent deep down and needed some guidance in a way a school art class doesn't have time for, OR gets cut before they can teach their students (another reason I wanted to homeschool). I appreciated this insight very much, as I had no idea looking at her work - I just thought things were cute and basic. They still are - but I am starting to see how Lovely focuses on detail and facial expressions. I know for sure Lovely did NOT get that from Me, so I wanted to help that grow and me not get in her way - thus - a class just for her outside homeschooling.

I was almost able to host a class in my home with another homeschooling mom who is a professional art teacher. But, we could not get the number of kids she wanted (even though it was a small group). That class would have been drawing and painting and other mediums with art history too. Alas. But, I did find a local studio that does a drawing class. The price for the class was also doable (we take classes out of our rec center, or local businesses to cut costs WAY down - like with Taekwondo and Gymnastics for exercise and focus. The sessions go 6 weeks and then one resigns up as they want).

So, we started this class two weeks ago, and Lovely enjoys it. I caught the tail end of the lesson this week and can tell they really are teaching the kids and training their eyes step by step. I couldn't even re-explain what I saw, and I did not get a picture of what shapes were inside the apple on the board to help give its shape.

You can tell she had JUST washed out the interior shapes (?)

But the two teachers are great, give personal attention, and the class is small. So far, we like it. I hope to broaden into other mediums (hopefully at home like the link above at Otherwise Educating) but for now, I'll watch Lovely take some steps there and learn from her.