Watercolors and Inspiration

I have been busy organizing our art desk (in the former empty room). I converted the desk the boys used for Legos into an art area for all of us. I purchased a few colorful organizers at Target and then I found this photo of the kids when they were much younger to put right there front and center. It makes me happy to see their cute shining faces looking out at me as I work.




I shared my thoughts on this small set of watercolors on my Handbook of Nature Study blog last spring but I realized as I was working last night that I didn't share on this blog. I use this set of Sakura Koi Pocket Field Sketch Box watercolors all the time because of the vivid color you can achieve. They are also very convenient when you are outside working in the garden or on the trail and want to capture a quick sketch in your nature journal.

See the brush there on the right? It is in sections so it will fit in the box. The one piece is actually a tiny vial for water if you want to carry it right in the set as well.



Here is the brush all screwed together. I use it a lot when I am painting unless I need a really fine line and then I need a different size brush. This one is very versatile though so if you want convenience...this works. I was pleasantly surprised when I watch the last Danny Gregory video to see that Tommy Kane uses the larger set of these in his artwork.



So there you go...my finished Sketch Tuesday project this week from the laundry room. I decided to do a little watercolor graphic style piece for the slideshow instead of my usual pencil drawing. You can see my art space fairly well in this photo too. The other item that I am really happy with that is new and showing in this photo is the Prismacolor pencil sharpener (the bright green object there on the desk). It does a really great job of sharpening my colored pencils without making the lead wobbly.

Hopefully you find something that inspires you to get out your art supplies....mine is a cheerful photo, an inviting work space, really great supplies, and some time!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sketch Tuesday: Laundry Room

Last week's sketch idea was to capture something from Ancient Rome. This was a little different assignment and I know a bit harder for younger children. I appreciate all the extra effort to make this sketch happen and I think you will enjoy seeing the results.

I also appreciate all of the families that sketched early in the week and sent in their sketches over the weekend....perfect!

Here is the slideshow: Something From Ancient Rome.




This week's assignment, due Monday, October 3, 2011:
Sketch something from the laundry room.

All sketchers are welcome and there is no need to sign up. Send in your sketches in jpg format and mail them to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com by Monday, October 3, 2011 and I will include them in Tuesday's slideshow. Complete instructions are found by clicking the Sketch Tuesday tab at the top of my blog.

You may be interested in my Squidoo Lenses:
Art Supplies For Kids - my suggestions for your art materials
Harmony Art Mom's Top Five Art Reviews
Drawing and Painting With Children - ideas and resources

Homeschool Planners and Calendars - Starting Mine A Little Late This Year

Lack of time is the major reason I have not completed my school calendar for the year but now that things have slowed down a bit for Harmony Fine Arts and the "back to school" week for our home is behind us, I am ready to get my planner filled. I don't know why I procrastinated. I started using Mom's Tool Belt last year for my calendar/planner needs and it worked great. After using it for a year, I am in a better position to share the pages I used and how I used them.

My 2010 Planner - Spiral Bound

I thought I could just take photos as I put this year's planner together....some of us are very visual. I know many of you purchased a subscription and maybe you have procrastinated like I did in actually sitting down and printing out the pretty pages.

2011 Planner - Trying Out A Three-Ring Binder

I like pretty planners....I opted to spiral bind my calendar last year but this year I am going to use a three-ring binder- partly for convenience, partly for the ability to change or add more easily, and partly because I want to use the pretty spines and covers. :)

The first thing I did was sit down and decide which style of pages worked well last year.

At-A-Glance Pages - I used the year page at the front of the planner as a reference. I am going to use it this year to highlight our school days.


Calendar Pages - I decided that the style that works for me the best is the portrait style page with the BIG boxes. Edit to add: When I was printing I decided to go with the two page spread calendar pages and put them in my binder face to face....Why didn't I think of that last year?

Homeschool Pages - I use Homeschool Tracker so many of the pages Debra offers I can print easily from Homeschool Tracker. There are a few pages that I found helpful and now that you can edit the form before printing to customize them I will be using more of them this year. I like the Books To Be Read Page (going to fill in Mr. B's free reading books), Books Loaned Out Page (I lose track of so many resources by not keeping a record of who I lend things to), and the Subject and Planning Dividers. There are so many great editable forms in this section that many of you might find helpful.



Household Planning Pages - I LOVED having the Meal Planning pages in my calendar. Even if I didn't plan in advance, I went back and filled it in afterwards as a record of meals we enjoyed or as a tickler for meal planning. These are definitely going back in my new calendar.

Journaling Pages - I used these when I was talking on the phone to write down messages. I stuck a few sticky notes where the boxes are and then pulled them off as I need or moved them to the next page if I still had some left at the end of the month. I think the design of these pages is so very happy and I end up doodling on the pages as I talk on the phone. Are you a doodler?



Lists - I print two pages of shopping lists and one goal page for each month. This has been a great efficiency tool for me and I will continue using these pages in my new calendar.



Cover Pages and Spines - These can be edited to add your own titles! Love the graphics and I will pick one to slip in my binder cover.There are even covers and spines for a recipe binder....love mine! Edit to add: I decided to go with the summer theme cover and spine.

To Do Lists - I wasn't very good at using these last year...perhaps because they were too pretty to write on. I also bound them inside the planner which was a bad idea. This year by putting them in the 3-ring binder I think I will be more apt to use them. I am going to print a few out and slip them in the front pocket of the binder for easy of use.

Those are the specific pages I am using from the Mom's Tool Belt collection of pages. There are many, many more pages to choose from and I highly recommend that you pop over and check them out for yourself. You can download samples to view and play with by clicking right at the top of her website.

There is also a Freebie Section that you might want to check out as well.

I like simple things and frugal things and using Mom's Tool Belt is part of my overall plan for simplicity. Thanks Debra for a great product.

Just so you know: I am an affiliate for Mom's Tool Belt so if you do click the button above and purchase a membership I receive a small commission. I have actually used this planner for 2010 and will be using it again for 2011.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Better to Think or to Know?

Don't look now but he is using his planner and checklist. I am trying to contain my joy at this new stage in Mr. B's homeschooling and life. He is getting organized. As the youngest child, he seems to have cruised through school so far coasting on behind his older brothers. He hasn't had too many times where he is the only child at home or had me all to himself. Our school has a whole new feel to it and he seems to be thriving. It isn't like I haven't paid attention to him but things just have always gone smoothly for Mr. B. He grew into homeschooling as I worked with his older three siblings. He blended in well.

Now the two of us are really getting to know each other and to learn how much I need to interact with him to keep him moving along with his studies. Homeschooling is now more like unschooling and it feels right for us. Yes, there is a checklist but it was mutually agreed upon to include subjects and materials we thought would work for Mr. B. He is really owning his learning.

"In other words, they think that it's more important for a child to think than it is for him to know. But I say that a child can't know without having thought, and that he can't think if he doesn't have a regular, abundant supply of various materials of knowledge. All of us know how reading a passage can stimulate us to think, wonder, and make inferences, which all result in getting us some additional knowledge."
Charlotte Mason, volume 3 page 242

He is in taking more control of his learning but he still has a great amount of reading and narration that he is expected to accomplish. Yesterday he told me at the end of the day that he did "a whole lot of writing". He was working on some written narrations from this week's reading assignments, including a five paragraph story summary for Tell-Tale Heart (using IEW Unit 3). He was not complaining because he really does enjoy writing his thoughts out after reading and digesting. I think that his love of writing is because a Charlotte Mason style education gives a certain amount of freedom to the student to show what he took away from their reading, placing emphasis where they focused and making those connections between subjects as they arise. There are no real "right" and "wrong" answers.

Here are some additional highlights from the week.

We took an afternoon bike ride at the river (photo above.)
We shared some Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry: Recuerdo (read by the poet herself).
We enjoyed some Matisse paintings and I found a new favorite. Luxembourg Gardens.


Mr. B completed notebooking pages for William Taft, the Triple Alliance, and the Titanic. He also added to his timeline, opting to print images instead of sketch this week. (All pages from NotebookingPages.com.)
   
Week three is done and we will be taking next week off for some volunteer work and for some real unschooling time. This is part of our three weeks of school and one week off routine (taking two years to complete his senior year of high school). He will be doing some reading and a few other small tasks all at his leisure as the week goes by but it will be very informal.



We will be getting outdoors while the weather is still good and working on our Outdoor Hour Challenges from the newsletter. Join us!

Sketch Tuesday: When In Rome

Last week's assignment was to sketch something made in the USA. Great job on this assignment...our family had fun with it since there were so many things you could sketch. Thank you to everyone who participated.


Here is your slideshow: Made in the USA




This week's assignment due Monday, September 26, 2011:
Sketch something from Ancient Rome.
(Remember my "no violence" for the slideshow rule...it will be strictly enforced this week. For example: Sketches of swords are fine but sketches with people battling with swords will not be put in the slideshow. I don't want to censor what your child decides to draw. They can sketch whatever they want but you need to explain to your child that it will not go into the slideshow if it does not meet my guidelines.)


All sketchers are welcome and there is no need to sign up. Send in your sketches in jpg format and mail them to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com by Monday, September 26, 2011 and I will include them in Tuesday's slideshow. Complete instructions are found by clicking the Sketch Tuesday tab at the top of my blog.

The majority of the sketches are coming in on Monday afternoon again and it is so hard on me to try to get them all added at the last minute. Please try to get your sketches in before Monday, over the weekend would be fantastic and much appreciated.  Thanks to all who have been sending in sketches early....you are the best.

You may be interested in my Squidoo Lenses:
Art Supplies For Kids - my suggestions for your art materials
Harmony Art Mom's Top Five Art Reviews
Drawing and Painting With Children - ideas and resources

Harmony Fine Arts Grades 5-8 Bundle - Blog Special

It has taken me a very long time to get these plans written and put into ebook format but the revised Harmony Fine Arts Grades 5-8 Bundle is now available. All four grades are updated and now available and the bundle is available in ebook format only. I have to say that these plans are going to make offering art and music appreciation so easy and smooth....I truly wish I had them when I was going through these grades with my sons. They are exactly what I was looking for when I started writing the original Harmony Fine Arts plans. With internet access and so many great free resources available online, you are going to be able to offer rich and exciting study of art and music appreciation.

From now until October 31, 2011, I am offering a blog special for all customers who purchase my 
Harmony Fine Arts Grades 5-8 Bundle.

• Order my Harmony Fine Arts Grades 5-8 Bundle at the already discounted price using the button here in this entry and you will receive all of my Harmony Fine Arts Mini-Units for FREE! This is a $11.85 value.
• The Harmony Fine Arts Grades 5-8 Bundle is only available in ebook version at this time. 
• For descriptions of each Harmony Fine Arts grade level, you can click the buttons on the sidebar of my blog for more information.

With the special bundle offer you will receive free:


Harmony Fine Arts - Vermeer and Haydn


Harmony Fine Arts - Degas and Prokofiev


Harmony Fine Arts - Van Gogh and Handel

For more information about the Harmony Fine Arts Mini-Units, you can read this BLOG ENTRY or click over to my Squidoo Lens.

Harmony Fine Arts Grades 5-8 Bundle EBOOKS - All links will be sent within 24 hours to your Paypal email address. ($59.95)

Time for A Piano Break....Enjoy a Little Pirates!

It has been a few days since I shared some music with you. How about piano this time...contemporary?

Pirates of the Caribbean

Love the big finish.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Lack of Busywork...

Learning about Fauvism and Henri Matisse

I want to piggy-back on Sonya's blog entry this week titled, "Is Charlotte Mason a Gentle Approach? Part 1". I was interested to read her thoughts on whether Charlotte Mason ever used the words "gentle" or "gentle art of learning" in her writings. I have often wondered why these terms were applied to Charlotte Mason and how we got the idea that learning in the Charlotte Mason style was somehow "gentle". (I encourage you to click over and read the whole entry but if you want Sonya's short answer....Miss Mason never said those words.)

This wrap-up post follows last week's Homeschool The Easy Way post. I did not mean that the work was easy but rather from my side of the desk implementing Charlotte Mason's ideas are easier on me. It may be that homeschooling using these ideas are "gentle" on me and allow me to feel less stress and more satisfaction.

As we have applied this style of learning and shaping our homeschool days in high school, I have grown in my awareness that the Charlotte Mason approach to school is a rigorous way to learn. It puts much emphasis on the student taking responsibility for their own learning. I have watched my sons do heaps of reading and we have expected them to read once and narrate it back in their own words or in some other way that shows that they have made it their own. There is no busywork.

This is exactly how I would define our high school year so far in relation to how Charlotte Mason's ideas work in high school. Real learning and no busywork. It is the kind of learning that goes on after the school day is over and your children have graduated from high school.

Appreciating the conciseness of this book lately.

Mr. A who graduated last year from high school and has decided to take a "gap semester" this fall demonstrated to me that learning the CM way goes on after high school. It is real life learning. Here are some of things that I saw this week that he accomplished and if I were keeping track of learning these would be on his list:

• Read a book about Alaska and narrated it back to me as I cooked dinner.
• Completed Sketch Tuesday with his new set of Sharpies. 
• Helped me in the garden and took time to observe the different seeds we found as we cleaned up the garden beds. 
• Read an article about how traditional warm-up exercises actually decrease muscle strength by 5% and then told me about it....leading to a discussion about anatomy with his brother. 
• Researched a Bible question using a concordance and shared the answer with the whole family. 
• Wrote a resume and went and talked to the owner of an aviation restoration company at the airport.

You get the idea.....he did all this in addition to his part-time job and his volunteer work (using construction skills). In real life, there is no busy work.

Totally loving this curriculum...highly recommend this course.

For Mr. B who is still in high school, he is also benefiting from the Charlotte Mason influenced style of schooling. He is working on some good habits and that at times is not gentle but hard work. Since he is the only one doing any formal schooling, it is easier for me to keep on top of the bad habits that seem to creep in when I can be distracted by other things going on. His reminders are coming in the form of a daily task list from Homeschool Tracker. His job is to actually look at the list and check things off as he finishes....something he needs to work on. Being thorough is a good habit that Charlotte Mason encouraged and I am making sure that every assignment is done with diligence and to the best of his ability.

This is tough...going to like though.

We are on our "B" week which means he has geography instead of history, formal writing instead of literature, and a meeting with me to cover two week's worth of work. I had some email about the idea of an A and a B week. It works for us since we are stretching one year's work out over two years, filling in with lots of nature study, extra artwork, informal videography, travel, and volunteer work.

Our school week is done and we are going to be heading to the apple orchard to pick up some apples for pies and to eat apple doughnuts. Mr. B is going to drive me....sigh. He is off this afternoon to spend the weekend with his older brother. Tomorrow I have a double baby shower to attend.....two nieces having babies at around the same time. I have my gifts all ready to go and I just need to make some cards to go along with them.

Great week, especially since I finished my writing project! Oh, I also had my Handbook of Nature Study blog totally redesigned....pop over and take a look. I am very impressed with Emily who did all the beautiful work. Check out her business at PolkaDotPixels.com

HFA Grade Eight - Modern Era Art and Music Plans Now Available

Harmony Fine Arts Grade 8 Middle School
Modern Era Art and Music Plans

Harmony Fine Arts Grade 8 plans are completed and ready for purchase. The new Grade 8 plans are available in both ebook and print editions.The ebook version includes everything in the print version plus art prints that you can print for your family.

*36 Weeks of Plans - 6 artists and 6 composers. (See sample for a complete list.)
*Three Options for art and detailed plans for composer study. (See sample for Weeks 1-6.)
*Ebook format includes links to internet sources for viewing artwork, additional activities, and YouTube listening and viewing. (See sample for more details.)
*Ebook and Print editions include a variety of notebook pages and 14 coloring pages to use as a follow-up to your study. These plans have more custom notebook pages than any other HFA plans- 19 notebook pages!
*Ebook format includes art prints for five of the six artists to view and/or print out for your personal use.
*Resources can be seen on my Amazon Listmania List for Grade 8.
* 83 pages

Ebook Version $17.44 - Link will be sent within 24 hours to your Paypal email address.

Print Version $19.95 plus postage

Right now the only way to purchase these plans is to click the Paypal button in this entry. I will get the Harmony Fine Arts website updated next week.

The print version has the same content as the ebook version but the internet links will need to be typed in by the user. The print version also includes all the same notebook pages and coloring pages but because of cost the art prints are not provided. All artwork referenced in the plans is available for viewing on the internet with links provided.

Please Note:
If you order from Rainbow Resource, you may get the old plans. If this happens, email me and we can make a switch. Also if you have a Grade 8 plan now and would like to trade it in for a new version, please email me as well.


Harmony Fine Arts has been awarded Practical Homeschool Magazine's Reader's Award - Honorable Mention for both Art and Music Appreciation plans 

If you have any questions, please email me anytime.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sketch Tuesday 2011: Made in the USA

Welcome to our first official slideshow of the school year! There are many new sketchers and some alumni as well which makes for a great slideshow. I hope you have a great week and have fun sketching!

Here is the slideshow: Something That Glows!




Next week's assignment due Monday, September 19, 2011:
Sketch something made in the USA.

All sketchers are welcome and there is no need to sign up. Send in your sketches in jpg format and mail them to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com by Monday, September 19, 2011 and I will include them in Tuesday's slideshow. Complete instructions are found by clicking the Sketch Tuesday tab at the top of my blog.




You may be interested in my Squidoo Lenses:
Art Supplies For Kids - my suggestions for your art materials
Harmony Art Mom's Top Five Art Reviews
Drawing and Painting With Children - ideas and resources

Living Books For High School Science

"A book may be long or short, old or new, easy or hard, written by a great man or a lesser man, and yet be the living book which finds its way to the mind of a young reader."
Charlotte Mason, Volume 3

Science in high school is one of those topics that can put fear into a homeschooling mom's heart. We can fear we have a lack of expertise or we perhaps fear we can't offer what public schools can offer. In addition, many of us fear we will not be able to offer a science text in a way that will be meaningful. We may have worked through the years to keep science a living subject with hands-on learning and real life experiences. What happens now that we hit the high school years?

Keeping It Alive
As a science oriented family, I wanted to keep my sons' interests fed even though we decided that the foundation of our study would be a textbook. I was determined to include living books as part of our weekly plans as well. I didn't want to abandon our Charlotte Mason feel to our homeschool even in high school. Looking back, I think it was one of the most important decisions we made.

Inspiration Vs. Information
I was trying to inspire in my children a love of learning and not just feed them dry facts. Living books inspire thinking and do not just provide information. Think back to when you were in school and you had a true learning experience, one that impressed you and has stuck with you all these years later. In my experience, those times were inspired either by passionate people fired up about a topic, a book that was written to give you a window into another time or person's life, or when you made a connection from the written page and related to your real life in some way.

It takes less energy to learn something from a living book than it does from a text. Learning takes place without all the effort to memorize and drill the facts. Learning takes place because it is meaningful and you own it right from the first reading.

Text Plus Something More
I can remember hours and hours of research going into our biology course, trying to find a way to make the text come alive for my boys. I only had to look as far as my own bookshelf and pull the Handbook of Nature Study and some field guides down to supplement our learning. Using those books in addition to a text was what took us outdoors exploring in our own neighborhood and then beyond. They also led us back to our microscope to look at the amazing design and creation right there in the details. We could tackle the topics of high school biology and still keep it real and meaningful.


Applying the Principle to Other Science Courses
The same is true for every high school science course we have completed in our family. There are ways to draw in living books to every topic if you search hard enough. Our study of chemistry, physics, marine biology, and human anatomy have all been enhanced by selected living books offered every week for narration of some sort. Some of the books we stumbled upon, some were recommended by blog readers and friends, and some we had on our shelves already and we just needed to get them down off the shelf and read them one at a time. A few of the books ended up becoming "texts" all on their own like The Elements: An Exploration. This particular book saved our rather dry chemistry course. It brought a spark back to my sons' learning, leading them down their own road to discovery about the elements.We had discovered it was possible to keep a living books focus in our high school science.

Would you like to see our living books selections from our high school science courses?

I have gathered many living books into one list over on Squidoo. Please visit my lens:
Living Books for High School Science.

You may also be interested in reading Charlotte Mason High School and Notebooking in High School.
Or by Science Course:

Homeschool Chemistry

Biology

Marine Biology

Astronomy

This post will be part of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival.

Get Inspired! Another Danny Gregory Video!

This series of videos that Danny Gregory is producing is amazing! I am so inspired by his work and the process he is portraying in his videos. I love everyday objects and moments and this second video featuring Tommy Kane is perfect for beginning artists to see and try to imitate as they gain skills.

It is so worth the five minutes.
Watch on Vimeo: Red Hook.
I agree with the hint to click over to Vimeo and watch it full screen.


Red Hook - a film about Tommy Kane from DannyGregory on Vimeo.

Off to get out my sketchbook.....my watercolors, my pens, my colored pencils, my pencil sharpener and digital camera.

Then.......some inspiration outside!

Weekly Wrap-Up: High School The Easy Way

I wrote a few weeks back about having a touchstone, something to keep me focused on our goals. After the first week, I can tell this is going to be the most relaxed and easy to keep schedule we have ever had. It makes me wonder why it took me so long to see the way to making Charlotte Mason's ideas really stick...the key is the planning, planning with a prayerful attitude.

Mr. B is loving his new courses and the notebook set-up we have using the Notebooking Treasury from NotebookingPages.com. I shared how I set up his timeline in an earlier post and he loves the freedom that we built into the daily work to pick and choose his topics for the timeline and the follow-up notebook pages. The key again is planning, having a supply of notebook pages that will work for a high schooler. The Book of Centuries pages are so flexible that I just printed out a few of each style and he is working on them as he does his reading in history, literature, art, composer study, and poetry. They then are filed in his timeline binder behind the appropriate tabs.

He is really enjoying the Thinkwell American Government course so far and he has asked me to come over and watch a few of the segments with him so we can talk about them together. I think that means it is a success., oral narration without being asked to do so! The segment we talked about yesterday was a video poll of average people being asked questions about government: What is government? Why do we need government? These thoughts tied in nicely with our Bible reading this week and I was pleased to hear Mr. B talk about those connections as he narrated back his assignments.

Back to our week....



We had pie this week...scrumptious apple pie that Mr. B baked from apples we got at the apple orchard. His sister said that she thought it was the best apple pie she had ever eaten. It was good, very good.


We listened to Carl Orff's Carmen Burana and the YouTube version.

We read some Edna St. Vincent Millay.

City Trees
The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.
(excerpt)

Mr. B has been itching to start his human anatomy course so we did a little vocabulary work over the summer but now we are really getting into the meat of it. There is so much vocabulary...we have used Flashcard Machine in the past and I think it is time to start again. I highly recommend this website to adapt to your needs. Here is the set we are adding to as we go along: Human Anatomy Word Roots/Prefixes/Suffixes.

Literature this week included reading some chapters in The Grapes of Wrath and a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. Mr. B is keeping an on-going list of points for an essay on The Grapes of Wrath and writing a character analysis of Tom Joad. I wrote a Squidoo lens on John Steinbeck and the Grapes of Wrath if you are interested in reading that for your own study of the book.

That about wraps up our week as far as academics go. We are keeping an A and a B week schedule so next week he will be adding in a few new courses ....can't wait to share those!

Week 1 is complete!


Use discount code = discount5 to save $5 on your $10+ purchase at NotebookingPages.com
Use discount code = discount10 to save $10 on your $20+ purchase at NotebookingPages.com

Our Empty Room - Making Changes Slowly

I love that so many of you have asked about my empty room. :)

We have been so busy this summer that we really didn't do much with the space until just recently. We did trek down to IKEA and purchase the futon...ended up with the brown textured cover which is glorious. The futon itself is a little hard so I haven't slept on it yet. I like the way we positioned it so we can see out the window. People who know me in real life can't believe I have been able to leave the futon askew...I am usually someone who needs things to be "straight". We scooted the rug to be askew as well so it actually doesn't bother me at all.

We decided to not move the television out to this area since so many of us really are enjoying it as a "reading nook" sort of area. I did separate the two bookshelves to sort of balance the space out. The walls under the lights are sort of bare.....but keep reading to find out what is going there soon!



The desk was already built in when the boys used this as a bedroom so I cleaned it up and arranged the majority of our art supplies on the shelves and in the red rolling cart (under the desk). The only things I purchased were the three striped plastic bins on the bottom shelf and the light that is hanging under the bottom shelf. The new bins are filled with Mr. A's Sharpies and paints. I hung a watercolor drawing of the boys that we had done at Disneyland in 2000. I have never had a spot for it but I love it right next to our art desk.....perfect! Underneath the painting is Mr. B's Lego bins (an IKEA purchase from years ago). The desk was made with a door that we cut down to size and legs we purchased at IKEA.



I had this collage frame in the closet and I decided to use it to display some of the Charley Harper postcards that came from my Charley Harper Postcard Calendar. This is hung on the wall next to the french doors. I put a small table underneath (from the garage storage) with a few nature related items on it. I forgot to take a photo but I will share that another time. 




This is the other side of the french door where I put one of the bookshelves. I am slowly moving a few of my art and nature related books out here to use as references. The stitchery on the wall was made by my dear aunt and is a woods scene with a cabin. This is how she envisioned our area when she first learned we had moved up into the Sierra Nevada foothills. It is all hand embroidered so it gets a place of honor. :)

I did purchase the two blue fabric bins for the bottom shelf and those will hold all those various items that end up looking messy on a shelf like headphones for the stereo and magazines.



Last but not least, these are my two art prints that I purchased last weekend at a craft booth at the local apple orchard. We happened upon this artist who does colored pencil work and he had this sleeping bear framed on the front of his tent. I fell in love with it immediately. My husband really liked the artist's work too and he chose the raccoon print to go along with the bear. One will be hung under each light at the end of the room. My dear husband is going to make frames for them out of some wood he has had stashed for a "special" project. Love that man!

In real life, the colors are much more vibrant than in the photo....I love it when you stumble upon something that is just right and these are perfect for the space we are creating.

I know that I had a totally different vision for the room when we started but after watching to see how the family used the space this summer I changed my mind. I also had to take into account that the original colors I wanted were not very "manly" and I need to face the fact that my husband spends just as much time in the room as I do so I wanted to respect his tastes as well.

I think it is turning out great! I am still looking for a quilt or blanket to put on the back of the futon. I may need to make a few pillows too once I find the blanket (perhaps in the box of things I have stored away from my grandma's things). I also need to frame and hang the baby portraits that I printed for each of the children. Mr. B is going to paint two little shelves I have on hand to display a few of my stitchery projects. We are getting close to being done with making the space more like home.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sketch Tuesday: Light Bright

Welcome back to Sketch Tuesday! I hope that this year gives your families lots of opportunities to sketch, draw, and paint along with the group. Please participate as often as you can and jump in at any time....everyone is welcome as long as you draw on topic and keep it G rated.

Here is the Welcome Back - Slideshow of Art from Summer 2011. 


This week's assignment: Sketch something that glows.

All sketchers are welcome and there is no need to sign up. Send in your sketches in jpg format and mail them to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com by Monday, September 12, 2011 and I will include them in Tuesday's slideshow. Complete instructions are found by clicking the Sketch Tuesday tab at the top of my blog.

You may be interested in my Squidoo Lenses:
Art Supplies For Kids - my suggestions for your art materials
Harmony Art Mom's Top Five Art Reviews
Drawing and Painting With Children - ideas and resources