A Chinese New Year Taster

Being the last-minuter that I am, I must be asking for trouble by declaring on Monday that we plan to learn more about Chinese New Year this year, when the big day is only days away.  That is a sure way to work myself into a frenzy!

Luckily the V&A came to my rescue yet again, with a whole day of Chinese New Year related activities!  Woo hoo!  With many varied cultural activities prepared by professionals, all we had to do was to show up and work our way through them -- such an arrangement is this homeschool mum's best-case scenario.

The museum's central courtyard has a large landscape installation by a modern Chinese artist.  The landscape is of major significance in Chinese art, as seen in the art of bonsai and traditional Chinese landscape paintings.  While the pre-Impressionistic Western landscape paintings' emphasis is on realistic representation, the Chinese landscape paintings have always been non-representative, with its emphasis being on conveying certain philosophical and spiritual aspirations (most notably due to the influence of Laozi's philosophy as expressed in Taoism).

The first craft that Tiger made at the museum was the Chinese Opera mask.

The mask is made entirely out of paper and looks like this when completed:

Traditional Chinese Opera masks are painted directly onto the actors' faces, using specific colours and patterns to represent well-known operatic characters.

After the craft session, the museum even had a short "Introduction to Chinese Opera" workshop to take the children through a few of the uniquely-identifiable stage gestures and movements of each character.

Other activities Tiger was to do that day included:
(1) Making a mini kite out of lollisticks, craft tissues and coloured cards.

(2) Watching a paper cutting demonstration.

(3) Practising Chinese calligraphy.  The practice in Chinese New Year is to write certain auspicious wordings on a piece of red paper and stick them around the house to signify bringing good luck and prosperity into the home.  A very common word that is used is "fu" (福), that embodies the meaning of good luck and good fortune.  There are many different styles or schools of Chinese calligraphy, hence there are numerous ways to write the word "fu", as you can see Tiger practising below.

The day ended with us attending a traditional Chinese instrumental concert, performed by the musicians from the UK Chinese Ensemble.

The style, sounds, and atmosphere of traditional Chinese music is very different from those of classical Western music.  The concert gave the audience an excellent experience with a wide repertoire of solo pieces, duets, as well as ensemble pieces.  For example:
(1) a zither or guqin (古琴) ensemble:

(2) a yangqin (扬琴) solo:

(3) an erhu (二胡) and yangqin (扬琴) duet:

(4) a guzheng (古筝) solo:

(5) a xiao (萧)solo:

(6) a pipa (琵琶) solo:

(7) an ensemble piece:

The finale was a traditional Chinese New Year piece titled <<喜洋洋>>, loosely translated as "Beaming with Joy":

The score for this piece of traditional Chinese New Year music was rearranged for the ensemble performance at the V&A.  It was originally written for a full Chinese orchestra:

The day has been a good introductory overview to the Chinese culture.  To do justice to the depth and breadth of the Chinese culture (as it is with any culture), we will have to spend more time to study the individual components of this one-day "crash course" individually.


This post is linked up to:

1. Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #12
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 1/28/2014
3. History and Geography Meme: Ancient Greece activities
4. Entertaining and Educational - Energy
5. Collage Friday: Thankful for Homeschool
6. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with all the Snow
7. The (New) Homeschool Mother's Journal (2/1/14) 
8. Chinese Activities Link Up

Looking at the Weird Sisters

This term's drama study ties in well this year's Halloween theme of witches -- the children studied another Shakespearean work, Macbeth.

We first visited the V&A to attend a workshop on Elizabethan England, with an emphasis on the theatre at that time.  During the workshop, the children learned about the development of the Elizabethan theatre as well as become a rowdy audience member (true to the South Bank crowd back then).  They also got to experiment with Shakespearean language, make stage sound effects and dress up as a performer in Elizabethan ruff.  Most relevant to our own study is when the children, with the help of a reenactor, rehearsed and staged the witches' scene (Act 1 Scene 1) from Macbeth.

That was a good introduction to Shakespeare's work in general, but as we knew we were going to study Macbeth in drama class this term, we came home to listen to the entire play and read it to prepare ourselves better.  There is also a BBC animated version of the play, which Tiger did not enjoy as much as he did with a few other plays produced by the same team that he had watched:

Being taught by the same drama teacher, the format of this term's study is very similar to that of the class on The Tempest.  Besides drama skills, the four-day course also covered the following:

• character analysis
• historical context of the play
• scene analysis
• nuances of the Shakespearean language as spoken on stage
• Shakespeare's dramatic techniques in context of how the play is divided into acts

We were extremely lucky to have caught one of the last performances of Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe this season.

Macbeth, as with all Shakespearean plays, is highly complex in terms of its themes that weave together human nature, history, propaganda, beliefs, and drama.  I studied this play for my O-levels and thought I knew a lot about it back then (since I got an A* for the exam), yet I find myself looking at the play now at a different level from my teenage self, with a deeeper understanding of the complexities of any given situation.  As such, even though Tiger has read the unabridged text and knows the general theme of the story, he is not expected to have the same level of appreciation of the complexity of human nature as a more mature audience would have.  Lessons that come from life experiences cannot be rushed.


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 11/5/2013
2. Entertaining and Educational - Nov 8, 2013
3. Collage Friday: 100 Boxes and a Comedy of Errors
4. Weekly Wrap Up: Dates, Drivers, and Divergent
5. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {November 9, 2013}

The Italian Experience - Mosaics

When we look into the traditional art associated with Italy, the one that we come across the most is mosaics.  I wonder whether this is due to the influence of the Roman culture, which is also our main association to mosaics.

We started off our exploration of mosaics with a set of puzzles that Tiger had used when he was a preschooler.  Following last week's land and water forms exercise (also from his preschool days), we seem to be feeling rather nostalgic lately.  Maybe it's because the academic year is coming to a close soon and I am feeling more reflective about what we have done so far.

Once Tiger has the hang of forming a mosaic picture from the above exercise, I wanted us to make one out of paper.  To get our design inspiration from real mosaics, we went to look the V&A.  The V&A prides itself as a design museum, so everything in it is filled with ideas for designers.  We had a good look at the different patterns on its mosaic floors as well as a few more modern mosaic portraits on the wall.

 At home, we proceeded with our paper mosaic project.  We cut an A4-sized white card into two to use as our base.  Then we each sketched the outline of our designs using pencil before filling the designs in lightly with coloured pencils.  This is to help us plan where the colours go.

Tiger's design

My design

We gathered all the coloured craft papers we needed, measured and drew 1cm squares on each and cut them up with a pair of scissors.  The coloured paper tiles were put in plastic trays by colours for ease of use.  Then we glued each paper tile onto our designs carefully, one colour at a time.

The paper mosaics took a while to complete but it was a fun exercise.

Finally, I gave Tiger a mosaic tile set that I bought from a craft shop.  The set came with ready-cut tiles, a wooden base, ready-drawn design, and grout.  All Tiger had to do was to assemble it.

Tiger actually prefers to make his own paper mosaic rather than to use the ready-made set because:
1) he prefers to draw his own design, and
2) the tiles in the set are all standard 1cm squares, and we cannot cut the tiles easily without making a mess and breaking them.  The inability to cut the tiles results in a less refined finish.

This post is linked up to:

1. Look What We Did!
2. Virtual Refrigerator
3. May Culture Swapper
4. Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #4
5. History and Geography Meme #75
6. Hobbies and Handicrafts - May 24
7. Homeschool Mother's Journal: May 24, 2013 
8. Homeschool Review
9. Collage Friday - Time for Nothing and an Exciting Something
10. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One at NCHE
11. Hip Homeschool Hop - 5/28/13

Turner's light

When it comes to studying British artists, JMW Turner's name always comes up amongst the top list.  With him being labeled as part of the Romantic movement, and after our study of John Constable, we thought we were going to see pretty much similar styles -- countryside scenes, detailed paintings, etc.  I am very glad we decided to study both artists separately as both of them could not be more different from each other.

Picture Study
Once again, I had a few postcard-sized reproductions of Turner's work on the door, as well as on my computer screen.  These were on display all the time so that Tiger was able to see them each day.  By now, he knows that he is expected to discuss/narrate any one of the pictures he sees on the door at some point.

We used several sources to prepare for our discussion on Turner's style, his influences, and his most notable artistic achievement:
1) BBC Your Painting's Turner page was our first stop.  We looked through the slide show to familiarise ourselves to Turner's different works, and also listened to the audio clips.

2) We then took a visual tour of Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight here, followed by activities in the Inside Scoop - Tuner.

3) Bringing our focus back to England, we listened to the relevant parts of the National Gallery's podcasts (episodes 60, 65, 66, and 67) about Turner.

4) We also used the following book, with its short introduction and questions, to kick start the discussion:

However, we found the following documentary to be most enlightening about Turner's life and his creative process (note: parental guidance needed due to a few scenes of nudity relating to life drawing):

Hands-on Project
Turner's work is very difficult to replicate at a child's level, for the simple reason that his style is one of romantic-realism.  Without years of practise and developed fine motor skills, it is extremely difficult to create a piece of art work at a child's level and to call it "Turner inspired", in contrast with some of the more expressionistic or abstract styles.  Nonetheless, we gave it a try. First, we looked through one of Turner's sketchbooks to get inspiration from his looser, watercolour work:

Once Tiger has had some idea of watercolour sketching, we decided to attempt an atmospheric watercolour painting based on Turner's Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway.   We listened to the short discussion here before starting on the project. First, the preliminary pencil sketch...

followed by a wash...

 

Tiger had fun laying in the details as he learned to use create different marks using a combination of different brush strokes, toothbrush, and the back of his paintbrushes.

The final result:

Field Trips
We went to the V&A's Room 87 to look at Turner's work, as well as Constable's work.  Nothing compares to looking at the original artworks up close!

Tate Britain happens to be the best place to learn about Turner this time.  There was a lot of renovation going on when we went there, with the Turner collection being moved to another location.  The curator and workmen were in the process of moving the collection on the day we were there but they were nice enough to let us look slowly at the paintings without being disturbed.  I spent a long time standing in front of Fishermen at Sea.  Once again, Constable's and Turner's works were displayed in the same rooms.  As a quick 'test', I asked Tiger to identify Turner's work amongst all the paintings in the various rooms.  He faired very well in that. At Tate Britain, there is a special display about Turner's Experiments with Colour and Line in another room, so we spent another hour there learning all we could about Turner's techniques. 

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked up to the Carnival of Homeschooling 349th Edition.
 

Another look at illuminated manuscripts

After our earlier attempt at producing illuminated manuscript, I said I was going get us to do more.  The more I look into the topic of illuminated manuscripts, the more fascinated I become with this labourious process of producing such masterful pieces of work.  I can even see the link between this medieval practice that began in the monasteries and the illustrated journals of present day.

There are a few places in the UK where you can go and look at actual medieval manuscripts.  Our research brought us to the V&A Museum in London.  Our trip there coincided with a workshop on medieval art, with a specific focus on the manuscripts.

The workshop was guided by an actor dressed up as a monk.  He gave the children a short guided tour in the Medieval gallery, while interweaving Norman/Anglo Saxon monastic history into the tour as he pointed out significant pieces of art work.

After the tour, the children were given 30 minutes to try their hands at illumination, using real quill pens, ink, brush and metallic paint.

Being an extremely sociable child, Tiger often cannot concentrate on his work in a group setting.  In the presence of other children, he would be more interested to talk to them and/or to look around to see what everyone else is doing -- anything but completing his own task.  Hence, his work in a group setting often show a lack of concentration.  Well, at least I can console myself that I need not worry about Tiger's ability to socialise and make friends!

While Tiger was socialising, I had a go at the exercise too.  Admittedly my output was not great either, so maybe I should not be too critical about my son's work:

The next part of the workshop incorporated drama.  The children were split into three groups to act out different scenes of the Norman/Anglo Saxon period: (1) the decision of the Angles and Saxons to come to England, (2) a day in the monastery, and (3) the Saxon reglion.

It was an interesting experience for Tiger as it was his first time acting, in the sense of being coached by a professional actor, being given lines to read and having scenes to act out with other children.  We were introduced to drama terms such as still scenes and improvisation.

Tiger found acting to be unnatural and was not too keen about some of the scenes that he had to do, but he participated in the entire session nonetheless.  Back at home, we discussed about the requirements of an actor, which is basically to try to become the character that he is given while he is on stage.  Having understood this point after our discussion, Tiger seemed to be happier at the prospect of future drama opportunities.

 

After the workshop, Tiger and I headed back to the gallery to have a proper look at the copies of the various manuscripts there.  Truly, we need to get more inspiration from the masters!

 

While we were there, we also took the opportunity to look around the Gothic gallery, to learn more about the specific features of this period in art history.  Gothic art is especially relevant to us at the moment since we have recently studied Giotto.

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.