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The Art Video Masterpiece series is a joint adventure between Mrs.
Lebo, a 30-year veteran art teacher, and her husband Steve.
For the review, my children and I were able to learn about and
from the master artist: Leonardo Da Vinci. The Homeschool Teacher
Kit consists of a video (or DVD) and teacher's guide. The videotape
consists of 4 lessons. The first lesson is about the life and works
of Da Vinci. It is broken into two parts, which helps the learner
digest the plethora of information given. The next lessons are actual
art lessons taught by Mrs. Lebo. The three lessons are drawing from
nature, drawing from proportion, and drawing in perspective. At
the beginning of the lesson, the students are given a list and shown
the materials needed for the lesson. During the lessons, art terms
are used and followed-up by a definitions. At the end of each lesson,
there are actual student works shown.
Lesson one shows Mrs. Lebo working on a contour drawing. Moreover,
she explains the importance of training the hand to follow the eye.
The lesson is made fun by the children being shown how to write
backwards and use Latin names of our nature drawings as Leonardo
Da Vinci often did.
Lesson two is drawing the "perfect" face. My children
enjoyed running to the mirror and checking the formulas for the
proportions of facial features.
Lesson three shows how to draw a set of stairs and a building using
one-point perspective. Mrs. Lebo makes it easy by verbally reinforcing
instructions as she is actually doing it.
The filming quality seemed to be challenged in the area of focusing
in/out especially in situations requiring detailed focus. In spite
of the slight technical challenges, the lessons shine though. There
is peaceful background music during the lessons.
The teacher book is thorough. It helps the parent make the lessons
work for various ages by multiple sets of questions to ask children
based on the children's' ages, grade level or experience. It also
links the ideas taught to other disciplines such as history, science,
language arts and math. The vocabulary section would be valuable
for the novice to art terms. Lastly, there are a few worksheets
to make the art lessons more successful.
Mrs. Lebo's knowledge and experience is displayed by this video
series, as is her love for the masters.
--Product Review by: Stephanie Scarborough, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
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