My kids have started taking art classes online this week with Sharon Jeffus of Visual Manna. Here’s a clip from part of their hour long class. During that time they observed various styles of art including landscape paintings,abstract, impressionism and expressionism and talked about different art media like pen and ink and oil painting and sculpture. They learned some history and modeled their sketches on some classic drawings while also learing basic skills like shading and perspective.

It was very personal since Sharon is so sweet and patient, tailoring the lesson to the kids ages and interests. She seemed to stress all of the things we want our kids to take away from any art experience, among them that art is about exploring and process and discovery. Sharon has a long history of teaching subjects through art across-the-curriculum to homeschooled children and she makes the most of technology like skype and wikipedia to augment the lessons. Have a look.