Growing up in my family it was just assumed that you would be a lover of art. So while I probably would not have been naturally drawn to art (haha, my artistic talent begins and ends with stick figures), I know a great deal about art history and love traipsing around art museums now! This is probably why I love a well-illustrated book and enjoy making connections with different art genres.
Needless to say, noticing art has been a factor on our current trip around the world!
A few months ago, when we were romping through North America, one of our favorite books featured illustrations utilizing pointillism a la George Seurat style. As we read that fabulous book for the 10th time in two days, we started talking about the art style and proceeded to create some masterpieces of our own!
Fast forward and here we are in Australia, exploring the aboriginal culture. Aboriginal art reminded me so much of the post-impressionistic era pointillism, that I couldn’t help but blurt out, “Look boys, it’s pre-historic pointillism!”
There is nothing new under the sun, just variations…
We pulled out our q-tips and proceeded to do a little bit of pre-historic pointillism and other aboriginal art designs ourselves on our cardboard boomerangs. Did you know that they were used by the aborigines as a weapon? I’m sure you can imagine how thrilled my boys were to learn of this…
Art + weapon construction = huge winner with little boys!
We were all quite pleased with the results and the boys proceeded to take their works of art and go hunting!
These (or what’s left of them) will definitely be tucked away in our continent boxes!
After some successful hunting (and mangling of cardboard art), we settled back down to reread some of our favorite Australia books:
We loved reading about Rosita in our Children Just Like Me
book!
book!
We also enjoyed the artwork and simplicity of Big Rain Coming
. We could really identify with the aborigines since we recently discovered that our desert home only gets an average of 8 inches of rain a year!
. We could really identify with the aborigines since we recently discovered that our desert home only gets an average of 8 inches of rain a year!
Stories from the Billabong
has some absolutely fabulous illustrations. I drooled over them for quite a while. Many of the stories had to do with boomerangs, so there were plenty of ideas we could utilize when painting ours! We didn’t actually read many of the stories because some were a bit violent and I’m also not quite ready to immerse my young boys in their spiritual folktales just yet… We did enjoy the story “Why the Platypus is such a special Creature”.
has some absolutely fabulous illustrations. I drooled over them for quite a while. Many of the stories had to do with boomerangs, so there were plenty of ideas we could utilize when painting ours! We didn’t actually read many of the stories because some were a bit violent and I’m also not quite ready to immerse my young boys in their spiritual folktales just yet… We did enjoy the story “Why the Platypus is such a special Creature”.
Their favorite “Australia” book was Are We There Yet? I was surprised by this since the book went into great detail about a family’s trip around Australia. It really broke it up into bite sized pieces and the boys could really relate to the three siblings in the story. Their favorite part was the girl’s imagining why the Great Australian Bight got its name. (Picture an ogre-ish giant taking a big bite out of Australia!)
With that we set sail for Asia! And speaking of art, I’m loving this part of the trip!
Thanks for joining WMCIR! Your trip around the world sounds like a lot of fun, and I will definitely look for the books you recommend.
Miracles do happen! I’m thankful that I was able to focus on my interests during my homeschool years, but that I was also brought into yours!
btw, I’m itching for an art museum fix!
I love homeschooling. Heather the biologist knows about pointillism, and is teaching it to her boys under the ages of six. Way to go girl! This is brilliant.