Learning to Watercolor: It's Not Just for Kids {Review and Giveaway}

                              This post is sponsored by FrontGate Christian Blogger Network.  The opinions about how it will serve our home well are my own.

Art class.  Who didn't love it in school?  It was one of my favorites growing up (many, many years ago).

I know my kids love art time during our homeschool routine.  In fact, we pretty must do some sort of art activity every day, whether it be drawing, painting or learning about a famous artist.  At least one day a week though I try to teach them a specific art technique such as line formation, shading and how to even use different types of paints.

Now when it comes to using different types of paints, in order to properly teach them correct art techniques, I researched many types of homeschool "curriculums" or even those sites used by other homeschooling families.  

Watercolor was one of the types of painting that I've seen a lot of different methods on and I actually wanted to learn how to watercolor properly myself.  Watercolor isn't just dipping your brush into water and then dipping it onto the solid circle of paint, but how to blend the paint, using different amounts of water to get the right colors, and more (who knew there were so many different ways to use watercolor and types of watercolor paints).

That's when I found Emily Lex's Creative watercolor classes.  Her lessons are short, less than 10 minutes each, yet a wealth of information.  In her watercolor class, she goes over what types of supplies you will need, proper technique and even how to do lettering with watercolors.  She not only offers classes on watercolor, but also watercolor for kids and a class on penmanship (which is something I will definitely be looking into further).

I was generously gifted the opportunity to try Emily's watercolor class, watercolor for kids, plus two packages of beautiful watercolor painted scripture cards.  Now, I am no pro when it comes to watercolors, nor a pro for any type of art other than my knowledge of a handful of famous paintings and how to do some pencil drawings, but I will honestly say that after watching a few of her videos and applies the techniques, I am LOVING using watercolors.  To me, using watercolors is so much more easier to apply different shades of colors and are more softer in appearance than when using acrylics.  

Oh and don't worry if all you have is the type of watercolor paints you have that are the oval shape and popular in kid's art classes for school.  Just use what you have and can afford.  That is one of the beauty's of art itself - there is no need to go broke obtaining art supplies. 

What I really like about the watercolor workbooks that she offers for learning watercoloring is that you can choose from flowers or animals workbooks.  Each workbook offers a sample lesson with colors used in her example on one page and on the other is a faint outline of the image to help when you paint.  There are also two blank watercolor papers between each "lesson" so you can try it yourself without the outline.  

 

I know that May is literally almost over, but I wanted to let everyone know of an awesome giveaway that Emily Lex is running an awesome May Flowers giveaway for this month only.  

It includes items such as a Farmgirl Flower bouquet, nailpolish, scripture cards and even a $100 Starbucks gift card.  You can find more information and enter in the giveaway at https://emilylex.com/may-flowers-ga.

My hope for all you moms out there is that you find the time in your day to learn and try something new.  I know my watercoloring isn't perfect, but it is something that I find is bettering myself and is actually a lot of fun and relaxing.  

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Newest Devotional to our Homeschool Bible Studies {Review & Giveaway}

This post and giveaway are sponsored by FrontGate Christian Blogger Network.  The opinions about how it will serve our home well are my own.


I'm going to be honest, homeschooling isn't easy.  Making sure one child has meet all the required subjects is one thing, but now that G (who is 4 years old) has started to become interested in learning, I now look for books that an be used to cover more than one subject, thus cutting our school time from almost all day to about 3 to 4 hours total. 

I am always on the lookout for quality books (no twaddle aloud since we are following the Charlotte Mason way of learning) that will hold my children's' attention (and mine) for more than 2 minutes can sometimes be difficult.  We had previously been using pastor Louie Giglio Indescribable as part of our Bible, science and geography, along with some copywork thrown in, it was an invaluable addition to our not only our school work, but also our daily lives.

So when I heard that pastor Giglio had published another book, How Great Is Our God, which is a follow-up to Indescribable, I knew the search was over. How Great Is Our God has 100 new devotions and facts covering topics from weather, plants, planets and even the human body.

The information provided in each devotion consists of Bible verses, a short discussion of the particular topic and "How Great", which is an interesting tidbit of info (which are all quite interesting).

If you would like to add this book to your homeschool or for your child's devotionals, you can find it here, or better yet, enter in the giveaway to win your own copy of How Great Is Our God.

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