Exploring light and dark

Sunburst and I spent some time over the summer exploring the lovely qualities of charcoal.

We decided to tackle a series of exercises from Thomas Wildgruber's inspiring book, Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools, and we had so much fun.  They start very simply with spheres, and then increase in complexity with each exercise.

The guidance provided with these drawings is wonderful.  I was required to do a little bit of charcoal work in college, but with very little guidance.  Looking back at my youth, I am so aghast that I paid and attended college level art classes that involved no actual instruction.  While we inadvertently learn something through our own repeated ill-attempts, with guidance the process is much less painful and infinitely more productive.

Another thing that struck me about these exercises is that even with such a simple medium, the results vary.  While Sunburst and I were drawing the same things, stylistically, there is a huge difference.  Her drawing style with charcoal has a scratchiness to it that no matter how hard I try, I cannot manage to replicate.  The same is true for her-- she can't soften her drawings to match the feel of mine.  We had a lot of fun trying though.  And as Sunburst is getting older, she really enjoys it when there is something obviously off about my drawings.  Yes, the teenage years have truly begun!

Here you can see the style differences.  I wonder if it has anything to do with temperament.


 


At one point in the exercises you progress to drawing your own image using what you've learned-- the examples for this exercise differ between the German and English editions.   Sunburst couldn't wait for this exercise, because of course she knew exactly what she wanted to draw-- horses!

I was more reluctant because I had absolutely no idea what to draw. In the end though I managed to surprise myself.

We took a small break from there to begin our study of discovery, renaissance and reformation.  We hope to get back to it and complete the last three exercises-- trees and landscapes.  The difference these charcoal drawings have made in Sunburst's renaissance artwork is definitely noticeable.  On more than one occasion lately I have heard her exclaim, "Did I really draw this?!"

We've moved on into taking the dark/light exploration into our work with colored pencils, and the results are really fun.  Moonshine, meanwhile, has been watching this progression with awe.  "Will I be able to draw like that too someday?"

"No," Sunburst told her with all sincerity.  "Your drawings will be even better."

Book review: Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools

Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools: Classes 1-8 by Thomas Wildgruber

This is a book I've been wanting to write a review on for a couple of years.  I first stumbled upon it at the Goetheanum bookstore in Switzerland with my good friend Cari.  One look inside the book and we were both immediately smitten.  It didn't matter that the text was in German or that its purchase price was enough to choke a horse-- we both HAD to have it.

Early this summer it was released in English, and I hemmed and hawed about whether or not I needed a copy of it that I didn't have to translate.  The pre-order price at The Book Depository made it worthwhile though-- a mere pittance compared to what my German copy cost me.  So I winced only slightly before clicking the order button, and I'm so happy that I did, because while most of it is exactly the same, some things and images are different.  Plus, it saves me the time and effort of translating.

Let me repeat myself.  This book is so good that I bought it TWICE.

It's a wonderful guide to every type of painting and drawing experienced within Waldorf education.  Almost every section contains step-by-step guides and thoughtful commentary.  The pictures alone are so inspiring.  This is the book I had wished for when I started homeschooling Sunburst so many years ago and had only the vaguest idea what main lesson artwork should look like.

This is the book we've been waiting for.

Included in this masterpiece are the beginning painting lessons-- the ones that leave most of us homeschoolers with our heads spinning.  It goes on to give a wealth of painting examples for the main lessons in grades 2-5.  As a busy homeschooler teaching three grades, there are not enough hours in the day to do this many paintings.  But I love that they exist.  I love being able to flip though the book and pick and choose a few ideas to bring here and there.  Some ideas I change because that's the nature of art, and others I bring as is because they are just that good.

One major thing this book has done for us is to re-enliven our form drawing.  Form drawing is actually presented very differently in Europe than in the United States.  Okay, I don't know if I can honestly say "all of Europe," but I can definitively say that the main lesson books I saw when I toured the Steiner schools in Switzerland were filled with very colorful form drawings, not much different from the ones in Wildgruber's book.

Here's an example from our own form drawing lessons so you can see what I mean.

It's the same drawing, and yet it looks so much more impressive, inviting, and exciting.  Shaded with rich contrasting colors it becomes this palpable thing.  For those of us who were introduced to form drawing as practiced in the states, this is like a free pass.  There is no need to wait for freehand geometry in fifth grade to make form drawing look this beautiful.  And it helps my children to fill in the enclosed spaces so they can really grasp the feeling-- did they create balance?

Other sections of this book that I particularly love for the lower grades are the botany paintings and the drawing section with inspired artwork to display in the classroom.  If only I could draw this well!  The author goes so far as to recommend that children will learn more from our guided drawing examples on paper than from our use of blackboards.  I have noticed this to be true with my own children, and it is so nice to hear someone say this.

For the middle grades, I love that there are several wonderful explorations of light and shadow using different mediums.  And as if the book wasn't already useful enough, the entire section on perspective drawing is priceless.

But you shouldn't take my word for it.  To see all that's on offer here, you should have a look at the Table of Contents which is available as a pdf download HERE.  And then take a look at some of the images included in the book gallery HERE.  (Note, some of these images have been replaced by even better ones in the English translation.)

I absolutely adore this book.  I could go on and on.  There is one series of exercises that Sunburst and I attempted over the summer that really lifted our work in so many ways.  I look forward to sharing some of our drawings with you in the next few days, so I hope you'll come back for that.

Now if only we had a book like this for the high school grades...  Yes, I can dream!

The age of discovery

Sunburst and I have been enjoying reading about the age of discovery and the renaissance.  Normally this is a grade seven subject, but we're inevitably a bit behind schedule.  Six months to be exact.  With all the moves over the years, and the breadth and depth at which homeschooling allows us to study a subject, we will never truly be "on schedule" again.  And that's okay.  In fact, I prefer it this way rather than rushing ahead to the next thing.  It's one of the blessings of learning at home.

We are truly enamored with this new age of exploration, and Sunburst's abilities just keep expanding.  Every year I find myself amazed with her work, both as an artist and writer, and this year is no exception. She has really come into herself lately.  Her summaries and artwork are all done independently now, with only the smallest bit of advice from me from time to time.

Last spring I could see a glimpse of this coming, as I did very few drawings with her towards the end.  Now she feels completely confident to work alone.  It's a wondrous thing to watch.

For discovery, so far we have focused on Prince Henry the Navigator, Magellan, Columbus, and the conquistadors Pizarro, Almagro, and Cortez.  She has enjoyed writing about each and every one, and the illustrations in her main lesson book have been more map-centered.

Here's just a little taste of her work.  I love the caravels.

We've also been studying the renaissance painters, with an emphasis on Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michaelangelo.  Though it takes an inordinate amount of time, it's a wonderful opportunity to try to copy work from the master artists.  I let her sift through their images and pick the ones that spoke to her.  So far she has attempted artwork from both da Vinci and Raphael.  Michaelangelo and Giotto are still yet to come.

And then what?  I don't know!  Architectural changes... or whatever catches our fancy.  It's the age of exploration and inspiration, after all.

Here is a taste of her work from the master artists, Leonardo and Raphael.

 

Her portrait drawing leaves me breathless.  I remember when we first started homeschooling and it was all we could do to manage the block crayon drawing.  If you would have asked me then if Sunburst's drawing would ever reach this level of wonder and skill, I would have laughed.  I would have hoped, surely, but honestly?  I would have said only in my wildest dreams... and yet, here we are.

More fun with moving pictures

Spring is definitely here!  We have had full-on sunshine for several days in a row now, and I feel like I'm finally awake after that icy winter.  It hasn't even drizzled this week, which seems like a small miracle to me.  I hope it lasts!

This week has been incredibly busy, but Kitty Bill and I have carved out a bit of time to make several moving pictures together.  We adore making these pictures and telling stories to each other.  Kitty Bill, in particular, is drawn to anything that needs a bit of engineering to pull off, so these pictures are perfect for him.  And he's full of story ideas just bursting to get out.

Here are a few that we made this week. 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

 The Night Gnome and His Cat

The Raindrop Gnome Goes Fishing in the Dead of Night

He's really starting to develop a bit of control with the beeswax block crayons.  It's a good way to get those sharp edges worn down before we start grade one stories this fall.

I don't know what it is about moving pictures that calls to me every spring, but it seems to have become a regular springtime activity around here.  You could almost set your clock to it. ;)

Homeschooling at the Acropolis

If you were looking for us on Saturday, you would have found us here causing quite a spectacle.  I'm certain the Acropolis has seen homeschoolers before, but for some reason we attracted quite a bit of attention.  What were we doing that was so exciting??

Drawing.

We must have looked rather curious, as lots of people approached us, including the Acropolis staff.  They were horrified at the site of Kitty Bill, age 5, sitting with a tin of colored pencils and a notebook.  They were concerned that he might go wild and start drawing on the gazillion-year-old marble rocks.  After all, defacing the place is punishable by law... apparently, so is singing.... which we do a lot.  But we managed to restrain ourselves just this once.  And rest assured, Kitty Bill was completely engrossed in drawing a picture of Lykavittos Hill that he didn't even think about drawing on the marble.

It was a long walk up to the Acropolis.  First in surprising torrents of rain, and then just as quickly, melting in the glaring sun.  We stopped in the tiniest bit of shade cast by the Parthenon behind us, resting and sketching the caryatids of the Erechtheion.  One woman was so taken with the sight of us that she thought we needed pictures.  She grabbed our camera and started snapping away.

Our visit to Greece was absolutely fantastic.  More on that to come...

Week of lions... and Greece!

Last week, to meet Moonshine's request of more "boy saints," I presented her with a story about St. Jerome and the lion. I wrote her a flute song based on this story, and I was so glad that it was such a hit because I had planned a whole week of lions.



I also mentioned last week that Moonshine is trying out some new behavioral territory. Could it be the nine-year-change approaching already? I'm hesitant to label it as such, but I do know that it's making us all crazy, herself included. She's being antagonistic to everyone and she's not sleeping well. It's a dangerous combination... and well, she rather is like a lion.

I carried over the heart theme from last week, and challenged Moonshine with a poem I wrote just for her. She copied it into her copy book, memorized it, and recited it--- all with great joy! And because she's insisting to write things phonetically and without help, I pulled some words from the poem and challenged her to her very first spelling quiz. She was so excited!! She remembered every single word, and she can't wait for her next quiz.

The poem was very simple, but the message is also very clear:

Fill my heart
with gladness.
Fill my heart
with joy.
Fill my heart
with love
For every girl and boy.

Fill my heart
with kindness.
Fill my heart
with care.
Fill my heart
with tender thoughts
For creatures everywhere.

To extend the heart theme, I invited the kids to watercolor-paint some hearts. Then to extend our lion theme, I went ahead and pulled from my second grade materials and told the story of the Lion and the Mouse. It was a good reminder of kindness as well. --Those of you who have Teaching With the Fables by Sieglinde de Francesca will recognize my attempt to recreate the picture from the cover of her lovely, lovely book.








Sunburst and I worked on Greece, Greece, and more Greece. And math, of course. I also tossed another wondrous geometrical form her way, shown at the top of this post. She is lapping it up.

This is our rendition of Helios and the sun chariot with Prometheus stealing fire to give to the humans:





We also worked together to copy out the amazing family tree from the front of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. It was a challenge, for sure, but we worked at it little by little over the last two weeks, and it's already helping us to keep all the Greek mythological gods and goddesses sorted. Greece is definitely a lot of fun!

Fairytale woods

Local schools started back to school last Monday, and hence, so did we.

We started off our week with a bike ride around the farm fields and up to the top of the hills to do a little observation. Everything has been harvested already except the corn and the soybeans. The hay has been baled, the wheat is long gone.... and indeed it's getting colder.



We rode on into the forest where the children were met with quite a big surprise. I told them we were meeting some "friends" in the forest, but they certainly didn't expect these characters!













Einstein and I had discovered them on our last walk... and I was totally blown away at the sight of them. I hear there are more fairytale characters as you go deeper into the forest, but I thought we'd save them for another day. The kids were quite impressed with this group-- they ran around hunting for all seven dwarfs and then "helped" each of them do his work. It was very sweet to watch them at play here.... and that was just the beginning of our week.

Einstein was out of the country all week, and we had obligations every single afternoon--- such a busy, busy week!! But though I didn't manage to post anything, we managed to get a little bit of work done. Hopefully I can share that in the next day or so, but until then, I hope you enjoy these new woodland friends as much as we did.

Wedjat eyes

I wanted to post yesterday, but I honestly couldn't see the words on the screen. My left eye has been twitchy for the past few months, but it did something crazy night before last. I spent yesterday in a considerable amount of distress and went through a gamut of emergency testing that left my pupils as large as moons and looking like I had wedjat eyes. They told me I would recover my sight in three hours, but six hours later my eyes were still completely messed up. ( I couldn't even see my own eyes reflected in the mirror, so Einstein took this picture for me.)

Today they hurt. A lot. And things are a little blurry. I'm wearing sunglasses in order to type this, and tonight I go back in for some other kinds of testing. There was a bit of a communication break-down, so I'm not even sure what is going on. But I think the doctor said my eye wasn't falling apart, as the symptoms indicated. But perhaps whatever testing I have tonight will tell-all. Fingers crossed.

In the several hours of non-seeing yesterday I was really surprised at how much of my daily activities are directly reliant on sight. Mothering. Cleaning. Reading. Knitting. Mending. Writing. Gardening. And homeschooling, of course.

Right now Sunburst and I have our feet dug figuratively deep into the Egyptian sand. We're talking about Isis and Osiris and Horus... and this wedjat eye, the eye of Horus. It's supposed to symbolize, not just sight, but an agent of action. And that's what eyes are! Everything I do and am is sight-dependent. And not being able to see, even for a few hours, felt completely debilitating.

And it would be. In the hours of waiting and wondering yesterday I couldn't help but entertain the awful thought of "what if." What if I was losing my sight? If I lost my inability to see, you know, how terrible is that? On the extreme end, I wouldn't be able to see the sweet faces of my children again-- or my grandchildren someday-- or my beautiful husband. And how would I continue homeschooling them? We use an arts-based education, and art is at the heart of everything we do together*. Watercolor painting, pastels, crayons, pencils, fiber, clay-- you name it, we make use of it. Not only use, but joy. How do you live without that?

I guess you learn, but I can't imagine the kind of internal damage that does. I knew an artist once who lost his eyesight to macular degeneration, and how hard just being awake must have been for him! The walls of his house were lined with his life's work-- work which he couldn't see! He kept painting, but as his condition progressed, well... you can imagine how that effected the process and outcome of his work, emotionally and physically.

I guess I'll find out tonight what the future holds in store for my eyes... meanwhile, for my sighted readers, here's a bit of our recent Egyptian artwork to tide you over. I hope these photos are in focus-- I can't tell.






*Imagine how hard it would be to teach a child the nuances of drawing with block crayons if you couldn't see? Or watercolors? Oy!

Ziggurat veil painting

For our first attempts at veil-painting I chose to incorporate the temples from Ancient Mesopotamia and Assyria. Since this was a time of great expansion, I thought we should expand a little too and try some new art techniques. Not too shabby, I think, for a first try.... though we still have a long way to go.

Tulips

Spring is officially over. We've turned back to let Winter have another go at us... or so it seems. The powers that be came and turned the heat back on yesterday. I didn't request it, but I'm not complaining. It's cold and wet and only threatening to get colder and wetter.

So naturally, Sunburst and I spent some time today admiring the natural order of the universe.... in the vase of tulips on the table.

Amazing things are happening inside these plants. We kind of knew that already, but for grins, we took a closer look. It's all there-- spheres, triangles, star patterns, symmetry... amazing. Stunning. Wonderous. Perfect... except that one of them had 7 petals. We kind of liked that, as imperfection in nature still results in something splendid.









We did a fair job trying to capture them in pastels, though they are much easier to capture with a camera!