art

Book Club: “Mystery of Biltmore House”

June 24, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

Book club took an interesting turn this month – a really BIG turn. A Biltmore-sized turn.

We read

The story is about a group of kids trying to solve a crime inside the famous Biltmore mansion. Several other locations around Asheville were also mentioned in the book, making this a great way to learn about the mountain region of North Carolina.

We started out by summarizing the story and discussing the characters’ actions, and there was a lot to talk about! Since gargoyles were described in detail by the author, we talked about the history of these stone carvings – about how true gargoyles have water shooting out of their mouths, and about how other statues are called grotesques.

Of course, after all of that talk about ugly, scary statues, we had to make our own.

I made a few batches of salt dough and gave each kid a ball of it. Some asked for drinking straws so that they could make them spit water.

The kids got really into their sculpting.

Didn’t they come out well?

Next the kids split into their book club teams – boys versus girls – to go on a nature scavenger hunt. They searched for all of the plants mentioned in the book, as well as some local wildflowers. My Big Helper was happy to find tulip poplars …

and all of the kids searched hard to find more plants than the other group. Each one was able to find several plants that were new to them!

Finally, we talked about the wide variety of rooms that can be found in Biltmore House and about some of the ways that it was ahead of its time technologically. Then the kids paired up to design their own dream homes. Some of them tried to make simple, large houses. The duo above, though, got all into it. They drew a house on wheels with a pool, vending machines that spit out their favorite foods, and staircases to the moon and the sun. They got really creative!

Making Holiday Cards with Illuminated Lettering

March 13, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

We make a lot of cards around here. Seriously – a lot. We send them out for most major holidays and even the ones that aren’t really major but are fun, like St. Patrick’s Day.

I use these card-making projects to teach art, and so we try not to make cards the same way too often, but to use new techniques, skills, and materials to create cards for our family.

This year, though, I’ve been really stumped for St. Patrick’s Day, and it hasn’t helped that our calendar is slam-packed full. I knew I had to get really creative, and suddenly as the kids were discussing about whether to dress up as monks for an upcoming Medieval event I knew I had it – illuminated lettering.

We had talked about this a little bit already, but read up on the Book of Kells, the most famous illuminated manuscript. Then we watched this video about the Medieval alphabet and this one about making illuminated letters. This site also contains a printable with examples of an entire alphabet illuminated different ways, which was super helpful for the kids.

Then we headed out to the kitchen table to make our own. We used regular printer paper folded hamburger style, and the kids turned their papers whichever way they wanted. We talked about boxing your first letter in versus leaving it plain, and about gold leafing and more affordable options (like metallic Sharpies).

Then they got busy.

This is my Big Helper’s creation. She chose to make a box around the first letter, to make vines growing around it with small purple flowers, and then use ‘gold leaf.’

This is my Little Man’s card. It’s hard to see, but the big, pointy, dark thing on the left is the ‘H’ for ‘Happy St. Patrick’s Day.” He worked for a long time with this and then filled his card with color.

This was a fun activity. We learned about the history of printing and art during Medieval times, all while making gifts for our far-away family. We also realized just how long this must have taken – because the kids worked for at least an hour on that one letter!

Have you tried your hand at illuminating letters?

Interested in learning more? Check out these fun resources

Shared at:

This is How We Roll

NEW See the Light Monthly Newsletter

March 3, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

We love art, and See the Light is our very favorite art instruction company! They provide lessons on DVD for students of all ages and skill levels, and each lesson is taught by an art master. These quality lessons are fun and educational, and I’ve really seen my kids’ art skills and interest level increase from using these DVDs.

So that’s why I’m excited to share some of See the Light‘s newest endeavors with you – a monthly newsletter full of great art information! The best part is that early subscribers receive access to the new Watercolor Buttefly lesson FREE. This will soon be released on DVD as part of a new Adventures in Art series, but if you sign up now, you can see it at no cost.

To see Watercolor Butterflies for free, sign up for the newsletter here. As always, your information is safe and secure – and please tell them that Amy at A Nest in the Rocks sent you!

Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “The 100 Year-Old Secret” by Tracy Barrett

February 25, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

This month our boys’ book club read the same one as the girls: The 100 Year-Old Secret” by Tracy Barrett. That doesn’t mean that this club meeting was a duplicate of the other, though.

In fact, this is about as close as we’ve ever come to doing the same thing, and yet the way that we did it was quite different.

We started out by discussing the book – by summarizing it and comparing the characters’ actions to how we thought we might handle the situation.

Then I sent the boys outside to find things in nature with texture – that were dead.

They totally loved that assignment.

The boys couldn’t focus on their texture assignment until they darted off some energy, and they did that speedily – all over my yard. They ran everywhere. I’m sure that nobody would ever have guessed that it had rained for several days prior!

Eventually they got back to it, and then they found all sorts of things – dried grasses, sweet gum balls, dead leaves, stems, sticks, etc., and happily carried them into my house.

There I added to their collections with dried pasta and string. We gave them plates of glue and wide picture frames and told them to create textured, sculpted, artistic frames like the one that the famous painting was hung in in Barrett’s story. They got really into it.

As they finished, I took their frames outside and spray-painted them metallic gold. The boys loved that paint – and the fact that it turned my grass gold, too.

Then we talked about facial proportion – about how the tops of your eyes line up with the tops of your ears, etc., and I sent them off to make portraits of each other. The boys did surprisingly well – they got really into it and did some great work. I was very impressed! They drew with pencils and shaded and sketched for quite a while.

When they were finished, they snacked on ‘biscuits,’ English-style, before dashing back outside.

The boys moved at the speed of light, but they had some great thoughts about this story, and I couldn’t believe how detailed and careful their artwork was. They really took their time and put some effort into it. Maybe one of their portraits will be in a fancy frame someday!

What are your kids reading now?

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Xena and Xander Holmes have just discovered they’re related to Sherlock Holmes and have inherited his unsolved casebook! The siblings set out to solve the cases their famous ancestor couldn’t, starting with the mystery of a prized painting that vanished more than a hundred years ago. Can two smart twenty-first-century kids succeed where Sherlock Holmes could not?

Modern technology meets the classic detective story in this terrific new mystery series that will intrigue young sleuths everywhere!

Bible Journaling with Kids: Going Deeper

February 17, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

Last week we talked about Getting Started with Bible Journaling with Kids. If this is something you’re considering, you may want to go back and read that post.

But looking forward, after you have some supplies in place, what do you do?

I think this can go one of two ways.

First, you could let your child go it alone. Let him/her see you reading and studying your Bible and branching out artistically from that time, but don’t do anything else. Let your example lead.

That has worked for us in multiple things, including creating a desire to read the Bible originally. Both of my kids wanted their own Bibles to read at young ages because they saw me reading mine.

If you have especially young children, this free rein approach could be great for encouraging art exploration and Bible expression.

If your child is old enough to learn how to study the Bible independently, however, a specific, joint journaling time could have the added benefit of teaching ways to study scripture.

There are great curriculums out there for this, as well as neat methods like SOAP and such; but here are some simple ideas that you can do with ordinary stuff to dig into scripture deeper – and enhance that Bible journaling experience:

Journal a story or series. Not sure what to study? Use stories of Bible heroes or major Biblical events, like the creation story or the story of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt. Plan to journal only a few verses at a time, and use some of the following ideas to take your journaling experience deeper.
Use a dictionary. Look up the definitions of words that seem important or that are standing out to you. Be sure to ask your child which word(s) that is for him/her. Discuss these words together. Put the definition of the word into the verse for clarification.
Map it. Most Bibles have historical maps in the back. Trace traveling routes on the maps. Figure out the distances traveled, length of time on the road, and maybe even research climate conditions. Would this have been a winter journal or a summer one? Hot or cold? Was it a safe one?
Read the footnotes. Study Bibles have all sorts of information at the bottom of the page. Read the notes out loud to your kids. Talk about what that additional information means. Often it can help put the scripture into the appropriate cultural and historical context.
Use the concordance. If your Bible has additional verses listed, look’em up. I recently had a great conversation with a group of kids about the ‘underwear of truth’ while we were learning about the ‘belt of truth’ discussed in Ephesians 6. You never know where it will lead you!
Use all your senses. Think about what it must have felt, looked, tasted, smelled, or sounded like. Remember that this was before running water, flush toilets, deodorant, or vaccinations! It might seem silly, but I’m betting that life had an earthier quality to it than most of us Americans can imagine, and thinking in those terms might help us see the scene more vividly.
Ask questions. Many Bible stories have elements that seem outlandish to me. Why was a plague of frogs thought to be so bad? Was Eve surprised when the serpent started talking? What would I have said if some angel popped out of nowhere and told me I was going to have a miracle baby? What would I have done if….? Encourage your child to ask questions, because their natural curiosity is in there churning them up. Then take them a step further: what can I do about it NOW? How can I help people shocked by disease? What can I do for that new mother at church? The Bible isn’t a dusty book whose only inspirational actions are past; it’s now. Allow those questions to spark discussions and journal pages about how to react to scripture and real life situations now – and then go and do.

Bible journaling is a fun and creative practice, but in the end it’s not about the art – it’s about the Bible and the One who inspired it.

What are your favorite ways to interact with scripture with your kids?

Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “The 100-Year-Old Secret”

February 11, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

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I love book club days, and this group of girls is always fun. This month was no exception as we delved into Edison’s Gold“>Edison’s Gold, which we had a blast working with last summer, but while that book focused heavily on the exciting aspects of history and science, this one centered around art and relationships.

There is lots of meat for discussion with this book. What is theft? Who owns art? Can missing art be recovered after a long period of time? To what lengths is it okay to go to find stolen goods?

After hashing out the answers to those questions, we headed into the kitchen to make a British treat. The book does take place in London, after all, and Zena and Zander often mention their confusion at the differences between American and British food names. We chose to make cinnamon scones, and the girls worked together to prepare the dough and get them oven ready.

While they were baking, we moved on to our next project. Knowing that picture frames were, at some points in history, nearly as much of a work of art as the painting or drawing they contained, we decided to build our own gilded frames, like the ones holding the infamous “Girl with the Purple Hat.” I pre-cut large cardboard frames, leaving wide edges so they could hold lots of texture. I put ditalini, spaghetti noodles, and old yarn on the table, as well as dishes of Elmer’s glue. The kids dipped these objects into the glue and then positioned them on the frames in patterns to create different textures. When they were finished, I spray-painted them to achieve a solid color frame with a ‘carved’ look.

When their frames were gilded, the girls moved onto portrait work. We talked about proportion and scale in faces and body figures, and then the girls chose a friend to paint. We set up easels with big paper and palettes of paint, and after sketching out their people with some light-colored chalk, they set to work.

After creating some super colorful portraits, we headed back into the kitchen to eat our scones. They were a hit – just like this book.

What are your kids reading now?

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Bible Journaling with Kids: Getting Started

February 10, 2015 by Amy 2 Comments

For a long, long time I’ve gotten pictures in my head when I read. I see scenes, characters, clothes, or whatever’s being described well – so when my dad took me to Bible study as a kid, one of the first pictures I ‘saw’ was of Pharaoh with a frog happily perched atop his head. For the past year or so, I’ve been drawing out those pictures. Sometimes it’s a complete picture, like the froggy and the Pharaoh, but more often than not it’s a mixture of words, colors, and letters. It’s enough to give me something creative to do with my hands while I ponder the scripture and pray through it. The kids have been watching this process, and now they’re interested in Bible journaling, too. We’ve done several things with it: we’ve talked about how to draw and highlight scripture in their Bibles so that they can interact with it while still keeping the text legible. We’ve also purchased simple sketchbooks so that they can make separate pieces of art in there. At first, we journaled together. We began during Advent and journaled our way through the Christmas story. After reading the scripture for the day, we read the notes in my study Bible, talked about what specific words meant, about relevant customs of the day, or anything else that popped up. Then we broke out our supplies and got to work. We still journal in this way at least once each week. We really enjoy the time spent together in scripture, and the artistic endeavor is relaxing. While we don’t stress about the ‘professionalism’ of the finished product, it is fun to pull out all sorts of art supplies and get colorful. Sometimes it’s all about the background, others it’s the lettering or a picture, but always it’s about the Bible. So what do we use? You don’t need anything special. You probably already have art supplies around the house that will do really cool things. It is fun, though, to have materials that do new-to-you, special, or unusual things. With that in mind, these are our very favorite supplies to share among us – and why. These simple Crayola Twistable Crayons – not the pencils – are hands-down my favorite new thing. I wish I had known about these years ago. They’re perfect for adults AND for kids for several reasons: they apply very smoothly to the paper. That makes them easy to blend to achieve a variety of shades easily. More importantly, though, you can get great color on the paper and still read the text behind it. That makes these Twistables perfect for drawing or highlighting in your Bible. You can sketch in a picture and still be able to read the scripture that inspired the art. Colored pencils are a basic thing, but you can do great things with them. My favorite is to color in words that I’ve bubbled or to add shadows or highlights to words. They’re not too expensive, easy to erase, and easy to sharpen. Now, to get a little fancier … I’ve always thought of Sharpies as indelible – and they might be, on your clothing or on plastic, but most Sharpies are not waterproof. This kind, though, IS. That means that you can use it to outline a drawing, do some creative lettering, and also use in the same piece of art …. Waterpaint. Waterpaints in the little tubes are a blast to use because you can control the shading and the amount of pigment much more easily than you can the little cakes of color in the plastic trays. Those will certainly work; but if you’re going to splurge on supplies, the tubes are very fun and they make kids feel as if their artwork and their thoughts are extra important. Gellyroll Glaze pens are new to use, but we’re having a lot of fun exploring with them. You can use these special, sparkly pens by themselves and enjoy the ink colors, or you can use them (again with the waterpaints) to make a resist. Basically, you write or draw whatever you want, and when it’s dry, you paint right over top of the whole thing. The glaze ink pushes the water out of the way, making the ink stand out. My kids consider this to be almost a ‘secret message’ kind of ink, and they love using it in their Bible art. (If you’re going to do resists, then white is the most fun color to have.) We keep all of these special supplies in a basket with our Bible and journals, so that we can easily grab it and get to work. Do you journal scripture with your kids? Want more? Hop over here to find Six Ways to Turn Scripture into Art. Shared at:

Bible Journaling with Kids: Getting Started @ A Nest in the Rocks

NEW February See The Light Special!

February 3, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

Guess what? Our most popular set is on sale for the months of February.

Have the life of Moses come alive for your family!

GOD’S Special Surprise DELUXE GIFT SET is on special during the month of February!

Families will thrill to the love and faith required of a mother desperate to save her baby boy from certain death. Children and adults will admire the bravery of a sister who dared to speak-up to a powerful princess. It’s the dramatic story of baby Moses, God’s Special Surprise to the Israelites, brought to life through art and sound. This story builds the faith of children and encourages obedience to the Word of God.

Included:

DVD w/ 285 minutes of content
black light
fluorescent pencils
fluorescent chalkuary

The regular price: $29.99.

During the month of February you can purchase God’s Special Surprise $25.00 + FREE SHIPPING in the USA.

Coupon Code to use: STL

See the Light wants (1) family to have their very own God’s Special Surprise Deluxe Gift Set. We will be picking a random winner on February 9th at 12a. All entries will be verified.

Entry -Form

NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to the owner of this Facebook page and not to Facebook.

Biggest Sale of the Year Continued: See the Light Art 20% Off

December 8, 2014 by Amy Leave a Comment

EXCITING NEWS! See the Light has decided to EXTEND their Black Friday special through December 15 – which leaves you with ONE MORE WEEK to snag this exciting deal!

The See the Light products are the best art lessons on the market. They combine technique with art history, science, and famous works of art with devotions to provide a variety of art lessons for kids. Even better, they’re certified for official Fine Arts credits!

We LOVE See the Light products around here. They make learning fancy art theory and techniques easy and understandable for everybody in our family, and I love seeing how our enjoyment in creating and appreciation of art is growing as we use these DVDs. So, read on to find out more about their biggest and best sale of the year!

You didn’t think we weren’t going to participate in the all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday craziness, did you?

See the Light is offering you the BIGGEST SALE of the year!

Here’s how it works!

Purchase ART PROJECTS at 20% off and than take an additional 20% off on all other SEE THE LIGHT products on the same order. And to top it off …. There’s FREE SHIPPING in the U.S. A.

Use Code: BLACKCYBER

Code expires at midnight PST, Monday, December 15.

You can either use the ART PROJECTS DVDs as individual gifts or bless the socks of someone with the entire set. The DVD’s also fit in stockings. Perfect, huh?

Get ahead start on your Christmas shopping today with ART PROJECTS and any other products at 20% off.

GREAT See the Light Black Friday Sale – Happening Now!

November 25, 2014 by Amy Leave a Comment