Creating a Masterpiece (A REVIEW)

I have often caught myself thinking "if I could just do art all day with my kids, I'd be a happy homeschooling mama." Well, I had the opportunity to try out some new art projects for myself and with the kids. We had the opportunity to try our hand at Creating A Masterpiece. We were able to access all the projects offered through the online Monthly Plan, so we had many interesting ideas and mediums to choose from. We could use watercolors, and oil pastels for one project, or gouache and acrylic for another. There were colored pencil art pieces to work on, and there was even a woodburning section! Some lessons require more unusual supplies than we are used to, but we loved it because we were able to try out some new techniques that we'd never even done before.

At first I was a little overwhelmed at the different supplies I needed to chase down for each art lesson. There were things I had never even heard of before, like White Gesso, but Creating a Masterpiece has this wonderful feature within each art project. You can access a supply list for each and every art lesson, click on order materials, and order the supplies directly from Blick. It opens up a separate window, and you can add exactly what you need to the cart. Of course, if you already have something, you can just take it off too.
 

All of the art lessons are only accessible online, and the lessons are taught through videos. Some lessons have only one video, while many of the higher level projects have several videos that are split up into lessons. To get started we would log in to find a page called "Desiree's Art Studio." It has a visual library split up into levels: Beginner, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5, and Art in History. We can pick any art project from any level, but the higher leveled projects are a lot more involved. Requiring several steps, and they take several sessions to complete. For our first project we chose a beginner Lesson in Mixed Media: Candlelight.

Our Candlelight project: Mine is on the left, Aric's (8) on the right.

I did this one with my 8-year-old since it was a beginner project, and he really wanted to try it out. He was able to follow the video very well, and was able to create something that he is very proud of. With each project we completed I could see why this art program is called Creating a Masterpiece because you really feel like you are both during and after the project is completed. These are very detailed, and intricate lessons that really bring out the artist in anyone.

The supplies needed for this project were oil pastels, bristol paper, watercolors, 1/2" watercolor brush, and a pencil. We had most of those supplies already, so we only had to pick up some bristol paper. This lesson was only one video long, so we were able to complete it in less than an hour.
 

We had fun trying out some new art mediums and techniques. If you'd like to give this a try for yourself, Creating a Masterpiece offers a Sample project. But, I have to say if you'd like some quality art lessons these are well worth it.

If you'd like to see what others had to say about this art program you can click on this banner below.