Pebblekeeper

Wednesday at Petra School is Art and Composer Day! But. . . . This week it was also massive wind storm no power day! All of our local schools were closed for the event, so we had a friend over. I love it that both boys still wanted to do our art study – and insisted that their friend join in.

Yea for paying the few extra dollars to have a Printed Copy of the Harmony Fine Arts Plan! Since we are in week three of the study – (Renoir and Tchaikovsky – Option 3) it wouldn’t have mattered too much – but it is nice to have a guide. We are further along in the Artistic Pursuits book, since we used it for a review last term, so we are picking up Unit 4 this week, Complementary Colors.

We talked about Complementary Pairs using the information from the Artistic Pursuits book. It went well with the photos pictures we are observing in Modern Art, the boys quickly saw examples. I have an older Stampin Up Color wheel and pulled it out to show the differences between Coordinating Colors and Complementary Colors. Often, when scrapping a 6×6 page, I choose one color from a piece of clothing, item in the scene, and use the Complementary Color. It’s sort of weird, you don’t expect the boldness to be there, – but it really makes the layout look great. Jon is working for a company in town, creating an ad campaign with digital design, and he immediately saw the bold colors. We talked about the fact that you can have all the best information and layout possible, great fonts, elements, etc – but if your colors are random, it makes the eye turn away too quickly.

A challenge in the text led us to look around the home for Complementary Pairs – and then draw them in pastels. This was pretty tough, most of our house is Red, White and Blue. Nate found a Crush bottle in the recycle, (Purple/Yellow), our friend found a Match Box (Green/Red), Jon found a hummingbird magnet (Blue/Green – Red), I found a stack of water cups that was placed in a coffee cup (Red / Green). In the end, the simple color wheel in the book was easiest to use for Complementary Colors. I think I will pick up a simple color wheel from the craft isle for Jon to use in his digital design.

Not the best photo – we ended up using colored pencils, markers and pens – so the colors do not photograph well. The boys were able to have a conversation about how much bolder and easier to lay on color it is with pastels.

We were able to use our library books – one assignment that we’ve been working on – answering “What is Modern Art?” Nathan completed his Notebooking Page. We looked through Swan Lake Music by Tchaikovsky – without Pandora and YouTube we were not able to listen to the music, but had really great discussion.

This Photo is mostly for Barb – The boys really enjoyed the birding Notebook pages. This was from a couple of days ago – a long day of notebooking on another subject. You can’t really see it – but Jon, under the colored Junco – under description says – 1 beak, 2 legs, 2 wings, 1 tail. He had the Bird Name/Date/Location filled out. I read it and chuckled – So – what you’re saying is that you’re all done with notebooking today? He says ya, my thinker is done. Ha. I am also noticing that Nate’s Field Guide Notebook page, is becoming more of his own narration, rather than straight copywork. Thought you might like to hear the progression – and for those of you starting notebooking – see how it ebbs and flows.