Happy Moray's Day!

I bet I'm the only mother in the history of the world to receive a Mother's Day card with a Moray Eel on the cover! That's love from the heart of a 12 year old son. On the inside he wrote, "I love you, because you make macaroni and cheese for me" which made me laugh. I actually rarely make mac 'n cheese. Recently when the boys were getting haircuts, Evan and I heard a radio commercial where a kid said the above quote, and we chuckled together.






Card by Matthew






Card by Sophie



Miss Ponytail



Picture by Evan

Minoan Fresco Project

Last week we read together in several books about the Minoans of Ancient Crete. The kids tried their hand at painting frescoes in the style of the Minoans.

On Friday, I did a Google image search to find examples of Minoan frescoes. I copied and pasted some images into Word documents, enlarging all of them. Incidentally, during my search, I came across a fresco done by a fellow homeschooler (scroll down a little)!

The kids picked their favorite fresco example and practiced painting a similar picture with watercolors. Sophie decided to paint from her own imagination rather than basing it on an actual Minoan painting. They painted the same scene more than once to get the hang of painting quickly so that they could later paint on wet plaster before it dried completely.

Evan helped Logan paint too!

On Saturday, we took a 3 lb. container of Plaster of Paris and ended up using the whole thing, mixing it out on the back porch to avoid the dust inside the house.

That amount of plaster filled up three shoebox lids (supplied by a grandma who keeps everything.) We oiled the lids first, then poured in the plaster.

When the surface of the plaster began to lose its shine, the kids began painting.

Matthew and Sophie used watercolors.

Evan used tempera paint.

Birds and Lilies Fresco by Evan

Blue Bird Fresco by Matthew

Pink Bird Fresco by Sophie

Monday Museum Musings

We experienced a "Fine Art Friday" though I am posting about it on Monday! Our family went to a free exhibit of woodcuts, etchings and engravings by Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt and other artists. The artwork has been collected by an unpublicized individual for the purpose of teaching his children about art. He chose this year to share his artwork with the public. The Denver art museum does not contain a single Rembrandt, but this exhibit showcased sixty of his works.

As we entered the exhibit, we each picked up a magnifying lens from a basket to view the prints more closely. Some of the etchings were quite small yet intricately detailed. Of course handing children magnifying lenses led to my oft repeated refrain, "Don't bump them on the glass!"

An aside: In 2004, I took Evan, Matthew and Sophie to the Legion of Honor Art Museum in San Francisco. I instructed the kids before we entered the museum about "Look. Don't Touch." but one of my children started out pointing to the paintings in his enthusiasm and accidentally touching the frames. A docent, watching us like a hawk, explained to us the problem with touching even the frame. The second time my son did it, I told him that we were going to have to leave if he couldn't control himself and the docent walked over and said the same thing. The message finally sank in and no more touching occurred on that visit. We spent a long time gazing at the paintings and the docent spent a long time gazing at us! After awhile, she walked over and complimented the children on their attention to the artwork, telling me that she had never seen kids look at the paintings so long. Her words made me feel a little better about bringing the kids to an art museum!

I did not blog about this in 2004, because I still felt too embarrassed over the incident to want to dwell on it with words. :)

...and by the way, Young Boy Singing (Le Jeune Chanteur) was my favorite painting that we viewed at the Legion of Honor Art Museum.

Fast forward to this weekend's visit to the Rembrandt exhibit: Each time I heard the "click" of a magnifying glass bump against the glass of the frame, I half-expected a docent to come flying over to kick us out. The only warnings that occurred came from James and me, though. (I was very relieved that I never heard "Chink, crackle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.")

I have long admired Albrecht Durer's skill in carving such realistic portrayals of figures and settings and it was a privilege to see his work in person. However I gained a new appreciation of Rembrandt's work through this exhibit. It was far more impressive to see his prints in person than to look at them in a book. I marveled at his attention to detail, his masterful arrangement of figures, architecture, and landscape to highlight the drama of the subject, his portrayal of expression and emotion, and his expert contrasts between light and dark (chiaroscuro). The juxtaposition of his prints alongside the works of other artists emphasized for me why he is considered one of the greatest artists. His works had a depth and richness unmatched by others in the exhibit. As I walked from print to print, I inwardly cheered each time I came to a new Rembrandt.

One of my favorite etchings was The Flight into Egypt -- a night scene c. 1613 by Hendrik Goudt. (You can view it online here if you flip through this album by clicking in the corner.) I loved how the artist portrayed a night scene, the only light coming from the moon, the stars, a torch carried by Joseph, and a campfire, and the reflections from each.

The exhibition contained, for a few works, more than one print made from the original copperplate. It was striking to look at a print of Rembrandt's Descent from the Cross (flip through the online album, though the web doesn't come close to doing it justice), printed the year the copperplate was finished in 1633, in contrast to another printed 375 years later, showing the deterioration to the copperplate that occurred with repeated printings.

Dogs appeared numerous times throughout the works on exhibit, because the dog symbolized faithfulness. I had to laugh when I came to Rembrandt's Joseph Telling His Dreams (zoom in). Joseph's listeners look like they are listening with disbelief, or rolling their eyes, or muttering together. When I looked at the dog in the corner with my magnifying glass, I saw that it was licking its bottom in true dog-like fashion. Not even the dog could listen with respect!

Evan and Matthew were Latin sleuths as they went through the exhibit. They enjoyed looking for Latin words in the inscriptions almost as much as looking at the art itself.

As I strolled through the exhibit, I came to an etching by Jan George Van Vliet called Baptism of the Eunuch and stood looking at it, appalled at what I saw. The proportions of the horse were so distorted that they revolted at first glance. As I examined it further, I identified what bothered me about it. The ears were rounded, the whites of the eyes showed in human-fashion, the nostrils and lips protruded unnaturally, the legs were too short and stocky. I called Sophie over and asked her, "What do you think of this horse?"

She replied with what she thought was the correct response when looking at official artwork, "It is pretty."

"Really?" I queried. "Does that look like any horse that you have ever seen?"

A docent had followed Sophie over when I called her, and he asked me, "Isn't that what a horse looks like?"

I replied, "Horses don't have round ears and eyes like that. It looks like an Ape-Horse."

The docent quickly walked away, and I realized that I had probably expressed my opinion too freely and possibly crossed over into the realm of sacrilege as far as he was concerned.

But that horse was really offensive. It was like the artist had imagined some mythical African horse breed for his etching. He obviously had not studied equine anatomy!

The LDS church hosted the exhibit, and I gathered from viewing the introductory video that they considered it a worship experience, saying that the artists were inspired by the Holy Ghost in their works. I certainly praised and thanked God for the gifts that he bestowed on the artists and deeply appreciated their works, but I did not view the art as a means of worship in the way that the video described it. The artists' interpretations of biblical events did not add to my understanding of God's Word in scripture.

In this online album of the work of Hendrick Goltzius displayed in the exhibit, successive prints depict the Passion of Christ. I noticed that the face of Christ in each seemed to have a detached, pious, possibly slightly pained expression, even when He was portrayed as beaten or crucified. I'm not sure exactly what the artist was trying to communicate about Christ, but I thought he fell short in portraying the humanity of Christ and the depth of his suffering. However, no artist's interpretation can possibly fully convey the truth about Christ that is contained in the Scripture.

We spent two hours taking in this Rembrandt Exhibit and recommend it highly to any art enthusiasts!

Fine Art Friday

The kids asked me to post the artwork that they did this week on their blogs. Please visit them at The Far Side of the Mountain and at Sophie's Side. I'm sure they would be thrilled to get any comments! Thanks!

Nature Journal Entry

I finally scanned in Matthew's journal entry about the Ruddy Duck and posted it on the Far Side of the Mountain. Would someone please let me know if you are able to click on the picture of his journal entry and make it larger? If you want to make his day, leave a comment. :) Thanks!

Sophie's Nature Journal

I scanned in Sophie's journal entry about the American Coot and posted it at Sophie's Side. Feel free to read it and leave a comment!

Prismacolor Pinions

Speaking of birds, Evan drew this Yellow-headed blackbird with colored pencil after our walk. I scanned it into Printmaster and he printed out thank you cards with the image and wrote notes to friends and family who gave him birthday gifts. You can visit The Far Side of the Mountain to see a larger version and to read his comments.

Homeschool Highlights

Yesterday...

I drove the kids to their first art class at a local nature center. There were ten kids in the class with an age range from 6-12 years old. (Sophie turns 6 in the middle of the session.) When I signed up for the class, the woman I spoke to asked if I just wanted to try out the class with Sophie to see if she could handle it. But Sophie was certainly in her element during the 1 1/2 hr. class. She enjoyed two of her favorite activities: drawing and watching the older girls. The woman also asked if Sophie would be bothered by the fact that the teacher is a large, loud and boisterous man. I immediately thought of Uncle Rich and assured her that Sophie would not be intimidated at all!

The teacher, Dave Sullivan, proved to be very engaging. He stood at a white board and talked the kids through cartooning a frog, a shark, and an owl. While drawing, he asked the kids questions about the animals and told them all sorts of interesting facts about the animals' structures, habits and habitats. For instance, when drawing the owl, he also drew a cartoon picture of what Evan would look like if he had ears like an owl. Evan's cartoon head had one ear at the top of the head, and one towards the chin! Sullivan explained that, because the owl's ears are positioned this way, it can hear stereophonically. And when drawing a Great White Shark, he enlisted a student's help
to hold up a measuring tape to the length of an average Great White. The childrens' eyes got very large.

I didn't get to see my kids' artwork, because they put it away quickly at the end of class. They will have an art show at the end of the ten weeks.

Today...

After the Bible lesson, I decided to do the most interesting activity of our day: the chemistry experiment from Real Science 4 Kids! We tested different food items to see whether they contained starch or not. I sprayed laundry starch on a coffee filter, and when it had dried, Evan put a drop of tinctured iodine on it for the control. Since, the starch turned black like it was supposed to, we knew the iodine wasn't too old to work. Evan wrote out his own hypothesis (Potatoes contain starch, but celery does not) and I wrote down Matthew's. The kids put iodine drops on potato, celery, bread, banana, apple, onion, lemon and pasta. They recorded the item and whether it turned black or stayed brown where the iodine stained it. They finished by writing their conclusions about their hypothesis. The apple confused me, because some areas stayed brown and others turned black. We'll have to figure out why. If you know, you could leave a comment...

My Little Artist

Here is a picture that Sophie drew of the guinea pigs last night. She obviously was looking at them and drawing what she saw. I especially like how she drew the front guinea pig's eye. The two girls behind the g.p.'s are Sophie and me. Since Sophie drew the picture on scrap paper, typing is showing through the paper unfortunately...

All the Pretty Little Horses

Here is a picture that Sophie drew yesterday and had me label:

Yesterday, Matthew took all of his weekly spelling words which he had written on cards and put the cards in order to make sentences. I told him to write sentences about a cowboy and his horse and asked questions as he put down cards so that he would add spelling words as adjectives. Finally, he wrote the sentences down neatly. He is using manuscript for now until we have practiced all of the letters in cursive (we haven't finished). Here are his spelling sentences: