Playing in Pastels

This week and last week, we've been working on an art project using soft pastels, which is a new medium for us. Once again, we're using tutorials from Creating a Masterpiece, like we did with the watercolors I wrote about last week. Pretty soon, I'll post a more complete review (about a week and a half), but today we're having so much fun, so I wanted to just show off our art projects!

---

With art, as with so many other things in a child, we must believe that it is there, or we shall never find it. 
-Charlotte Mason, 1:313

---

Hero(10) did his first, and independently. I think he enjoys that he can do that with these lessons, and he's done more with them than any of the rest of us: Dragon(6) and Peanut(4) have struggled a little bit with both the directions and with perfectionism.

Hero's pastel landscape.

Probably the trickiest thing with this project is that our paper is half as large as the teacher's paper, so we ended up finishing early, because we simply ran out of room. And some of the details that she wanted us to slip in were just too small for the space we had, given the tools and our inexperience with them. But it was fun to work on it.

It's funny how impressionable kids are. Dragon wasn't sure that he liked his picture: in fact, he almost asked me not to post his. But then I assured him of two things: first, that I like his work. And second, that, if he really didn't want me to, I would not share his work: it is his, and he controls it. Then he smiled and relaxed, and said that it was ok. I'm glad; I really do like his cute trees!

Dragon's pastel landscape

Peanut wanted to be doing the project, but even with step-by-step instructions, a group to work with, and as much encouragement as I could offer her, she became increasingly frustrated as her picture looked less and less like the model. Although I told her that it's ok if it's not the same, it was clear that she didn't believe it for a minute, and I don't know how to persuade her. When she'd had enough, I assured her that it's ok to be done.

Peanut's pastel landscape.

I had a good time. I've never done a pastel project before, and it was a fun medium to play with. I'm loving all the art that we've been doing the past little while. Learning to make beautiful things is a wonderful part of our education; our journey to learn to love that which is lovely, and become the kind of people who can appreciate -and even sometimes create- things which are full of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. That's just a wonderful way of approaching every day life. Classical education is such a blessing to our family!

My pastel landscape