Sunday, December 4, 2011

ARTistic Pursuits Review

ARTistic Pursuits is an award winning homeschool art program for students from pre-school through high school.  These books can also be easily adapted for the classroom setting.  

 ARTistic Pursuits views the study of art as a compilation of the elements shown on the bookshelf to the right.  Each lesson provides a building block to the fuller ability to understand and create art:  conceptual application, expressive application, practical application, art history, technical application, and practiced application.  Click here to read more about each of these concepts. 

The ARTistic Pursuits approach is comprehensive.  The language is engaging and easy to follow. The lessons were not too long and they were interesting.  Click here to see a description of all of the books available from ARTistic Pursuits.  They are $42.95 each and offer a full year curriculum.  The book I was given to review was Grades 4-6 Book One:  The Elements of Art and Composition.

This book gives students their first in-depth look at the elements of art in a simply written text with illustrations in pencil, marker, and scratch art, the media they will be using. The elements of art and composition are explored through American art.  I chose this book because my son has a strong interest in learning how to draw, but has little to no skill.  He is in 6th grade.  It was a good fit for him.  The lessons were easy to follow and the practice "assignments" interested him because he could choose his own subjects to draw.  The supplies needed were easy to get at our local art/craft store and were not an expensive addition.  If you prefer, you can order Art Supply packs from ARTistic Pursuits.  Click here to see them.  For us, art is an extra curricular activity.  We do it (in a formal way such as this) only when we have extra time in the week.  ARTistic Pursuits suggests doing 2 lessons per week, but the student can do more or less when time and interest allows.  I found that once a week was and will be the probable amount we will turn to this curriculum.  ONLY because our lesson and activity schedule is currently so full.

No Risk Satisfaction Guarantee For Individual Orders....That's always one of my favorite features that a company could offer!  ARTistic Pursuits offers a 30 day money back guarantee (excluding shipping) if you are not completely satisfied with your product.  Their guarantee states that you can return it if you are not completely satisfied, but that it has to be unused and in the original packaging.  Wouldn't a person have to use it in order to determine if they were not satisfied?  So, the guarantee is a little confusing to me.  If this is something that is important to you in determining your purchase I would suggest contacting them for clarification on this.  You can find their contact information here

 Any products reviewed by me as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew have been given to me free of charge in order for me to provide you with an honest review of the product and/or how we used the product within our family.  I do not receive any other form of compensation for the reviews posted on this blog.