A is for the Arts

Marcy, over at Ben and Me, is hosting her second round of Blogging through the Alphabet link-up.  I'm going to try and hang in for all 26 letter. Just remember that I said "try". lol

For A, I'm choosing the Arts. I like the arts in pretty much all it's forms... Music, traditional art, dance. I was pretty good at the art of dance as a child.  And I don't want to brag, but these days I'm totally gifted in the art of sarcasm. Don't hate.  ;o)

I've never been the crafty sort so art projects have never thrilled me. It's dirty and messy. But I love looking at art. And I try to include it in our homeschool even though it's not my favorite thing to do. I'm pretty good at including artist and composer studies and even some crafty type stuff. We try to go to museums, the theater, or the ballet at least a couple of times a year.

My older daughter, Mackenzie, has quite an artistic bent that took us by surprise. A few years ago we finally had the funds to get her piano lessons. It turns out that she is really gifted at it.  She's on her third year of lessons and she just continues to amaze us. Here she is playing at her second piano recital.

Last year I decided to farm out her art lessons because they were always the first things I skipped when life got busy. Boy am I glad that I did. As soon as she had proper instruction, we learned that she had a bit of gift here too. She painted this beautiful beach scene this summer and I was stunned when she brought it home.

This week, during our artist study at home, she made a copycat painting of one of Monet's works. She worked on this for about an hour and I couldn't believe what a good job she did with just the knowledge she gained last year. She painted this in about an hour using watercolors, as opposed to oils as Monet used. Not bad considering her very limited supplies at home.

I'm interested to see what Kayleigh's take on the arts will be. She does enjoy looking at art. I make a point to share famous forms of art with her. She loves to look at art in her books and museums. She was able to impress some of the employees at The Met (NYC) with her knowledge of paintings she recognized from her books a couple of years ago.

She's taken dance at the local Little Gym and we plan to move her to a regular dance studio soon. She's also started taken her first music class at our local co-op. We hope to try her out with the violin in a couple of years. For now, her regular art lessons happen at home through Artistic Pursuits and fun crafts.

So what do the arts look like at your house?