Check

~

home schooling:

free rein on the quest

for knowledge

~

Last week Miss E and I went on the train to the Lymington Museum and Art Gallery where 22 Home Schooled children gathered to take part in the most wonderful workshop based on an exhibition of work by many different artists all creating pictures of trees.

The children were invited to leap into a painting and imagine themselves there – what could they hear, see, touch, smell. What would they need to take with them. how did they feel whilst they were there.

They then chose a painting to look at for 10 seconds then turn away and draw from memory, then a different painting to draw just the outlines for 5 minutes, then 5 minutes to use colour. After that we went to the craft room to create a printing block of their drawing in polystyrene, to print on coloured paper.

On the train I was allowing the movement of the train to create wiggly lines in my sketch book as a quirky diary/memory of our day.

Miss E noticed that the rain on the train windows made similar lines when travelling down the windows

which in turn were similar to the lines of the branches of the trees in one of the paintings

I just LOVE the way her creative mind flows.

Joining in with our 52 Week Photo Challenge, this week’s prompt CHECK

and

Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge, prompt words: REIN and QUEST.

I’m a little late this week as I have been away for a few days visiting my son and his three girls and then to Chelsea Flower Show with my sister! We had the BEST time – more of that soon. A highlight of the day was meeting up with fellow blogger Dorris – Wow! That was really special!

Work

beauty created

under pressure and time

by earth and by man

*

skills honed from a lifetime’s work

more precious than diamonds and pearls

~

Ronovan set us the prompt words of DIAMONDS and PEARLS this week for his haiku challenge.

To marry this challenge with our Photo Prompt of WORK  was a huge challenge and has taken me a while to get there. Go to Cathy’s Post to see more entries and leave a link to your ‘WORK’ photo.

I found it difficult to convey what I wanted to in the 5/7/5 haiku, a few more syllables were needed and so I have written a tanka this week. It does not perfectly fit the ‘rules’ but …

The sentiment is that beauty created by human endeavour and skill is more precious to me than diamonds.

The photo was taken in Mr. Hiroshi Murase’s shop in Arimatsu where we did our tie-dying workshop on my trip to Japan last November. They are preparing the cloth for dying by tying it in intricate patterns.

~

Miss E (8) saw me struggling with this challenge and wanted to write a poem using Ron’s prompt words – she wrote:

diamonds and pearls

diamonds and pearls

how lovely they can be

~

diamonds and pearls

diamonds and pearls

they form in the sea

~

diamonds and pearls

diamonds and pearls

they form under the ground

~

diamonds and pearls

diamonds and pearls

all waiting to be found

~

this is my poem I hope you like it

                                                                                       

   ~~~~~~~~

Next Week’s Photo Prompt is

LAYER

 

Reflection

~

beaming through stained glass

sunlight dances on water

’til the moon rises

~

This photo is of the amazing font at Salisbury Cathedral, designed by William Pye

Back in February, I took Miss E on a ‘school trip’, mainly to see the exhibition of Sophie Ryder wire sculptures,

but the day held so much more….

Miss E immediately engaged with the huge beings

in both a thoughtful and playful way

…..talking about how they might have been made and looking for the baby hare

….found it

She was fascinated by the quirky things she found in the sculptures

and started making a collection of photos of ‘unusual things’.

Totally unprompted by me, she responded to many of the sculptures by adopting the same poses and then interacting with them … I could see she was not only seeing the forms, she was feeling them in her body and becoming part of them.

She danced with the dancing hares…

and stood strong under the ‘clasped hands’. This structure was originally over the path but had to be moved as people were bumping into it whilst walking, heads down, texting on their mobile phones!

Inside the cathedral Miss E talked about the scale of the huge sculptures and marvelled at the scale of the cathedral, again wondering about how it had been constructed,

noticing the richness of its history and the patterns and shapes.

Taking time for personal REFLECTION

We had such an enriching day together, and only just made it back in time for Miss E to get to her gymnastics class.

Joining in with our Photo Challenge , prompt word REFLECTION

and

Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge: Prompt words SUN and MOON

beaming through stained glass, sunlight dances on water

sunlight dances on water, ’til the moon rises

or in 3,5,3

bright sun-beams 

dancing on water

’til moon-rise

~

Which do you like best?

~

Next Week’s Photo Prompt:

WORK

 

iHanna’s PostCard Swap

I have just signed up for iHanna’s Post Card swap again. We each make 10 postcards  for the beginning of May, to send on a particular date, and Hanna gives us 10 addresses from all over the world, so we all get 10 handmade pieces of art back. It is great fun.

The photo above is of a Post Card I sent a couple of years ago. If you put ‘Post Card Swap’ in the SEARCH box you will see my entries for other years.

Miss E absolutely loves to see all the cards coming in from different countries, and this year we will both make the cards together.

I could not copy Hanna’s email exactly, with all her amazing graphics but here is the essence of it.

Hi from Sweden! This is your invitation to join my PARTY – read on!

Dear Sandra!
Hi my old friend Sandra, I don’t know if you’ve missed my Newsletter but it’s been waaaay too long since I wrote you. I’m sorry, I’ll try to do better. If you’ve visited the blog recently you might have seen that you as a subscriber to the iHanna Newsletter have been entered into a fun giveaway!? Awesome huh?

In my next Newsletter I will annonce TWO winners of THREE months of the class The Journey Within – so do not unsubscribe, but rather forward this e-mail to a friend so they can get a chance to win to by signing up…

Also you’ll help me spread the word about the awesome postcard swap:
Join us right now for SPRING 2016 SWAPPING – time to make 10 awesome cards and send them to people from all over the world!
The DIY Postcard Swap
I’ve hosted this fun & big online party twice each year for many years now. The party starts online, but carries into the Real World and spreads a lot of happiness and joy to the homes of hundreds of people… I’d love if you could join us.

“The party” is what I’m calling my lovely brain child the DIY Postcard Swap this year. Many of you subscribe every time I host it so you might already know that you get to create 10 postcards and receive 10 postcards back from 10 other people around the world! It’s global, it’s fun and it’s easy to sign up.

All you need to do is read the rules and then decide if this is something that you’d like to do. Your postcards doesn’t have to be finished until the end of April, so you’ve got plenty of time. Sign up now:

SIGN UP FOR THE DIY POSTCARD SWAP

Questions? All the rules and a quick-to-read FAQ can be found on my blog. If you have further questions just let me know. Also, check it out on instagram: #diypostcardswap

wishing you a happy Easter
lots of love,
/Hanna

Wanna take a peek into my art journal? I hope you’ll agree that it’s someswhat of a
Visual Feast……

Do take a look at her blog iHanna, if you like art or crafting you can find so many tips and inspiration there. And if you sign up to her Newsletter you have a chance to win her online class.

Stitch

child star quality

emerging in her own time

home education

~

Ronovan’s Haiku prompt words : STAR and CHILD

photo challenge prompt: STITCH

~

The photo is of my 8 year old granddaughter who comes to me each Wednesday as she is being educated at home. It is fabulous for me to see how she is blossoming as we are coming up to the one year anniversary.

~

My computer has finally died. I have to make some big decisions about where to go next. I do not find it easy blogging from the iPad, so I will probably be a little quiet for a few weeks, very frustrating!

Next week the photo prompt is

ZERO

~

Happy

~

twinkling like crystal

hope glistens in clear blue eyes

finding dark footprints

~

like crystal

eyes glistening with hope

find treasure

~

Our Photo Challenge prompt this week: HAPPY

click on Happy, to go to Photo Challenge page and find out all about it – we’d love you to join us!

So many things I could have photographed for this subject, but this sums up so many of the things that make me happy and my grandchildren(1) too. MissE (1a) comes to me one day a week(2) for Home Education(2a). We have such fun together(3). Last Wednesday, at last the sun shone(4) so we went for a walk (5), I grabbed magnifying glass as I went out of the door and Miss E immediately found all sorts of things to look at (6) : lichen, mud, leaves both back and front, gorse flowers , maize husk, acorn cup. Her delight (7) and enthusiasm (8) is always such a joy. We also found these deer prints(9) and then we were both excited to see badger prints(10) and tracked them to the hedge (11).

So you see this photograph is 13 ‘HAPPY’s in one .

joining in with Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge, prompt words CRYSTAL and HOPE

ps. My laptop crashed☹ and I am struggling to do this on an iPad 😫 I’m not finding it easy and it is taking ages!!!!

pps. I tried to link in other entries and got into a right old muddle on the iPad, so I will have to wait til my lovely laptop is all better. There seems to be a universal law of balance in operation here: HAPPY and FRUSTRATION see-sawing it’s way through my post. 😄 + 😬

Fun with Duct Tape

Yep! Who would have thought that duct tape could be so thrilling!

Pinterest is such a wonderful source of inspiration isn’t it – I saw a picture

and went straight to this fascinating blog: While They Snooze which is written in the US – I eagerly trawled the internet to see if I could buy patterned duct tape here too and waddaya know!

Look what the postman brought me yesterday! Sent very quickly by Screws and Fasteners, just in time for Miss E and me to have fun on Home Education day! She comes to me every Wednesday in term time.

This brand is calling it Duck Tape, but it behaves in the same way as duct tape, so it is strong and waterproof, and perfect for pencil cases or washbags, phone cases etc.

Oh how happy we were – both humming and singing and skipping our way through the day as she made Christmas gifts for friends and family – (I forgot to photograph Miss E’s makess before she took them home – drat!). I’m busy making a few more samples for her to play with next week.

And Miss E got to learn how to use a craft knife safely, measuring, assessing length, testing materials to see what they are capable of, design and time management. (We also did a bit of gardening) Her imagination and ideas are always a delight and I’m sure that by next week she will have thought of many more things to make with Tape.

If you are interested to find out more there are loads of clips on You Tube too.

Wednesday Walk – to the woods

One day a week Miss E comes to me for art, craft and gardening as part of her home education, sometimes we have Little Miss M with us as well.

It is an absolute delight for me to be part of the H.E. team, and to see how Miss E’s confidence and interest in the world is developing since she has been at home.

She loves to enter competitions and saw one in her Wildlife Magazine that required a picture made with natural materials, so off we went to the woods to gather material.

It is a favourite walk of ours and we always have to pay a visit to the old tree stump that the kids have named ‘the Gruffalo’s toilet’

They clamber about on this old tree stump and it becomes all sorts of other things – a pirate ship at sea on this visit.

After gathering pine cones, fallen leaves and ferns they set to work. Miss E always knows just what she wants to do from the start, which can lead to frustration when things don’t work out exactly as she had in mind..

But I try to tell her this is all part of the creative process, and often get her to repeat the mantra “it’s not wrong, it’s just not finished!’

She would not let me take any photos of her early attempts

but was eventually pleased with this

Then off we all went to a nearby café for a hot chocolate.

The photos were sent in and Miss E was SO delighted when her Squirrel appeared on the magazine’s Facebook page.

Happy days!

Do you have any woodland walks near you?

Oh Happy Day

Joining in with Cathy’s brilliant meme – a In a Vase on Monday.

Hydrangeas and asters with the bag that Miss E (8) is making.

*

Last night goes right into the top 10 most surreal nights I have ever spent. I set the alarm for 1.30am so that I could watch the eclipse of the full moon – which was well worth staying up most of the night for. Magical, russet for a while and weirdly beautiful.

I knew the eclipse would take a few hours – what to do – I found a website where I could watch the eclipse in real time on my lap-top, as it was too bright to look at to begin with, got back into bed with lap-top and put a DVD on the TV to keep me awake. Every so often I would pause the DVD, put on my sunglasses and go outside to watch the moon.

The DVD was Hector’s Search for Happiness

with Simon Pegg – a nice easy watch for most of the time but taking me and my mind on a journey around the world searching for happiness – whilst also watching an eclipse on a computer as well as in reality, outside in the dark with sunglasses on – it sent my brain off in even more weird somersaults than usual, and set me thinking about what made me really happy.

I realised that sitting crafting all day listening to Radio 4, was one of the ways I get to feel that all’s well in my world, and that I have not had a whole day like that for ….. hmmm…… well …… years.

So I gave myself a ‘Happy Day’ and I sat and played with beads and made beaded decorations:

They are to be sewn onto some tote bags and shoulder bags that Miss E

is making with me. I thought I would make a selection and then she will no doubt come up with her own brilliant ideas to decorate her bag,

and the ones she wants to make for presents

It thrills me to bits when I can justify keeping all sorts of strange objects like these funny little animal boards

which I will make some holes in with a bradle that belonged to my Grandmother,

and hang the dingle-dangles from them.

I worked/played from 8.30am til 5.30pm (with a short walk at lunchtime) and then I quickly put a vase together to join Cathy and her gardening pals. I didn’t want to miss out.

Oh Happy Day!

What would you love to do all day if you could?