Art Class DVD series

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Art Class from www.seethelightshine.com is a Scripture filled series of art lessons. When you purchase these, it is like inviting an art teacher into your home.

You can try before you buy, by watching the  3 Free lessons offered online. You can purchase  the DVD set of 9 containing 36 lessons for $99.99 or sign up for "club meetings" - in the future- that will be a monthly club for $10 a month . You will have access to 4 lessons per month until you have finished the series. This is a great way to spread the expense over the school year. For us, that pace would not be enough art, unless we used this as a separate add on.

If you want to know what is included on each DVD, you can download a course syllabus to know what is covered in the lessons and decide if this is something your family could use.

The 4 lessons on the DVD I was given to review are: Tools of the Trade (pencils, eraser, basic tool kit), It all starts with a line (different lines like curves, straight, crooked), Contours and Composition, Draw what you see and a bonus chalk drawing lesson. DVDs are not sold individually any longer. There is also another DVD series offered for $14.99 each that are a combination of Art lessons and Bible lessons. Currently, the titles are The Crossmaker and The Gift of Love. A short preview of both are available online. There are plans to add more in the future.

My children did one lesson a day and were really eager to do more. I wish we could have reviewed the whole series because we could not afford to purchase the whole set at this time. I do not mean that as a complaint, as I am thankful to have received anything for free to review for the TOS Review Crew! The crew has been such a blessing to our family and our homeschool program.

While the lessons are geared for ages 6 - 10, it can certainly be used for anyone who is a beginner artist. The teacher, Pat Knepley is part of team of artists featured on See The Light Shine's site.  She speaks very clearly and simply. Again, more geared toward 6- 10, but if you have older children (or are a beginner yourself!) it does not seem silly or juvenile. We all really enjoyed listening to Pat. She explains a lot about "why".

Since I minored in art, I love all sorts of art. However, many of my teachers really didn't teach. Pat really teaches. It is a perfect series if you are not an artist yourself or just are looking for an actual art lesson for your children.

Sadly, my children have lost their art projects and I couldn't scan them. They did the lessons while I was out of town and my husband was doing school. He didn't know I wanted the art work to scan and post. If we find them, I will try to post them in the future!

The children gained a lot of self confidence about their drawing skills. Even though we have all sorts of crafts and art books, it was the first course my 6 and 7 yo have tried. They enjoyed it. Even my 13 yo was asking for more. The lessons were too simple for him since he has taken other courses. However, he did like the classes .

We enjoyed the chalk lesson presented by Gloria Kohlmann as well. We have not done much with chalk in the past, but this helped me be less intimidated by using chalk for future art projects.

As much we we liked the lessons, the price was too much for our family. Compared to individual lessons, the price is very reasonable. For a family, like mine, with many children, it really wouldn't be too much - if we were looking for an art class. I have shelves of drawing books and materials, however. The reason I wanted to review it was to use with a co-op. I never wrote to ask if there is a separate pricing for that. I would suggest writing to ask if there would be an extra price for using the curriculum that way.

I received one video from the Art Class series for free as part of the TOS review crew, in exchange for my honest opinion.

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