Artistic Pursuits for Middle School

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

I've mentioned before that my 12 year old daughter, Mercie, loves art! The past month and a half she has been using ARTistic Pursuits Middle School Book Two, Color and Composition.

WHAT IS ARTISTIC PURSUITS?

Artistic Pursuits, Inc is a complete art curriculum, including art instruction, art history, and art projects. It does not simply teach art - it involves your child in the art process by showing them how to observe, engage, and create their own unique art projects. Artistic Pursuits has books for every age level:

• Pre-K
• K-3rd (Early Elementary)
• 4th-5th (Elementary)
• 6th-8th (Middle School)
• 9th-12th (High School)
• 6th-12th Sculpture

MIDDLE SCHOOL BOOK TWO, COLOR AND COMPOSITION:

Mercie is going into 7th grade, so we chose the Middle School level book focusing on Color and Composition. You will need some supplies to complete the art projects - hard pastels, oil pastels, a fixative such as hair spray, kneaded erasers, a sketchpad and pastel papers in assorted colors. The supplies were easy to find and relatively inexpensive on Amazon. ARTistic Pursuits does offer an Art Supply Pack for $85 that contains all of the art supplies you will need for this book.

There are 16 units in this book, and each unit contains 4 lessons. It is recommended to spend one hour a day on the art lessons, twice a week, for a total of 2 hours a week. This is a totally independent art course so you won't have to do any of the teaching!

The 16 units in this book are:

1. Hue and Intensity
2. Primary and Secondary
3. Monochrome
4. Complementary Pairs
5. Neutrals
6. Warm Analogous Colors
7. Cool Analogous Colors
8. Color Application
9. Balance in Color
10. Parallel Rhythm
11. Converging Rhythm
12. Space With Little Depth
13. Depth
14. Viewpoint High
15. Viewpoint Low
16. Emphasis

Each unit is broken down into 4 lessons. I'll briefly describe each lesson portion.

1. Building a Visual Vocabulary - Your child will learn art vocabulary that is taught using words and pictures. 
2. Art Appreciation and Art History - Your child will observe the unit topic in works of art by the masters, learning about artists and art history. 
3. Techniques - Your child will learn how to use the supplies and art techniques being taught by creating an original work of art.
4. Application - Your child will complete a final project for the unit.

AN EXAMPLE OF A UNIT:

I'm going to go through Unit 2 - Primary and Secondary Colors - to show you exactly how each unit works. 

Lesson 1 - Mercie learned the vocabulary words of primary and secondary. There's a nice color wheel showing the colors, and she learns what intermediate colors are. Her assignment is to go outdoors with her pastels, find something interesting and draw it.

    

our rose bush

Lesson 2 - Mercie looks at a work of art titled Red Deers II by Franz Marc. She reads about how he used secondary and primary colors and how it makes his work stand out. She reads a short biography of Franz Marc and how he was condemned as a degenerate because his artwork used bright colors and bold applications of color. They ordered 130 of his works to be removed from German museums! Her challenge today is to draw an object that uses a primary color and a secondary color sitting next to it on the color wheel. She drew a red apple with purple shading and a yellow pear with green shading, like the example in the book.

      

Lesson 3 - Today Mercie learns how to layer pastels. Her assignment today is to draw some bright fruits or vegetables from a high viewpoint using the technique of blending.

      

Lesson 4 - Her final project is to draw a picture using primary and secondary colors. There is a materials list, a student gallery with a student example of the project, and ideas for her project. 

her final project

As you can see, each unit is full of hands-on projects and learning! Every lesson has a challenge or assignment to complete so your child will get lots of practice with the new techniques and materials.

Here are a few more examples of Mercie's artwork using Artistic Pursuits:

a picture done in monochrome of a cat

the ducks in the pond 

a girl with a lamb

a tree and a waterfall

a basketball in the yard

our horses and cows eating hay

a purse my mom brought her back from Nicaragua

WHAT DO I THINK?

I love Artistic Pursuits! I love how organized each unit is, how full each lesson is, and how beautiful each page is. The book is comb-bound spiral and the pages are thick and full of clear, colorful artwork. The pages are also printed single-sided, which I really like, and I remember it being one of the things I loved when I reviewed ARTistic Pursuits back in 2016. I like how each lesson has a materials list, making it easy to grab what you need before you sit down to start working. I love the student gallery, which has actual artwork from students in the same level. This helps Mercie to see that there is a wide range of artistic ability within her age group! If the examples were all from adults or professional artists, it may get discouraging when your child's artwork was not up to the same quality. Having student examples was really encouraging and motivating for Mercie. I also really love that she is getting art history in each unit, learning about famous artists and observing famous pieces of art. I am very impressed with the instruction in each unit, too. It is so easy to understand and very well-written. She is learning so many new techniques and elements of art. I have seen such an improvement in her artwork!

Mercie is going to finish this book and then use the Middle School Book One, The Elements of Art and Composition, as part of her 7th grade curriculum. She is almost halfway finished with this book because she loves it and wants to do it all the time!

WHAT DOES MERCIE THINK?

I think it's important to get a student's opinion of a curriculum as well. I love the curriculum, but I am not the one using it on a weekly basis. Here is what Mercie thinks:

"It is really fun drawing with pastels. The book teaches me different techniques and different ways to draw with the pastels. At first it was a little difficult to draw because I would draw it too wide, or it would smear. Later on it taught me different ways to draw with them depending on how wide or how thin I wanted the line. There was an example of a student's drawing in every lesson, which helped show me  what to do if I didn't really understand what it was telling me. It was usually very understandable, though. Artistic pursuits was my favorite so far."

ARTistic Pursuits Middle School Book Two, Color and Composition is available for less than $48! This is a great deal considering it's an entire year's worth of art curriculum. Check out the other books Artistic Pursuits offers by clicking HERE. Read my review of ARTistic Pursuits Early Elementray Book One, grades K-3 by clicking HERE. Artistic Pursuits is also offering a free, 16 week summer series with video lessons for beginning drawing students! You can visit their blog and find out more about this awesome opportunity (I know we will be taking advantage of it!) by clicking HERE. They also have online courses for the K-3 level books now available - click HERE to check those out.

As always, click the banner below to read more reviews on the different levels!