Pages

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Benjamin West


Continuing with our monthly fine arts studies, we are learning about American painter Benjamin West (1738-1820) this November.




Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry (the author of the much beloved Misty of Chincoteague) is a lovely chapter book with delightful illustrations. It was a nice change of pace to have a longer story to soak up and a little glimpse of life in an early American Quaker family. Loved.
The Boy Who Loved to Draw: Benjamin West by Barbara Brenner falls under my favorite category of books: beautiful biographical picture books. This is one we had to have for our bookshelf! Children will enjoy reading about Benjamin West's childhood and how he became a painter at a very young age in a Quaker family with no drawings or paintings!

3 comments:

Renee @ FIMBY said...

Thank you for these great resource ideas. We do artist study on the fly from whatever inspires us, like these kind of post! I will look for these at the library.

Blue Yonder said...

Funny how our lives intersect sometimes....
we had a sick day yesterday, and it included watching (after having read) Misty of Chincoteague. We'll have to check out her book on Benjamin West.

Also, my middle boy has been working hard to learn "A Gift To Be Simple" (as it's titled in his guitar book) to share with our family this Christmas. What a treat for him it was to see the video!

Thank you for all your ideas and inspiration, Heidi. You are such a treasure.

Hannah said...

I need to look for that latter book, as I have a boy who loves to draw!