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.
 

Mondrian Again

Mondrian-inspired abstract art is, by far, the fastest art project that Tiger has managed to do.  After the previous introductory session, we have been able to do two more projects this week.

The first project's instructions are from Discovering Great Artists.  It is a variation from last week's project in that we used black electrical tape for the initial grid lines on graph paper.

Once Tiger was happy with his black lines, he filled in the rectangles using a variety of medium: wax crayons, felt tip pens, and brush markers.

It took 20 minutes to complete Project 1, so we decided to do another quick one.  Tiger remembered a Mondrian spread from his doodle book:

There was one quick introduction to Mondrian in the book, followed by ready-drawn grids with colour-guide written in selected rectangles.  It was the child's version of painting-by-numbers.  Generally Tiger and I don't think painting-by-numbers or colouring books teach anything useful, but on this occasion Tiger was happy to use the brush pens so he did the exercise anyway.

We went to see the Mondrian Nicholson In Parallel exhibition at Somerset House.  It is a small exhibition so we were able to take our time to slowly go round and look closely at each piece of work.  The exhibition is interesting in that it shows the how Nicholson's work was influenced by his friendship with Mondrian, by placing both artists' works side-by-side.

As a final recap, we listened to both talks on the Smarthistory site on Mondrian.  I just discovered this site, and am very pleased with how comprehensive it is in terms of links and presentation.  We will be using it more in the future.

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

Stories from Down Under

It is remarkable how little we know about the indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand.  We only realised this when we studied their culture and history very briefly (in one chapter).  It seems that these cultures were passed down in generations through oral traditions, hence there is not much written documentation found about their origins.  A lot of what we have learnt about them is through legends, myths, and stories.

Tiger was able to learn a little more through reading these books:

We also watched a few clips about them.  There are other more sombre videos about how these indigeous people were marginalised and persecuted by settlers, but we did not watch those as I do not want to get into such a grim aspect of history at this point.  Mostly probably we will be studying about it next year.

Australia clips:

New Zeland clips:

I must add that, after watching the clips, Tiger and I did not really know what to make of them.  I don't think I can claim to have a better understanding of their culture and how they lived.  I feel that we have a better understanding of the Celts than we do of the Australian Aborigines or the New Zeland Maoris.  I wonder whether this is because our understanding of the Celts has been aided by us living in the same land, where we have ready access to documentations, stories, and artefacts, and still see evidence of Celtic influence in our landscape and culture.  My guess is that an Australian family and a New Zelander family will have a totally different experience from us when studying this chapter.

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the Carnival of Homeschooling #334.

Restarting our nature journals

"We can't place a monetary value on nature journaling - the value is measured only by the soul."

-- Clare Walker Leslie, Keeping a Nature Journal

I was first introduced to the idea of nature journal about five years ago when I came across the concept of nature study as part of Charlotte Mason's philosophy.  The idea of keeping beautifully illustrated journals while having a peaceful, quiet afternoon observing nature appealed to me very much, so I tried to incorporate that into our days.  However, we never came anywhere close to the idyllic picture proposed by Charlotte Mason in our nature study sessions.  For a start, Tiger had no patience to keep still enough or quiet enough while we were out in nature to observe and/or draw what we saw -- he was more interested to be a knight wading through a thick forest (our local woods) ready to slay any imaginary monster/enemy that was hiding in the next corner.

After several failed attempts at getting him interested to just observe and put an entry into his nature journal, I decided to put away the idea of attaining any specific goals for Tiger and instead, just continue to take regular and leisurely walks and learn to appreciate nature myself.  I thought, maybe if I were to gain a genuine interest and appreciation of the subject matter (in this case, nature), my enthusiasm might rub off on my son eventually.  Truth to be told, my own feeble effort at nature journaling was not entirely inspiring either.

Something changed this spring.

On a slightly misty morning a few weeks ago, we saw a brown hare in a field.  We often see wild rabbits around, but that was the first time we saw a hare running in front of us.  Needless to say, we were very excited.  Somehow, seeing this rare creature (where we are) made me want to record it.  I did not have my camera with me that morning so I asked Tiger whether he thought we should record what we saw in our nature journal.  To my surprise, he was very enthusiastic about the idea.  On our way back, we saw a green woodpecker as well, so that was to go into our entry.

We spent an entire morning (about 3 hours) making our entries.  Since we are not at the level of sketching nature from life just yet, we consulted several books that we felt inspired by.  The session involved sketching in pencil, followed by colouring in using watercolour pencils and pan set, as well as some writing.  I pointed out some of the more obvious features of the hare -- such as long ears and legs -- to Tiger as he was sketching, as well as the different shades while he was colouring in.

I made a start in my nature journal as well.  It was a luxury to be able to spend an entire hour just sitting and painting.

Since we were not able to sit and observe the hare and the green woodpecker for hours, we learnt more about these two animals from the BBC Nature website, where we watched clips and read interesting facts about the hare and about the green woodpecker.

Both of us felt energised by this exercise, so it is strange that we don't do something we both find so enjoyable more often.   Sometimes Tiger just does not feel like doing it, sometimes there are more pressing activities to be done.  Whatever the reason might be for our lack of entries, I am wary of not turning the exercise into a chore by insisting upon having it done every week.  Right now Tiger sees his occasional nature journal entry as an interesting thing to do.  I want to keep it that way for him.  On the other hand, I might add a few more entries in my own journal on a regular basis.  Seeing me do it often might inspire Tiger to do the same, or it might not.  Regardless, he knows the option is open to him for more regular work should he chooses to do so.


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

The Islamic World

The past few weeks in World History we have been exploring the Islamic World, starting with learning about the Prophet Muhammad and the rise of Islam.  Our initial introduction of the topic came from chapters in SOTW2, and from reading the following books:

When we felt that we wanted to know more, we watched the following documentaries as well:
1) Biogaphy of Prophet Muhammad:

2) Islam: Empire of Faith:

As we learned about the Five Pillars of Islam, we were able to concentrate on a specific one: the Hajj, by attending a drama workshop at the British Museum.  The workshop was run by a professional theatre company where the children participated in role-playing to understand the rituals and roles of Muslim pilgrims at Mecca, as well as the significance of other religious prilgrimages.

After a preliminary preparation, we also visited the Hajj Exhibition at the museum where we saw many historical artefacts related to the Islamic pilgrimage while working through this trail, and learned much about the different ancient routes taken by the pilgrims in order to reach Mecca.  As part of this special exhibition, we also saw an embroidery demonstration of how the Arabic calligraphy was hand-sewn onto the cloth that covers the Kaaba.

The Islamic World gallery in the museum is full of beautiful treasures and artefacts to admire and learn from, so after a very informative 45-minute gallery tour where an expert on the Islamic art and culture taught us much about the subject, we stayed behind to look at the exhibits slowly by ourselves.

 

Coincidentally in our maths lesson we are starting a section on geometry (which is very much related to patterns found in Islamic art), so Tiger has been working on identifying multiple shapes "hidden" in the bigger and most obvious one on the page.

Sometimes it is easy to forget the scientific inventions from a culture that is more associated than religion than science, but watching the following documentary reminded us of how Islamic scholars in the past have contributed and influenced the development of science:

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the Carnival of Homeschooling: Frost and Forcythias edition.

East of China: Korea

As we continued our eastward journey in history from China, we arrived at two countries that were heavily influenced by the Chinese: Japan and Korea.  Although I had previously noticed some similarities among the three cultures, I did not know why it was so until I learnt from our world history leson that Korea was once ruled by China, while Japan had sent its citizens to be educated in ancient China.

I could not find any suitable supplementary book on Korea from the library, so we watched the following clips to learn about the history of this country:

Even the popular Korean dish, Bibimbab, has Chinese and Japanese influence.  The Bibimbab is basically a steamed sticky rice dish topped with grilled beef, shredded vegetables and hard boiled egg.  The Japanese influence comes in the form of miso soup.  The very Korean side dish is the kimchi (pickled vegetables).

The Chinese influence in Korean cuisine, apart from an extensive use of rice, is in its tea selection.  Koreans are well known for their floral/fruity tea, especially the ginseng tea.  Tiger loves the Korean date tea.

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

Cosmetic Chemistry

This week Tiger has been fortunate to experience life in a science laboratory setting by attending a chemistry workshop which was a good follow up to our soap-making experience last summer.

At the start of the session, the children put on lab coats, wore safety glasses, and were given instructions about lab safety.  After a brief introduction about the goals of the workshop, the children set to work to:
1) test the pH of various liquids: water, lemon juice, sodium hydroxide; and
2) witness the effects of neutralisation by adding varying amounts of liquid to one another.

Once the basics of acids and alkali were understood, the children proceeded to the highlights of the day: making the cosmestics.  First was the bath bomb.

Luckily Tiger has always been actively helping me in the kitchen, so measuring and mixing the various ingredients needed to make the bath bombs were easy steps for him.  Here is a very similar bath bomb recipe, for those who want to try this at home.

 

Making the lip balm was a similar process of measuring and mixing, except that the ingredients to make lip balm were all liquids.  I found a lip balm recipe here that is nearly identical to that which was used in the lab.

 

After a while, both products were ready to be collected:

Tiger was very excited about the experiments, especially when he saw that they resulted in products that can be applied in real life.

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the If I had a Million Dollars edition of Carnival of Homeschooling.