Tuesday, July 12, 2016

ArtAchieve Entire Level I Review


My family had the privilege of trying the Entire Level I from ArtAchieve for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

ArtAchieve is produced by John Hofland (a teacher of art, language arts and theatrical stage design) has online art lessons that teach anyone to become an artist or how to teach art regardless of previous instruction or knowledge. John bases these art workshops on unique things he has seen in his family's many travels all across the globe.

ArtAchieve Entire Level 1 Art Classes

The Entire Level 1 bundle has thirteen distinct lessons that start from a beginners level. Even the most novice won't have any trouble starting here. These lessons have a lesson description page that is located on their website (under Art Lessons, Art Classes: Level 1 in the pull down menu, and click on each lesson picture) that tells you about the lesson, list of supplies needed, suggestions for cross-curricular connections to explore, and the estimated time to complete the lessons. In the first lesson we are taught the basics of 6 types of lines, how these are everywhere in everything we see, and how we can break up any image into these 6 simple types of lines and actually draw anything easily by doing so. This helps the student with the rest of the artwork.

ArtAchieve Entire Level 1 Parts

The majority of these lessons have 4 parts that you can see under your account in ArtAchieve after purchasing: warmup, PowerPoint of the lesson, video of the lesson, and a printout of the drawing. The warmup basically lets you take a square of lines and copy it to your best ability into a blank square that is under it. The PowerPoint of the lesson goes into more depth about the object or art that the lesson is based on and a little bit about the country/culture it is from. The video of the lesson has the list of needed supplies for the artwork, tips to help you draw, and a how to explaining how to draw it line by line. All the art is open to creative interpretation, but there is the drawing printout to help you visualize what the final art should look similar to.

The Entire Level 1 bundle is composed up of these lessons:
  • Lesson 1: Simple Lines (free lesson, suitable for all grades)
  • Lesson 1B: Shading Objects That Have Corners (free lesson, suitable for grades 4-adult)
  • Lesson 1C: Shading Rounded Objects (free lesson, suitable for grades 4-adult)
  • Lesson 2: The Czech Cat (free lesson, suitable for grades K-adult)
  • Lesson 3: The Hungarian Insects (suitable for ages 6-adult)
  • Lesson 4: The Haitian Gecko (suitable for ages 6-adult)
  • Lesson 5: The Dragonfly from Ecuador (suitable for grades 1-adult)
  • Lesson 6: The Chinese Dragon (suitable for grades 1-adult)
  • Lesson 7: The Owl from Bali (suitable for grades 2-adult)
  • Lesson 8: The Kitenge Tree Wall Hanging from Tanzania (suitable for grades 3-adult)
  • Lesson 9: The Plate from Nepal (suitable for grades 2-adult)
  • Lesson 10: Four Suns with Four Faces (suitable for grades 1-adult)
  • Lesson 11: The Sheep from Wales (suitable for grades 1-adult)

Teela and Zari doing art with ArtAchieve.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

This was our first time with ArtAchieve and we love their homeschool art curriculum! I had my girls who are 5 and 8 do the: Czech Cat, Hungarian Insects, Haitian Gecko, and Dragonfly from Ecuador so far. We have been enjoying the art lessons for kids and adults. My daughters had a lot of fun with this art and especially loved that they could follow the directions and then decorate and color/paint it how they wanted to. I love how differently the art came out for the same lesson. They are all so unique.

There were a few things that would have made ArtAchieve even better. The lesson description page that I mentioned above would have been great if it also was available in downloadable PDF format so that we could easily access it offline too and also could print it out. Having the age or grade levels each lesson is suitable for on the lesson description would also be helpful. I also noticed that three of the lessons (Kitenge Tree Wall Hanging, Four Suns with Four Faces, Sheep from Wales) did not have a downloadable/printable drawing. The videos and PowerPoints are not downloadable either, so we cannot view them offline. I wish we could have unlimited access to the art lessons purchased without expiration. These things would have made it better since our internet connection is slow.

ArtAchieve Art

These drawing lessons for kids and adults are very educational. They are packed with a lot of neat information about geography/social studies, science, literature, writing, etc. We loved learning not only the art, but about the culture and countries represented as well.

I highly recommend ArtAchieve art lessons to anyone that wants to learn to draw or needs a great homeschool art curriculum! These classes are a wonderful way to learn. They are great for all ages.

BUY IT
In addition to Level 1, there are four more levels. These can be bought separately, together, or even as individual lessons. If you buy individual levels you will be saving money as a whole than buying the lessons separately. The cost of purchasing all the lessons in Level I individually is $36. By purchasing the Entire Level 1 bundle you save $9, and pay only $27, or just $3 per art lesson. This gives you 1 year license.

Follow Them on Social Media:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Artachieve
Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/artchieve  @artachieve
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/artachieve/
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+artachieve
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/johnahofland/ 
Hashtags:  #hsreviews #drawinglessonsforkids, #ArtAchieve


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