So, who am I?

I am Kimberly, and I’ve been married for 17 years to my dear husband and I enjoy the adventure of mothering five amazing children, ages 16 down to 10. We home school our children, which has been a blessing for the entire family as we walk out this lifestyle of learning. This summer will mark my 20th spiritual birthday. I became a Christian 20 years ago while traveling through Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall . The Lord has been so faithful to me all of these years, and I am grateful to Him.

I have many passions, including art, writing, web design, cooking, and gardening, all of which I also enjoy sharing with my children. I have written many articles, and a few books, which you can find at my bookstore/resource center on my main website, Joyful Momma.org. I recently finished illustrating my ebook Advent: Preparing for the Coming of the Lord. I am super proud of that accomplishment, as I’ve wanted to finish that project for some time. I’ve been blessed by the positive feedback I’ve received concerning that.

The Origins of MonthlyDrawingLessons.com

Over the summer, last summer, a friend saw my nature sketchbook, and asked me if I’d be willing to help her children learn how to keep a nature journal. She even suggested that I create a DVD that would help others, because her daughter found my tips and tricks so helpful. I was humbled by this suggestion, and started to plan. As usual, I went into overkill mode. I planned out a huge curriculum that would probably take me 20 years to complete, and that is simply too overwhelming and detailed. Praying about it, I believe God gave me a better idea: Create simple, no-frills drawing tutorials as I draw my own nature journal and create my weekly drawing lessons for school, and post the videos for a small fee to cover expenses each month.

As I sought counsel from other homeschooling moms and homeschool publishers, I realized that they too thought this was a brilliant idea. I draw all the time anyway. Now I’d just turn on my videocam and narrate as I drew. I create lessons each week for the first graders, and so I could simply film one of the early elementary lessons each month too.

The first few months worth of videos are done, and ready for launch at the end of January, after the Christmas season has settled back down, and life has gotten back to normal. Until we do our big launch, I thought I’d build up my clientele and visitor base a little bit first, to get your appetites whet as I blog through my own nature journal, with occasional pictures from my children’s nature journal with their permission.

My Artistic Background

Growing up, I never took art classes until college. I always had an interest in art, especially art history, but I never really studied art. I had to take an art class for a college credit, and discovered a passion for something I never knew existed. When I first went off to college I was majoring in Pre-Med, because that’s what I was pushed into because I was gifted in science (this helps me with my passion for Nature Sketch-booking, as it combines art skills with science). That’s really funny if you know me because I faint at the sight of blood among other things. These are not good traits for a doctor to have, and so, quite sensibly, I decided to switch to something more up my street: Secondary Ed Teacher.  Later, taking an art class, I fell in love with art.

I switched to a major of Art Education, and was soon disappointed with that too. I thought art teacher meant learning how to teach kids how to draw, paint, etc. Instead it was “arts and crafts” and a good many classes that didn’t hold my then-youthful wandering mind. I eventually switched to a straight up art major, with a studio major in Photography and Electronic Imaging. Most of my professional (pre-mommyhood and work from home) experience in art relates to graphic design and illustrating using Adobe Flash or Illustrator, which I enjoy with my now-older children.

I didn’t know about Nature Notebooking until I started reading about Charlotte Mason’s homeschooling philosophies. After finding a copy of A Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady at a Library sale, I feel in love with the idea of keeping a nature sketchbook, and encouraging my children to do the same. One the pages of this blog, you’ll see both pictures of my illustrations, as well as pictures of my childrens’ nature journals. They don’t journal as much as I do, and they often feel very protective of their nature journals, as a journal can feel very personal even if it doesn’t have personal information in it. I try to respect them by not just photographing the pages unless they give me permission. If you’re a mom, I’m sure you understand. If you are a young person, you probably understand even better!

I always wanted to know how to properly teach art, but I didn’t learn that until my own children started taking art from Don West of Christian Art for Kids (we have some of his videos in the store by the way). Mr. West had a way of teaching that made it so that even the most art challenged child (or adult) could do it. I have often told him and others: I’ve learned way more sitting in the back of his class than I ever did in any of my college drawing classes. Thank you, Mr. West.

Eventually, I started giving my own children more detailed drawing instructions, including keeping a natural journal, and drawing from observation. You learn quite a bit by doing, and I learned some of what I could and couldn’t do with different age groups as I taught my selection of age groups in my own family. Later, I also taught art at our co-op, especially drawing cartoons, writing for cartoons, general drawing, and watercolors. This year, I am not only teaching art history (using Picturing America) in the co-op, but I am also teaching first grade art at our church’s Christian Day School.

There are some things I’ve learned while teaching art to first graders….

• What first graders lack in fine motor skills they make up for in creativity, desire, and enthusiasm.
• They can make a bigger mess with chalk than with water colors. That week is the first and last time they will ever use my pastels.
• Any animal any first grade boy draws winds up with claws or breathing fire, or something along those lines. Any animal a girl draws gets pink somewhere and there are usually butterflies and flowers in every picture.
• If you tell the kids what you are going to be drawing, they will start on it without listening for instructions. It works better if you do it step by step but not saying what it is…
• There is not enough paint in those crayola paint sets.
• It is possible to teach kids how to keep their water colors clean and separate…but there really isn’t enough paint in those sets…tubes and palettes work better.
• the plastic brushes that come in the paint sets are worthless and frustrating
• Bounty paper towel really is the quicker picker upper….:-)

I hope you will join us as we explore drawing and sketching skills for nature notebooking. My desire is to provide lessons, starting at the end of January, which will help both moms and their children along this journey.