ARTistic Pursuits: Video Lessons to Explore Art of the Modern Age {Product Review}

I don't regularly schedule in art in our homeschool. I love art, but with my boys, it's just not a priority. Yet, thanks to several reviews I have done, I have collected a whole host of supplies to handle just about any type of art lesson that comes our way. We have reviewed several art programs before, and have discovered that we really enjoy the curriculum from ARTistic Pursuits Inc.. This company released a new collection of K-3rd Grade Level, Volumes 1-8 last year (adding 7 and 8 in late 2018) to give an additional aspect to their already fabulous art program. We have been reviewing Art of the Modern Age, K-3 Vol. 7 from this collection over the last several weeks with my youngest son.

About ARTistic Pursuits

ARTistic Pursuits Inc. is an art curriculum company believing that all children are able to understand the concepts of art, and enjoy putting ideas and visual images on paper. They are committed to helping children become observant in our world and to be able to work creatively in it. They are determined to offer parents and children a quality art education presented in an easy to understand format for both the teacher and child and gear their books towards the homeschooling community.


Through their program, they encourage children to look at the expressive and technical aspects of art according to their age level. The goal is for the children to be able to be free to explore their world however they see it...not the way that adults think they should see it! There are no "rules" or "boundaries" in the art lessons--no small boxes or limitations. ARTistic Pursuits is all about letting them color outside the lines!

ARTistic Pursuits offers curriculum for Preschool to High School age making it easy for you to find a curriculum just right for your school age child.

The latest release from ARTistic Pursuits Inc., is a re-release of their K-3rd grade art instruction collection--this new collection WITH video lessons replaces their previous 2013 editions. These books include text lessons with picture study and video lessons on how to use the art materials. Each book comes with a DVD and a Blu-Ray for your convenience. This is a new four-year course, where you can provide art class with just one lesson per week, with each book covering one semester. You could start in Volume 1, Art for Children and follow history in chronological order through Volumes 2-8 or start with Vol. 1 and then skip around to your art preference!

The following books are included in this collection:

Vol. 1 Art for Children, Building a Visual Vocabulary
Vol. 2 Art of the Ancients
Vol. 3 Art of the Middle Ages
Vol. 4 Artists that Shaped the Italian Renaissance
Vol. 5 Art of the Northern Countries, Renaissance to Realism
Vol. 6 Art of the Impressionists
Vol. 7 Art of the Modern Age
Vol. 8 Art in America

scope and sequence of the books

Each of these books is available for purchase alone, or with an art supply pack which will provide you with all the supplies needed to complete the book's projects.

We reviewed Vol. 8 Art of the Modern Age which has 64 pages, 18 lessons, and 82 illustrations. The book covers the Modern Masters of the 20th century who had influence on our culture and provides examples of tasteful creative art. The lesson includes twelve text lessons featuring artworks by modern masters and six video lessons featuring art material instruction. Throughout the lessons in this book, the students will work with acrylic paint, watercolor paper, oil pastel, Gesso, modelling clay and more!

Our Thoughts on ARTistic Pursuits

This is our second volume that we have used, and I really must say how much I love the way it is designed: it is hardbound, thin, and the DVD/Blu-Ray are attached inside the book! Previous copies of ARTistic Pursuits curriculum has been a thick book which can seem intimidating. This book is visually engaging and makes you eager to dive in. The pages are also a glossy print with full color images. All the video lessons are clearly labelled and the DVD pulls up a menu with each of the video lessons labeled for easy navigation.

The best way to get started with these books is to look over the list of supplies that you will need. Fortunately, I had all the supplies needed for this book--oil pastels, acrylic paint, watercolor paper, brushes, Gesso, modelling clay, and such. It really wasn't a lot of fancy stuff, even if I didn't already have it. I always like to start with the first lesson in each book to get started, so I popped the DVD in and we got started with our first lesson on Acrylic Paint.

We watched the video and learned some basic techniques of working with acrylics and how to mix paint colors, and how to take care of our brushes. All of the videos are great and so easy to follow. I find that lessons with video are ones my son does better with--especially if something new.

We opted to go ahead and get started! We picked some odd ball colorful things from the kitchen to paint--a purple spray bottle, a spoon with a green spatula, a jar, and a basting brush that is black and red.

He was very precise with this project. He drew his outlines very carefully and then matched his colors. He reminded me of what his "teachers" said about taking care of his brush and reminded me regularly to be careful about keeping the brushes in my water. He had fun playing with the background colors. I also added a glossy accents coating to his jar so it was more clear looking. 

His final creation

He told me to paint what was in front of me, so I did.

He picked up on using acrylics and loved mixing his own paint colors--something he REALLY enjoyed exploring when we moved ahead and studied the idea of pointillism with the study of the master artists Seurat. After reading the short biography of the artist, and learning about his revolutionary style, we looked at two of his painting included in the book and under guidance from the book's lesson, plotted out how we could make a landscape design. We used q-tips and pencil erasers for our dots. He wasn't very thrilled with this project. But he did a great job all the same.

He made his FIELD landscape of hay with sky at the top and water at the bottom

He liked mixing up his paint.

He added his dots to his sky, water, and some of his haybales.

I did this project as well...

Before the dots

after the dots!

I really liked this technique, even if he didn't. 

After working our way through a few other painting projects (I don't have photos, sorry!), I braved one of my LEAST favorite aspects of modern art...abstract art. What I found interesting is that my youngest LOVED abstract art! He isn't confident with drawing things or sculpting...but abstract? Where you can imagine whatever you want and don't have to be precise or even real? Oh yeah. The last project we did before this review was Lesson 11--a study on Kandinsky who created non-objective art. My oldest ADORED this project and it proudly hangs on our fridge.

This is a representation of the four seasons

And I did one as well...even if I'm not fond of abstract...

 First squiggles and shapes with oil pastels...

Then I fill it in with color. Can you tell I was trying to represent sunset at the beach? LOL

All in all, we found joy in using the various lesson in the book. I just couldn't get him to try the sculptures yet, so we will try those later. He wants to do more of the abstract ones--and even this one again. 

I think one of the greatest things he learned was how to mix colors. He really really liked finding the new colors he could make. 

This program is incredibly easy to follow and very very interesting! I still recommend it to anyone desiring to teach multiple elementary grades at one time with interesting art projects. At this point, we have two of the volumes from this set in our collection. I plan on incorporating them both a bit more into our studies, for they really aren't hard to add in with their simple directions. I love that we don't have to do the projects in order and jump around according to needs or just inspiration.

Want to Know More About ARTistic Pursuits?

For the last several weeks, we have been reviewing Art of the Modern Ages from the K-3rd Grade Level, Volumes 1-8 series from ARTistic Pursuits Inc.. There were several other books in this series that my review crew worked on and I hope you will check out their reviews as well.

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We have really enjoyed this series. I like the extra aspect of having the video lessons. I also like the LENGTH of this book and think it is much more doable for families. Once again we reaffirm our love for ARTistic Pursuits! You can read a review of our use of Art of the Middle Ages, K-3 Vol. 3 here!