Not Another Homeschool Blog

Today's art education video was on doing a still life . I've done tons of still-life's over the years, but I am not fond of them. They are always so fake and contrived.  For example, where in life are you going to find an apple, next to a vase, next to a wooden model?  Only in an art classroom. That kind of unnatural situation often bothered me when I was studying art in school.  I think the situation that bothered me the most is when a nude model stood on a ladder. Who is going to climb a ladder naked in real life? No one. That's who. So, my still life includes items that really were on my desk and arranging them, meant only moving them a few inches so I could get them all into an arrangement that would fit on the paper. A real-life-still life. sketch a day- day 3 Still life reminds me of that old Sesame street song "one of these things do not belong here". Remember that? I have learned in life, that sometimes it is good to be out of place in the worl...

sketch a day- day 2 In the art video I watched today , the artist instructor demonstrated how to draw the human figure and understanding how the body works and what shapes it is generally made up from.  So, today's sketch is of a model dummy I have that interestingly enough is not comprised of the same shapes that he demonstrated in the video. Something he said in the video caught me as very interesting. He said that an artist has two talents... the first is being able to remember what things look like and to draw them from memory. I am and have always been weak in that. The second is in being able to see in a way that most people cannot, to break down an item, a figure, etc, and draw it on paper in a realistic way. That is my strength.  I have always happily leaned on it. I always thought that my talent was what it was and that I could not fix the missing part of my artistry and learn to draw from memory. But according to this instructor, I was wrong. It seems that th...

Sketch a day, day 1 I am trying to force my creativity by doing a sketch a day.  I am using some free video lessons by  http://www.jerrysartarama.com/art-lessons/free-art-instruction-videos.html to inspire me.  I used a lesson today on using shapes to draw buildings... this is the house across the street from me.  You could say I am homeschooling myself in art... kind of as a refresher. This sketch took all of 10 minutes.  I am sure I will revisit it later and add ink. As I was drawing, the news was on. I got distracted from my task when I heard the phrase "the devil in the White House". They were interviewing an elderly early voter who was saying he was voting a straight Republican  ticket because he dislikes the devil in the white house. I had a personal heart response to his comment. It hurt my feelings. I've heard presidents called a lot of things by fellow Americans but never the devil. I couldn't help but wonder what in him made him view Obama ...

It has been 1 year and 5 months since I finished homeschooling my kids.  My youngest is well into her Sophomore year at college, and my son is well past the halfway point.  They are doing great! And then there's me. I have a lot of ideas about what I was going to do after homeschooling.  Homeschooling gave me so much focus... so much direction, and was so passion-filled... now I'm feel like I am grasping at straws. I thought I was going to work with homeschooling families after homeschooling, but found out real quick, that the people who need me the most can't pay me, and I am not in a place to volunteer that kind of time. I thought that I was going to get a Real Estate License and sell houses, but after going through the course, I found out there were a lot of things about that industry that I - just - don't - like.  So that's not going to happen. I thought I was going to go on a bit of an adventure with my husband, but we are not sure that is still goin...