Picture Study Portfolios review
A Picture Study Portfolio is eight prints, a short artist biography, and leading thoughts for a 15-minute weekly look. Simply Charlotte Mason sells them per artist. Enrichment Studies names three artists per volume. The portfolio is the print set, not the enrichment guide.
What you get
Picture Study Portfolios are sold as ebook kits or printed kits. Printed kits use 8.5×11 UV-coated card stock and a 10×13 envelope. You choose six of the eight works for the term. Grades 1–12 share the same prints. Narrations differ; the picture does not.
Volume 1 names Constable, Rembrandt, and Velázquez. Volume 3 names Giotto, Titian, and Monet. Artist Group 1 is a three-portfolio bundle if you want those three in one order.
What it is not
It is not an art-history textbook and it is not a drawing course. Creating a Masterpiece videos are a separate SCM product for technique. Picture study is looking, narrating, and living with one artist for a term.
You can substitute museum postcards or a library art book. The portfolio's value is the selected works plus the handbook in one place. Families who already own prints of The Hay Wain do not need Constable twice.
Price and fit
Per artist: $18.95–$24.95 depending on ebook kit or printed kit (checked 2026-09-06). Three artists for a year is the enrichment pattern. Charter-friendly notes appear on some artist pages; confirm the current badge if you use ESA funds.
This sits inside SCM's feast, not as a standalone curriculum. See charlotte mason living books for how pictures count as living ideas, and charlotte mason curriculum comparison if you are still choosing a whole program.
One artist per twelve-week term is the pace. Faster rotation is just posters.
Extra student print sets exist if each child needs a copy in hand. Most families pass one portfolio around the sofa.
Constable's Hay Wain is in most art history coffee-table books. The portfolio still earns its keep if you want a term's worth of leading thoughts without assembling eight prints yourself.
Do not laminate the prints and call it a nature notebook. Picture study stays on the envelope; nature study stays outside.
If an artist is not charter-friendly, SCM marks it. Check the product page if you use ESA funds.
Hang one print. Six prints on the fridge at once is a gallery, not picture study. One artist, one term. Put the rest back in the envelope.