Week 1

Welcome to your first day of school! I wanted to give you one important reminder before you begin. Many of your lessons below have an internet link for you to click on. When you go to the different internet pages for your lessons, please DO NOT click on anything else on that page except what the directions tell you to. DO NOT click on any advertisements or games. DO NOT click on anything that takes you to a different website. Just stay focused on your lesson and then close that window and you should be right back here for the next lesson. Okay?

1. If you didn’t get here through My EP Assignments, I suggest you go there and create an account.
   • This is a once-a-week course. It will appear on your My EP lesson page on days ending in 3 and 8.
2. Complementary colors are opposites. They are colors that offer the biggest contrast to each other. When combined together, they actually make black (or some version of black, such as gray.)
3. Explore complementary colors.
4. Now use complementary colors. Create your own artwork.
5. This is the end of your work for this course for your first day. You are allowed to move at your own pace (this is homeschooling), but it’s intended you complete one lesson each week.

Week 2

Levels 1-4*

1. Do this complementary colors project. Follow the directions. Color in the circles in a pattern: green, blue, violet. Trace and color your hand and the colors that complement each circle. The page lists different mediums you can use. You can use paints if you like, but you can also use crayons. There are others listed as well.
2. *Print this circle sheet to get started. (Note that an asterisk * indicates that there is a worksheet on this day)

Levels 5-8*

1. Try this complementary colors project. You don’t have to use black marker or paints. You can use crayons.
2. If you really don’t think you can write your name in block or bubble letters, then you can do the project below.
   • Do this complementary colors project. Follow the directions. Look at the picture at the link. Lay your hand across the paper and trace it. Leaving your hand blank, color in the circles in a pattern: green, blue, violet. Then color inside of your hand with colors that complement each circle. The page lists different mediums you can use. Feel free to just use crayons.
   • *Print this circle sheet to get started.

Week 3

Levels 1-4

1. Look at the colors in these paintings. Find complementary colors in each one.

Levels 5-8

1. Look at the colors in these paintings. Find complementary colors in each one.
2. You can read the descriptions of the use of color in each painting as well.

Week 4

1. Look at these examples of Iroquois artwork.
   • masks
   • porcupine quill weaving
   • wampum
2. Which do you think are the hardest to do?
3. Which do you think are the coolest?
4. What kinds of images did they use on their artwork?
5. What colors did they use?

Week 5

1. Here is another example of Native American artwork, beadwork.
2. What colors do you notice?
3. What shapes do you notice?
4. What images do you notice?
5. Make your own online beaded project.

Week 6

1. Look at these paintings of the Mayflower.
   • Band of Exiles
   • Mayflower
   • Pilgrim Fathers
   • First Colonists
   • Boarding
2. What colors do you see?
3. What shapes do you see?
4. Where do you see movement in the paintings?
5. Can you find complementary colors in any of the paintings?  (My observation: check out Mayflower Dawn)

Week 7

1. Look at different kinds of lines used in art.
2. Here are some more line examples.
3. Draw 5 different kinds of lines and label them.
4. Look for them when we look at artwork.
5. You can include this in your portfolio.

Week 8

Levels 1-4

1. Read about the style of painting done by limners in Colonial times.
2. Look at these three limner paintings. Can you see limner characteristics in them?
   • Little Boy in a Windsor Chair
   • Mrs. McCurdy and Her Daughters, Mary Jane and Letitia
   • Freake Family

Levels 5-8

1. Read about the limners of Colonial times.
2. What characteristics defined their paintings?
3. Look at these three limner paintings. Can you see limner characteristics in them?
   • Little Boy in a Windsor Chair
   • Mrs. McCurdy and Her Daughters, Mary Jane and Letitia
   • Freake Family

Week 9

1. Look at these paintings of Daniel Boone.
   • portrait
   • leading settlers through the Cumberland Gap

   • crossing the shallow ford

2. Notice the use of lines. What kind of lines can you find?
3. What observations can you make about the middle paintings? (My observations: notice the light and dark places)

Week 10

Levels 1-4

1. Look at these pages of French and Indian War paintings. one two
2. Find at least one use of complementary colors and three different types of lines.

Levels 5-8

1. Look at this page of French and Indian War paintings.
2. Find at least one use of complementary colors and three different types of lines.

Week 11

Levels 1-4*

1. *Make a tri-corner hat.  (If you don’t have construction paper or cardboard, you can glue two pieces of regular paper together to make it stiffer. Decorate your hat however you like. Here are pictures of the tricorne hat.

Levels 5-8

1. Look at these examples of value.
2. Draw simple strips and shade them from dark to light like in the examples, or draw a 3D shape and shade it as in the examples.
3. Look at the values in the Daniel Boone portrait.

Week 12

1. Learn about positive and negative space. Make sure you watch, find and create.

Week 13  (Materials: construction paper or other colored paper)

Levels 1-4

1. Do this positive and negative space project.
2. You’ll cut shapes out on the fold of different colored 3 in. by 3 in. papers. Then you will glue them onto a dark piece of paper.
3. If you don’t have American construction paper, fold your paper to divide it evenly into squares and use that size square.

Levels 5-8

1.  You will need two different colors of paper.
2. The directions sound confusing, but just start following them and I think it will be clear. Take one of your papers. You will cut shapes out along the two long edges while leaving the corners uncut. Now you will take your other piece of paper and glue on the pieces you just cut out. Flip your paper over and glue on the long middle piece with the corners, which was left over from what you cut. Just give it a try.
3. Where is the positive and negative space?

Week 14

Levels 1-4

1. Look at the American Revolution artwork.
2. Can you find an example of negative space?  (My observations: what about in the Patrick Henry painting?)

Levels 5-8

1. Look at the American Revolution artwork.
2. Can you find an example of negative space?  (My observations: what about in the Patrick Henry painting?)

Week 15

Levels 1-4

1. Look at this painting of Paul Revere’s ride.
2. Can you find complementary colors, negative space, and three types of lines?
3. You could take a screen shot of this for your portfolio.

Levels 5-8

1. Analyze the painting, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
2. You could take a screen shot of this for your portfolio.

Week 16

Levels 1-4

1. Look at textures used in art.
2. Look at these paintings and drawings. What textures do you see?

Levels 5-8

1. Look at textures used in art.
2. Scroll down to “Techniques that use Texture.” Read it and look at the examples. These use texture to make things that look real, like you could reach out and touch them.
3. Van Gogh  These are different. It is not trying to emulate the real texture of an object. Van Gogh used brush strokes to create texture marks on his painting, making it much more interesting.

Week 17

Levels 1-4

1. Chardin was an artist during the 1700s. Listen to how to say his name by clicking on the the little speaker icon.
2. Look at Chardin’s artwork for lines, colors and textures. You can click on them to see them bigger.
3. What type of scene does he typically draw?
4. Tell someone what you observed.

Levels 5-8

1. Chardin was an artist during the 1700s. Listen to how to say his name by clicking on the the little speaker icon.
2. Read about him and his work.
3. Look at Chardin’s artwork for lines, colors and textures. You can click on them to see them bigger.
4. What type of scene does he typically draw?
5. Tell someone what you learned and observed.

Week 18

1. Create artwork with 3D textures.
2. You will make a collage. Scavenge around your house for fabric, yarn, toothpicks, wood chips, magazines, and anything else interesting that you are able and allowed to glue onto a piece of paper. Create a picture on a piece of paper by gluing down what you found. It doesn’t have to be a picture picture. Make an interesting design. Think about line, color, and texture.
3. You could take a picture of this and include it in your portfolio.

Week 19  (optional materials, mostly simple, see #3)

1. Look at Plains Indian artwork.
2. What lines, colors, shapes and textures do you see?
3. If you want to make a craft, you can choose one from this page.

Week 20

1. Look at these drawings by Lewis and Clark.
   • bones
   • fish
   • map
   • plant
   • Draw something in your house. Add enough details that whomever you show it to knows what it is (e.g., not just a couch, but a certain couch).

Week 21

1. Look at this painting of Sacajawea and Lewis and Clark (original source).
2. Does this painting look like it has texture to it? I think it does.
3. Look at the other paintings on this page and read what it says. You’ll learn where the texture comes from.
4. On which paintings do you think the soil art works best?

Week 22

1. If you are doing Year 2, Early American History, then make props and costumes for the skit you will read for history on Day 109. You don’t have to use the exact materials recommended. Use construction paper. Use whatever you have. Be creative.
2. If not, you can do the assignment below.
3. The Star Spangled Banner, America’s national anthem, was written about a battle during the War of 1812.
4. Here is a tattered version of the flag that inspired the poem, turned song. (Remember: There were not 50 states then!)
5. Design and draw a flag. (You can do it on a computer if you like.)

Week 23

1. Here is a landscape scene from what might have been travelers on the trail.
2. You have looked at a lot of portraits of people. Look at this landscape painting. A landscape painting is a painting of scenery. This painting is not about the people.
3. There are three main areas of a landscape painting: the foreground (what’s up front), the middle ground, and the background. It’s like three layers. The people are in the foreground. Can you see the middle and backgrounds? The background is not really clear. The top of the mountain is kind of covered with some clouds. It’s not sharp. I think the focal point is where the light hits in the middle ground.
4. What do you think of this Oregon Trail painting? (Scroll down and look at the covered wagon painting on the right side.)
5. What’s in the foreground? middle? back?  Again, the background is muted, not clear. It’s far away. The foreground in this picture is the plants. They aren’t important. The action is in the middle ground.
6. Scroll down on this page and choose a “wall” to look at. These are by the man who painted the waterfall picture. Look at some of his many landscape paintings. Some you can click to see bigger, some you can’t.

Week 24

1. Draw a landscape of a wheat field.

Week 25

1. Look through the slideshow of the “Art of the Gold Rush.”
2. Make observations. Can you find complementary colors? What types of lines and textures can you spot?

Week 26

1. Learn about organic and geometric shapes. Make sure you watch, find and create.
2. You could take a screen shot of this for your portfolio.

Week 27  

Levels 1-4

1. *Cut out these shapes. Color and glue them, overlapping, onto a piece of construction paper (or other paper). Now, tear up pieces of colored paper (or color white paper and then tear it) into any sort of interesting shape. They don’t have to look like anything. Glue those pieces onto your paper. Cover your whole paper. Which shapes are geometric? Which shapes are organic?

Levels 5-8

1. Do this geometric and organic shapes art project.
2. You will make a colored background out of geometric shapes. You can cut out squares like the link says, or you can draw and color in shapes and use other shapes besides a square. A geometric shape is a regular shape, such as triangle, circle, rectangle, trapezoid.
3. Then cut out organic shapes, irregular shapes, and paste them on top.

Week 28

1. Look at these paintings and drawings about slavery.
2. What observations can you make?
3. Look at the painting of slaves being taken away in a cart being pulled by a horse. What geometric and organic shapes do you see?

Week 29

1. Look at this page on pattern in art.
2. Scroll through these pages and look at patterned artwork.

Week 30

Levels 1-4*

1. It is believed by some that escaping slaves used secret messages in quilts to communicate. Each pattern had its own secret meaning. A Sampler would contain all the patterns so that they could be taught to others.
2. Here’s an article about what’s behind the quilt patterns. Look at the quilts and read through at least the first three examples of message patterns at the beginning of the article.
3. *Make your own secret quilt pattern.

Levels 5-8(*)

1. Read about quilting.
2. There is debate as to whether quilts were used to send secret messages.
   • Some say there is no written record, only one family’s oral history that they did sew pictures into quilts to send messages to escaping slaves.
   • Some say that white men wrote the history books and wouldn’t have written about what women, including a lot of black women, were sewing.
3. Here’s an article about what’s behind the quilt patterns. Look at the quilts and read through at least the first three examples of message patterns at the beginning of the article.
4. (*)Design your own quilt pattern. Maybe you’d like to use a template.

Week 31

Levels 1-4*

1. *Print out this snake template. Follow these directions:
2. Choices:
   • Color each section in a pattern such as blue, red, green, blue, red, green, or any pattern you like.
   • Use a color pattern like above, but instead of coloring it in, drawing a pattern with that color in the space. You could draw squiggly lines with orange, then diagonal lines with green, then polka-dots with purple, then do it all over again in a pattern.
   • Or, you can combine the two like this example. This uses marker with a thin black marker for design drawing.
3. When you are done your pattern, cut on the black line and hang by a thread attached to the head. Here are directions.

Levels 5-8*

1. *Print out this template of a leaf. Fill in a pattern in each section of the leaf. Here is an example.

Week 32

1. Look at these paintings of the Civil War. You can click on them to see them bigger.
2. Look at this one painting in particular. What patterns of lines do you see? What types of lines? Can you find complementary colors? What shapes do you see? Textures?

Week 33

Levels 1-4

1. Look at this Civil War artwork. Choose one painting. Look at it closely. Describe your observations about line, color, shape, pattern, and texture.

Levels 5-8

1. Look through this Civil War artwork. Choose a piece and describe your observations about line, color, shape, patter, texture, and value.

Week 34

Levels 1-4

1. Look at and read this page about space.
2. What is the clown’s message?

Levels 5-8

1. Look at and read this page about space.
2. Look at and read about these examples of the use of composition (the use of space) in paintings.

Week 35

Levels 1-4

1. Do this spider web project. However, don’t just copy what they did. Think about line, color (complementary colors), shape, space, pattern, and texture. Maybe the center of your spider web will not be in the center of your page. Think and make decisions. Draw your spider web design in black. Then you can start filling in the spaces. Use textures, patterns, shapes, and smart color choices. You can finish this next week.
2. You do not have to use 12 x 12 paper.

Levels 5-8

1. Do this art lettering project. You can think about line, color (using complementary colors), shape, space, pattern, texture, and value as you work on it. You don’t have to use watercolor pencils. You can fill in the areas however you choose. Think about all of the elements of art we learned about this year and make decisions about what to do. Don’t just do it randomly. You can finish this next week.

Week 36

1. Finish your project. Yeah! Great job!
2. Read this poem on the elements of art.