While my husband was a graphic designer before changing careers, and he has always loved art, I do not have the same love. Not only can I not teach art, I certainly cannot spend as long in museums as he does. I can’t handle all the mess and things I have to do to prepare to do the art. It is just too much for me. And I definitely can’t teach kids how to learn different perspectives and viewpoints.

I think, before doing the Yellow Spot: Sun Drawing Americana Course with my children, I naively thought you either could draw or you could not draw. But Marissa taught me totally otherwise.

Marissa is a homeschool mom and former art teacher who was teaching art in her home. She felt overwhelmed with the time commitment and instead decided to put together an online art program for homeschool moms. Boy, did she do a great job.

I had the opportunity to review Drawing Americana: 6 WEEK BUNDLE UNIT; American Artists and Symbols of the USA: SINGLE FAMILY USE ONLY with my family.

Let me summarize by saying, this product is amazing. It combines six different weeks into one bundle and is available for only $38.95. This is also usable for your entire family, which means that you can use the product, like I did, for three different children. My four year-old was too young for this program, but I had my six year-old daughter and nine year-old sons all participating. And even though art isn’t a huge part of any of their lives, they all really enjoyed it.

Each week has five different days of art assignments. You could obviously do this in a week or do this in a month. But it is set up to spend a little time each day working on different aspects of the same unit. Here is the overall breakdown of what is included in this bundle:

• WEEK 1: John James Audubon
  • Basic Shapes
  • Bald Eagle
• WEEK 2: Peter Max
  • Symmetry
  • Lady Liberty
• WEEK 3: Winslow Homer
  • Upside Down Art
  • Boats and Lighthouses
• WEEK 4: Jasper Johns
  • OP Art
  • Stars and Stripes
• WEEK 5: Georgia O’Keeffe
  • One Point Perspective
  • Deserts and Farms and Cityscape Perspective
• WEEK 6: Thomas Hart Benton
  • American Landscape
  • Beaches and Mountains

Now let’s look closer at just one week of this bundle so you can see what it would look like for your family. I have decided, truly randomly, to look closer at week five. Here’s how that particular week would break down:

• Day 1: Follow the instruction on page 27 of your student packet to complete a simple one-point perspective drawing.
• Day 2: Watch the video “How to critique a piece of art” in the introduction section and then complete pages 28&29 in “Art Critique” and answer the questions about the life of Georgia O’Keefe.
• Day 3: VIDEO - This is where Marissa actually does a video right along with the kids. It is a close-up of her hands drawing, and the kids sit and follow along and do what she asks. This particular video is under eight minutes long and is a desert scene.
• Day 4: VIDEO - Similar to the day before, this time the kids do a farm scene.
• Day 5: VIDEO - Final Drawing Project for this unit is on cityscape perspectives and boy is it cool! It’s actually a circular city drawing.

Marissa is simply fantastic to listen to and the art projects were very doable for my kids. We couldn’t quite do a project a day at their ages, so we went a little slower. But for under $40, you have an entire art unit! So fun. Not only do I give it two thumbs up, but each of my children (and my artist husband) do too!

-Product review by Wendi Kitsteiner, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, May, 2018