Crew Review: See The Light; Paper Jungle #hsreviews

by ohiosarah on June 3, 2013

Usually for us, art is boring – I enjoy crafting but I find it hard to make art fun and meaningful for my children however that idea is no longer and issue with See The Light. Dave and Pat Holt has created a collaboration of artists, musicians and a light team to create an art series that has a love of the Lord, a “heart for children” and also a “passion for ministry”. I was given the DVD of Paper Jungle which is aimed at ages 10 years and up, so I had my 11 year old complete the lessons for this review. The DVD has children creating a paper collage using the style of French, Henri Rousseau.

There are 4 lessons on one DVD with a total running time of 100 minutes, the step by step lessons will have your child creating their own piece of art after Henri Rousseau in just a couple weeks – if your child can wait that long to complete it! The lessons are outline in this way:

Background – cutting trees (22 minute segment) Pat Knepley gives background information about Rousseau and his art.
Foreground – grass and leaf shapes (27 minutes)
Focal points – flora and fauna (26 minutes)
The Final Step – overlapping and gluing (25 minutes)

It’s suggested that the child be given an hour per lesson, to both watch the DVD segment and complete the work for that lesson. This could be shorter though if your child works as they watch, which is what my daughter did – she cut and planned as she watched and listened to the DVD. I loved how Pat Knepley wove God into the lesson and at the end did a little devotional reading straight from Scripture and how it related back to that lesson that day – this was perhaps my favorite part.

My daughter working on gluing her pieces down for the last lesson.

There were minimal art supplies needed, most of which we had on hand already such as 9X12 inch construction paper in purple, blue, green, yellow, brown, red, orange and black, several scrapbook papers that are patterned and green, white glue or glue stick, scissors, black fine permanent marker like a Sharpie, pencil, eraser, sample leaves from the yard, magazine or internet picture of a wild animal like a tiger or monkey. My daughter chose a Capybara – which is a huge, distant relative to the Cavy AKA Guinea Pig.

It was fun to watch the DVD with her, and now I’m thinking I’ll have to go back and make a collage of my own. It was also fun to watch as her creation started to take shape into the finished product. I’d like to have all my children make one at some point this school year, even if they don’t meet the 10 years and up as I think with parental guidance even my 6 year old could complete a collage. I think I will trim the 9 X 12 inch paper down a bit though so that it will fit in my children’s portfolio binder, as well next time. The DVD sells for $14.99 and there are other themes such as cartooning, repeated sweets, Tiffany window, God’s runaway – that are great for different ages and abilities, you can check out other reviews for this and other DVD’s by visiting the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.