Easy Fine Art:Van Gogh

After last week's art-scapades, I decided to continue our art education. The middle and highschooler both take a weekly art class but the first grader isn't this year.

On the right of the pic is my middle schooler's interpretation and recreation of Starry Night. On the upper left is the first grader's original relief painting in the works.

It was very simple. First, I searched Pinterest for inspiration. Then I found a few very short videos on the work of Van Gogh on youtube.

The first grader watched the video then I allowed him to recreate one of Van Gogh's works and create his own using an easy relief method.




Draw on art paper any design with a white crayon. Using water color paints, paint over your hidden design. The crayon will produce blank spaces under the water color as a relief painting.

This was his final piece, an interpretation of Van Gogh's Starry Night. I also printed out a free (found online) Van Gogh coloring page and he wrote a couple sentences of facts he learned about the artist underneath.

Above is the version I did with a student at work. I made all the water color marker lines and also crayon lines in white (that you can't see) and in black for the building. She used a wet paint brush to blend the colors together. We work on a lot of fine motor skills together during her sessions. This also entails learning and moving the paint brush from left to right and up and down.

Easy Fine Art: Matisse

Matisse inspired Valentine art.

I subscribed to a few inspiring and informative home-educating blogs. The various blogs are a great resource to free printables, activities and ideas for all sortts of subjects. Recently one suggested a Valentined theme fine art unit. Easy peasy!

The art piece was using the style of Matisse's cut out art. Using water coor markers, the first grader drew geometric shapes (squares) and colored them in, later going over them with a brush and water to create a little water color effect. He cut out heart shapes from construction paper and glued those on top. Voila!

I found printable versions of Henry Matisse's art work for him to color. Youtube has become my new BFF as well. I am amazed at how many great educational videos can be found. I chose a few different but short videos about Matisse and his work. The first grader watched those and then wrote a few biographical sentences about what he learned.

We paste all these pieces into a spiral bound notebook (my attempt at organization) to keep them all in one place. This is working well when we have a Learning Record meeting, as I can show our Educational Specialist our portfolio (book) and tear out a page to give her as a sample.

Field Trip: MOLA

Moonlight Myth

In the middle of a heat wave, all I could think after church was finding the coolest, literally teh coolest, place to go for some free AC. I saw a friend's post about this local art museum (that I always forget exists) having a special hispanic festival to go with their current exhibit, so I grabbed the kids and headed over. 

Feeling inspired!

There were vendors and special performances in the outdoor space of the museum. We enjoyed observing all the art on display. I've included pictures of a couple of my favorites. Admission was free which was a great bonus! 

It was a great way to not only keep cool, but expose my middles to art and enjoy some time away from home unlike our usual Sunday afternoons. I'm really glad we went. I would love to check out more museums regularly but I simply forget! 

Music Lessons!

My daughter started with violin for 2 years and later switched to guitar for the past few years. The littlest one watned and begged to play guitar for a few years.

I told him when he started school, he could take lessons. The music studio then informed me that they prefer 5yo wait until they are older because they don't believe they can handle the conditioning on the fingers.

We waited until this year and K then decided he was no longer interested (turns out he was simply afraid he'd be alone, with out his family there).

Guitar lessons started but the studio repeated the same thing they told me last year, but now about 6yo. Sigh.

I am hoping they will continue to teach him. The instructor suggested piano but we don't have a piano to do regular practice on.

The guitar Birdy uses is actually mine and the one K is using in this picture was for Sammy when he was that age. Sammy also took a semester of guitar and voice. Like his little brother, he begged to take guitar lessons and the guitar was bought for one of his birthdays. He ended up preferring voice over guitar. Now he sings in the choir regularly.


I think playing a musical instrument is very important for children. I prefer guitar because it's so mobile, personally. You can take it with you anywhere. I especially love music education and hands on arts because it transcends academic abilities. You can have a very poor reader who understands and can read musical notes. I believe this is a great confidence builder. I am sure there are lots of research articles out there as well that support the use of music education in brain development.

I am hoping, personally, I will also pick my guitar back up and finally learn to play it adequately. All of my children have artistic talents. They've taken art lessons forever. My oldest is an art instructor and he started at the art studio as a home-school student as well.

We also participate in the local community theater, behind and on stage...auditions are next week actually. All that to say...we are obviously, huge fans and supporters of the arts.

Is Fine Art a priority in your home-school? How do you incorporate fine art education in your school day?