The ARTistic Pursuits curriculum is designed so that your child can jump in at their age level. Three, four, and five-year-olds will enjoy the very short Picture Talks and then head off to enjoy delightful awareness activities and experience simple art materials in The Way They SEE It. Kindergarten to third graders will excel in their understanding of art through history in 6-8 minute lessons followed by active creating. , but older students often join their younger siblings to do these lessons. When you want your family to do art together, the K-3rd books meet the requirements for enriching and informative text, while exploring a wide variety of materials.
Fourth and fifth graders who are ready to learn to draw more realistically are ready for next level, which focus on drawing and color theory. Middle School and High School students find the fundamental elements and color theory information that they need in books at their levels, but written to appeal to their interests and abilities. No matter where their skills are currently, as each student applies the elements of art to their work, they will see improvement in their art.
There have been multiple editions of these books, each better than the previous; older, second-hand editions from 1999-2007 are often missing crucial (and hard-to-replace) art prints, and since Artistic Pursuits relies heaving on these prints, Exodus has stopped purchasing these editions altogether. 2008 editions were greatly improved with more master works added, and these printed right into the books.
In 2013 (the ones offered here), AP expanded the K-3 books to 36 lessons (from the original 24) and expanded the 4-12 books to 68 lessons (from 64). Special four-step pages demonstrated how to use art materials, as that was the most common request that they had heard. These are the best coil bound editions and are still sold as Classical ARTistic Pursuits.
In 2018, AP added hardcover with video and other improvements. We're considering adding these also! In 2020, they started offering streaming video.
Did you find this review helpful?