Our Visit to Nashville's "Frist Art Museum" (Aidan)

     Recently, our family visited Frist Art Museum in Nashville Tennessee for a special exhibit featuring 

some of Piccasso's most famous pieces, which had been shipped from Europe. The exhibit, Piccasso 

Figures, featured pieces from his early years of training to some of the last he ever painted.

    Piccasso was trained at a school in Barcelona, Spain, from the age of thirteen. He also took lessons in 

Madrid, and made several trips to paris. He finally settled in Paris, and there he was soon became one of 

the most influential artists of the 20th Centuries. Famous for his use of simple shapes to represent a 

complex image, called cubism. This display focused mainly on his portraits and sculptures. Piccasso saw it 

as the artists right to transform a figure from one state of being, to another, often creating chaotic images. 

For those who could not read what the statue is supposed to picture, it became very confusing. When 

walking by an especially cryptic statue, Baxter exclaimed "Look, it's a dead octopus!"

    Near the end of his carreer, Picasso focused primarily on painters themselves, hoping to encourage the 

next generation to pursue art as well. And it worked. Despite his unique style, Picasso still manages to 

captivate many young artists today.

    Along with Picasso's works, Frist Art Museum was also exhibiting paintings from the Westward 

expansion of the United States. Many of the artists were hired by the government to capture the 

picturesque beauty of the West, hoping to encourage people to move West. The stunning landscapes, 

and portraits of the natives, were influential in Americans' ideas of the West at the time. The exhibit 

spans over a century of artwork, from the 1820's, to the 1940's.

Disney Sketch Class (Aidan)

~Walt Disney~

Walt Disney did not start off popular or famous. He never planned to become a household name. His full first name was Walter, and he lived with his mother and sister, his father being a construction worker. Walt Disney grew to love art from his mother who drew the blue prints for his father, who used them in his work. His mother, though her art work was not as exciting as the famous artists, was still passionate about her vocation, and she taught her young son to follow. He learned from his mother, and he was happy with his home. But his father had plans. 

So, the Disney family became farmers. Mr. Disney's construction vocation had failed, but this did not suppress his ambitious idea of one day becoming wealthy and content. So, he started the task of caring for his enormously large farm. He did not believe in starting small. So Walt Disney learned the ways of the farmers along with his father, and he began hard work from an extremely young age. Walt Disney learned to be content with this job, but that was not the end of it. 

Mail routes! Again, Mr. Disney failed, and so he started a twice a day delivery to 700 individuals. And again the rest of the Disney family was uprooted from their home to live closer to their father's job. And again Disney worked hard for his father. At three in the morning he woke up to leave for his deliveries, and at five in the evening he started again. His school suffered, but he still found ways to have fun. He and his friend created an act about Abraham Lincoln and a friend. The school loved the act, and Disney enjoyed himself along with his friend.

Jam making? Mr. Disney again failed at a vocation, and so he bought a factory to make jam, and Disney was forced to work for him for free. Walt Disney knew how this would end. And as the Disney family worked at this job, a war began. World War I started, and Disney watched as his friend went off to war, leaving him behind to work for his father. Disney wished to help in the war, and he was just old enough to be a red cross ambulance driver. But there was a problem. His parents had to sign the paper. Mr. Disney refused. He was not going to lose his best worker. But his mother sneaked in and signed the paper for Disney. His father knew nothing about it.

Disney traveled to Connecticut to train to become an ambulance driver. But before he finished training, the war ended. So, Disney was to help with the wounded soldiers who were not yet able to return home heal. He heard the stories of the wounded, and he became familiar with trench rats. These rats would crawl into the pits that soldiers fought in, and Disney sketched pictures of the interaction between humans and these rats.

After Disney was no longer needed, he did not want to return to his father's business. So he thought he would work for a movie company. Movies had started to become popular, and some companies made advertisements that played before the movie. Disney tried drawing for the company, but he was no good. After a while, he left the company.

But Disney still dreamed of drawing moving pictures. So, he started his own company, and he hired some of his more artistic friends to draw for him. He failed to draw a hit for a long time, but finally, Oswald the lucky rabbit became a favorite. People became attached to this little cartoon, and Disney began to make money. He also began to disrupt the larger companies.

So, Disney was sent a letter to sign for the rights of Oswald to draw in a short clip. He signed. He did not know that in the letter it also asked for all of the rights of Oswald. Disney lost more and more money without knowing what had happened. He finally went to ask why his business was failing, and the company showed him the letter. Disney was furious. He had lost his only success, but he would not give up.

Disney again set to work. After a bit of experimenting, Disney stumbled across a great plan. He would not only make his drawings move, he would make them talk. So, he drew Mortemore, the funny little mouse that caused his fame. But his wife did not like this name. So, she suggested Mickey. This sounded more appealing, so he named his mouse Mickey Mouse.

The talking animation was a huge success, and people wanted more. So, Disney began to create his first movie. Snow White was the first full length animated movie to include sound. Disney worked hard on creating more and more movies. But, he ran into trouble.

Across the sea, World War II began. Disney's buildings began to fill up with soldiers who needed a place to sleep. He was no longer able to make movies. His buisness was beginning to fail.

So Disney met with government officials, and he made a deal with them. If they fully funded his operation and let him keep his buildings, he would make more movies, supporting the war effort and national security. These movies kept his company alive until the end of the war.

The legacy of Disney stretches all the way into modern times. Movies still are being created by the Disney company. One man's passion of acting and drawing created years of entertainment and memories. Today, two parks, Disney World and Disney Land, stand as a memory to the man who sketched a mouse Named Mickey.
By: Rus (Age 12)

Sketch by Aidan

        Ethan and I (Aidan) have been interested in art for a long time. So we were excited when we heard we would have a chance to join an art class called Sketch. We had a little trouble arriving at the right destination, but we finally found the church sandwiched between two other companies. We entered into a large room where tables were set. They were handing out art supplies, and we picked up our supplies and took our seats. We had a little more trouble getting all of our supplies. We were instructed to look at a list inside of our bags and to see what was missing. But when we searched the bag we found, to our great disappointment, there was no list to be found! After a couple of questions and a few minutes of confusion, we finally found all our supplies and settled down in our seats. The leader began to teach us about the artist we were studying. We learned about a French Artist named, Jean-Honore Fragonard. He lived from 1732-1806. If you know your history you can see he spent some of his adult life in the French Revolution. He began his life as the son of a glove maker, which, though a seemingly simple trade, allowed his family to live comfortably. This was the time period where gloves were in great demand. Fragonard's father tried to make some investments, but they ended up being unsuccessful, and he lost much of his money. As Fragonard's father watched his children grow, he decided they were old enough to make their own profit and take care of their mother and father. Fragonard decided the life of an artist was the life for him. But when he went to an artist to learn the trade, he found his skill at it was not profound, so he was sent to art school to improve his skill. After he came back from school, he was taken as an apprentice, and he copied the art the artist created. Although this was not ideal, it was how he was apprenticed. After a while he became more independent. He started during an art period where the pictures were serious and rigid. As he painted the French Revolution began. It was unfortunate for him, for the king had noticed his skill and had asked him to make more. Now that he was painting for nobles, he found himself in a very bad position. As the nobles were being killed, no one bought his paintings. He had painted many paintings, and a great number of them were of his daughter. After a while, he found a noble who loved his paintings, and he began to paint enormous pictures. But as the noble studied them, she saw that many of them looked much like her. The paintings were made in a series. It began with a small boy who grew up to man hood. Through his whole life he loved a girl. This is the girl who looked disturbingly like Fragonard's client. At this period in history, paintings were more open and fun. Even though they were beautiful, she refused to buy Fragonard's paintings. Fragonard decided he had had enough of France and the revolution, so he sailed over to America, who had recently finished the American revolution. He visited a relative in America. Fragonard loved the huge paintings he had painted earlier, and he still had them, for he had carried them across the ocean to America! As Fragonard looked at his enormous paintings, he decided to fill a whole room with them! He followed this motive and filled an entire room with the paintings. All the paintings stayed at his relatives house, and Fragonard decided to return to his homeland, France. He said farewell to his relative and returned to France. The revolution had ended and Fragonard was safe again to paint. But he saw that he had made well over five-hundred paintings, and had no clients to sell them to! He decided it was time to stop his profession. It was a good choice, for Fragonard died happy with his family. After his death, it was found he had only signed five of his paintings! This was the story of the Artist we studied. 

        After we learned about this artist and studied his pictures, we started our own art. Sketch is set up to give gifts of art to charity organizations, and the organization this month was called Sole Hope. This organization was helping people in Uganda. People in Uganda usually don't where shoes when they walk, and they can get bugs called jiggers in their feet. These bugs are extremely painful, and it is almost impossible to walk with them. Sole Hope takes out these bugs and wash the peoples feet. They say that wearing shoes and washing their feet will completely prevent the bugs from going into the peoples feet. If someone asks why they are washing their feet, they tell the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet, and how we are told to serve others. The packet held many things, including Styrofoam and cloth. The parents cut out patterns in the cloth, while the students used the scraps to make patterns in the Styrofoam. We pushed the cloth into the Styrofoam and with a plastic knife and made patterns. After about an hour, when most of the people had cleared out, we were still working. After we finished, the leader took pictures to make cards along with the shoes. After cleaning up our area, we left. I can't wait until the next Sketch.    

Fieldtrip to the Currier Art Museum 2015 By: Rus

 Currier Art Museum Field trip 

      Hi I'm Rus. We went to the Currier Art Museum. We first saw a large statue in the parking lot. We then went to a class room were we got together into groups. We almost got the group to ourselves. Some of my favorite paintings and other art work that I saw are these. We first saw a picture of a family that was at a house and were caring for a baby. We told our hypothesis to every body and saw if they were right or wrong. This is called the scientific method. After that we saw a picture of New Hampshire with different scenes packed into one picture. One other thing I loved is we saw a case with Paul Revere's work. We went to a couple more things and then went back to the classroom to do some art. We learned how to do art using the scientific method. Then we did a black and black and white picture of whatever we were drawing. Then we did a colored picture and experimented with colors. Finally we used our imagination to make a fun picture. You can try this too. I loved this field trip because of all the art we got to do ,and we used our imagination. 

Report by Rus: Age 9 
Pictures by Stella aka Siobhan

Currier Art Museum Field Trip - by Rus (age 7, almost 8!)

We went to the museum yesterday (art museum). We loved it there. We even got a tour. We learned how to make a good picture & that some pictures have stories that go with them. We loved it there! It was so fun!!! We were asked some questions. Then after a while we went home.

My Classes in The Lighthouse Co Op By: Sis Age:8

We have recently started at thing called The Lighthouse Co Op. It is something for homeschoolers where we go every Monday, and that is our day off school :) They are fun classes :)

Buddy and I at first go to Music Class. Our teacher is Mrs. Chagmon. She is nice :) And we are learning how to read music and will have a concert at the end and somebody might play the piano and somebody else might play the flute! We are also learning in music class how to play chimes which has been fun! A O is called a whole note and a d is called a half note and a d with a dark part in the circle is called a quarter note, and those are all the notes that we have studied so far! We have also learned how to play the chimes and we have learned some fun songs! :) :) :)

Then my next class is Art and my teacher is Mrs. Couser. She is nice also :) We have a big portfolio with charcoal, an easel, a drawing pad, a art journal, a hard pencil, a soft pencil, a sketch book, and a pencil sharpener, pastels of almost any color, a notebook, history of art papers along with pictures of cave paintings, we have a ton of art stuff! We in our art journal draw a picture a day, in our sketch book we sketch things, with our drawing pad we draw things :) :) :)

My next class is Destination Imagination! My teacher is Mrs. Lommen. She is nice also! :) And we act out things one of our challenges was to think of three animals pretend to be them, and have them argue something that would mean that they would be president, we had 2 minutes to choose 3 animals, make up words for them and 4 minutes to act it out, we managed almost! We also will have challenges against other teams, and also the very best teams go to Tennessee where all over the world teams come to compete! :) :) :)

Then we have Lunch! :) :) :)


My next Class is Cooking and Crafts Throughout The USA, where we have baked, frosting and mini apple pie, and will be baking cookies this Monday! We have also learned about Compass Roses, and we have also learned about these states and capitols:

State: Capitol:

New Hampshire Concord

Delaware Dover

Massachusetts Boston

Indiana Indianapolis

Washington Olympia
:) :) :)

These are all VERY FUN classes!

By: Sis
Age: 8