Sketch Tuesday: School Supplies

 

 

This week we started participating in Sketch Tuesday hosted by Harmony Fine Arts.  Each Tuesday we’re given a sketch assignment. You have until Monday night to turn it in and it will be added to a slideshow to be posted the next day.  Kids and parents can sketch together!  This week’s theme was “school supplies”.  We could sketch anything that we use for school.  Here are our entries:

Sophie chose to sketch a pencil.  She is currently into tracing things, so she traced the shape of a real pencil and then did the rest on her own.

It’s funny what ends up being a school supply when you are homeschooling.  We’ve gone beyond the scissors, glue and crayons with items like sketch books, photo albums and magnifying glasses.  The kids each have magnifying glasses for school.  We are mostly using them for nature study.  We took them on our field trip last week where we went on a nature trail.  It was at one of those places where you can’t pick flowers etc., so Liam having something in his hands probably saved some wildlife. 

I have to admit that it is kind of scary putting something I drew out there for the world to see.  I’ve never called myself an artist, but just said that I am artistic.  What does that mean?  I could be wrong, but I think being artistic is synonymous with being creative and owning a certain amount of skill.  If I am creative, but never create, it stops there.  BUT, if I create something, wouldn’t that make me an artist? 

Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”  I see that in the the difference between Sophie and me. Sophie will draw on any piece of paper she can get her hands on.  She is an artist.  I doodle on occasion.  I grew up. 

Twitter is a funny thing.  I somehow happened upon the hashtag, #drawingaugust.  I’d found a group of for real artists who were doing a drawing every day in August.  The point of this social media event was to devote time to this particular skill, and grow as an artist.  Had I found this earlier in the month, I possibly would have found courage enough to participate.  Again, it’s scary putting yourself and art out there.  I did, however, look at tons of awesome artwork during the last week of August.  Lots of people, professional and amateur were participating.  By the time I saw that some had decided to #paintseptember, I was eager to dust off my art supplies.

After seeing so many beautiful watercolors, I wanted to give it a try.  We barely learned about watercolor in High School art class.  I’ve never really done one, so I knew going in this would be a learning experience completely.  I read up on watercolor, sketched a little something, and painted.  THEN I put it on twitter, and something amazing happened. I wanted to do it again.  And I wanted Sophie and Liam to try out watercolors.  Each day I’m thinking of what I can paint next. I’ve got a lot to learn and new techniques to try.  I’m determined to make art a big part of our homeschool.  Sketch Tuesday will be a great tool, as well as the things I’m learning from my own studies in art. 

You can read more about #drawingaugust in the Wales Arts Review here or search the #drawingaugust and #paintseptember hashtags on twitter to see all the artwork.