I have been envious of Tricia from HodgePodge for awhile. You see, her mom comes over and teaches her grandkids how to use chalk pastels. How cool is that? An in-house art teacher! You see I have great intentions of teaching art to my kids, but never seem to get around to it in a consistent manner. This month and the month of January, I am setting aside intentional art time. In fact, that is going to be one of the few things we work on during that time for homeschool! We’re starting out by using Nana’s Free Pastels Tutorials over on HodgePodge.
I picked up a set of chalk pastels at Hobby Lobby. Don’t forget to use your 40% off coupon!
Since it is almost Christmas, our first project was the Christmas Star. This was the first time my kids had ever used chalk pastels. We went over some basic techniques and rules and then followed Nana’s tutorial.
My children really got into the project and took their time following the steps. Even my 4year old and 5 year old did this project. (The 2yr. old sat at the table but we gave her colored pencils instead) 🙂
They were very proud of their final projects!
This is my 4yr. old’s interpretation of the town of Bethlehem. 🙂 She LOVED doing this project.
Since we were enjoying our art time so much, we went ahead and did the Christmas Tree tutorial too. The wonderful thing is that over 50 of these art tutorials can be found for free over at HodgePodge blog. Of course, I had to complain. 😉 I told her that what would really be helpful is if these wonderful tutorials were all in one document that I could print out, bind with my cool binding machine, and bring to our art table.
What projects have you been working on?
You might be interested:
Advent Chains for Christmas
The Ultimate List of Nativity Resources
To see the happy faces of your children and all this artwork just makes my heart sing!! And all your ages together – just like we do. You show just how easy it is to enjoy and interpret – each in his/her own way. Thank you Maureen. Absolutely love this.
I rarely make comments, I usually let my daughter, Tricia, at Hodgepodge speak for me…but I was THRILLED that you and your children enjoyed the Christmas Star and Christmas Tree pastel tutorial…and the finished pastel pictures were spectacular! Please keep up the great work and enjoy painting with pastels!
Hodgepodge Nana
Thank you for sharing your expertise with all of us! 🙂 What a blessing!
Aww…what beautiful artwork they did!
I’m jealous of Tricia, too. We just try the tutorials she posts whenever we can, since I have zero drawing ability myself.
Oh wow — wonderful, Maureen!
We did the Angry Birds pastels tutorial and I have others I would like to do with my kids. How wonderful that all of the lessons will be in an ebook. These are all so easy to do, and so beautiful and achievable!
I love your pictures! What fun 🙂