Weekly Wrap UP 10/12/18 -- Rembrandt, Treasure Island and Japan

For the past two weeks in art we have been learning about Rembrant and learning how to draw human figures.  Since I am not an artist I had to find some good resources to help with my art lesson.  I found this site and loved how she presented drawing human bodies.  You really need to go to her site to get the full impact of her lesson, this is just a brief look at it!

She has several pictures and demonstrates where the joints are and how to show people in motion.   First she does it  

then she adds a few pictures where the students try it

I had the boys work on the drawings and we went over it together

Next I brought out my little wooden man (don't know if there is a technical term for this figure or not) and we all tried to draw it in a simple pose.  

Next I found this website where we can use the above technique but in drawing animals.  Since I knew this would interest the boys,  we made this our next project.  The boys found an animal they wished to draw and followed the steps and then colored it in with colored pencils.

I brought out some drawing books to show how other artist learn to draw more realistic human forms.

After drawing the figure your the wooden form I encourage the boys to add clothing.

After trying drawing the human form we moved to animals using the site How to draw animals.  It gives a list of animals from A to Z and step by step directions to complete your animal using the techniques I taught for this art lesson!

Boys finished work, while not quite Rembrandt's level they got the main idea and that was what I wanted them to understand.  Since neither boy is going to be an artist in their future we concentrate more on the understanding of the technique then the mastery of it;)

For Literature the boys are reading Treasure Island and learning about how writers work on settings and the mood of the story.   We are spending about 3 weeks on this book and topic!

Some notes from our lectures

After reading the book the boys will be watching the movie and doing a quick compare contrast:)

We finished the book and the boys enjoying the movie:)

For History we are wrapping up our Japan unit by reading about Commodore Perry and the opening up of Japan to the West.

We are enjoying this book and learning quite a bit about Japan  and how the West demanded they open up trade.

MarioFan and I also watched the movie "The Last Shogun", which is based on a true story.  As always be careful with movies for learning history as they often get things wrong.  We enjoyed looking up what was accurate and what was false after watching the movie!