Planning: Art

Art is one of the few things that I am happy with how it has been going for us.  We take a fairly relaxed yet engaged approach when it comes to art yet it is reassuring for me to know, from the Art and Inquiry course that I have been taking over the summer, that we have been following the inquiry-based approach without calling it that.  My basic goal is to ensure that Tiger not only has an appreciation of who's who in the art world, but that he also develops his skills through hands-on engagement in the style of the artist that he studies.

This summer we had fun doing our in-house art summer school, wherein Tiger had a taste of a different aspect of visual arts each day.  Art Lab for Kids has been so useful that I intend to save the rest of the activities for next summer when I hope we will have another round of art summer school at home.

Visual Fine Arts
Come September, I plan to continue our artists study in pretty much the same way as we have been doing all along:

1. Using BBC Your Paintings as a starting point, supplemented with information from Smarthistory and field trips to various galleries and art museums.
2. These will be supported by reading biographies and watching documentaries about each artist, 
3. Followed by a hands-on project in the style of the artist.

 I have in mind the following artists to study in the new academic year:

• Gauguin
• Vermeer
• Lowry
• Klimt
• Whistler
• Durer
• Klee
• Matisse
• Turner
• Rembrandt

 
Crafts and Journals
Alongside fine arts, I also hope to work on more crafts as part of our cultural geography study as we pick up where we left off with Marco Polo.  I also hope to continue our efforts in nature journaling, using that as an opportunity to practise observational drawing.

Another idea that I've been wanting to try out is the art journal.  We started the process but did not carry on because there are so many other things that push art journaling out of the way.  This year I'd like to give it a go again.  To make it work, my plan is to:

1. do it once a month (so that the activity is manageable on a consistent basis)
2. use prompts from Friday Freewrite as our writing topic
3. use the ideas from here for the page layout

Theatre
Tiger will continue with his fortnightly drama class where he is taught a variety of different theatrical genres and techniques.

I am pleased with the developments that Tiger has made since he started taking drama lessons with this group.  The exposure has been positive and varied for him.  Under the guidance of the drama teacher, the children have learned to analyse and act out a Shakespearean play, learnt specific drama/acting skills, and participated in a forum theatre, which is an innovative form of theatre that involves interactions between the actors and audience to resolve a "problem" that they face in the world.

I am looking forward to a year of many interesting artistic exposure for Tiger.

This post is linked up to:

1. iHomeschool Network Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop: Curriculum Week 2013
2. Lesson Planning Link up - Art and Handicrafts
3. Virtual Refrigerator - Refrigerator Art
4. Collage Friday - Hitting Our Stride and a Field Trip
5. TGIF Linky Party #90 
6. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One at the End of the First Six Weeks
7. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {August 17, 2013}
8. Hip Homeschool Hop - 8/20/13