Flying and Bouncing: Days Ten & Eleven

Continuing with 30 Days of Get Your Art On challenge, I have added a little more to my latest art journal spread. The bird image is from here, and I coloured it with Inktense pencils. The words “Had I but wings like thine, Free bird of flight, To scale the heights that only wings can reach” are from a poem by Martha Lavinia Hoffman which you can read here.

I have also been doing some more drawing, joining the boys in this week’s Sketch Tuesday challenge, which was to sketch something that bounces:

And I have been working a bit more on a stitching project that I will tell you all about next week. Here’s a little teaser:

Finding Poetry and Other Adventures with Paper

I am a great admirer of Natasha White’s art, especially her found poetry (check some out here) so when one of the Daily Paper Prompts was found poetry, I was keen to give it a try. I snipped words from this 1960s book I picked up in Oxfam:

I had a pre-prepared black and pink journal background that I thought was perfect for the poetry:

The poem on the left reads:

that dreary street
the dispiriting view
a mizzling rain was falling
there were no flowers

seemed a pity

The one on the right hand side:

blue and pinched
the drab little maid
cried herself to sleep

then came back
softly reproachful
“I hate her. I hate her!”

a parcel of lies

I think there’s a story there!

I must admit I really enjoyed this found word poetry, in the same way as I enjoyed the book spine poetry a few weeks’ back. Maybe one of these days I will be brave enough to attempt to write a poem using my own words

As well as the found word poetry, I have tackled a couple of other Daily Paper Prompts.

This page was prompted by Daily Paper Prompt #34 Puzzled:

The wordsearch was entitled “Creating Art” so I couldn’t resist snipping that and using it. And I couldn’t resist some more sewing on paper, so I laid some glitzy gold sheer fabric over and zigzagged along the edges, before “underlining” some of the words I liked. This was then stuck into my altered board book. Not sure what the snake is doing there.

I also tackled Daily Paper Prompt #37 Block Letters. The task here was to create block lettering by colouring the negative spaces. For some reason, I found the letter “E” particularly tricky to do this way. I don’t know why. But here’s what I wrote:

Can you guess what I had been watching that evening?

(Not) Back to School

Amidst the usual nationwide September back-to-school hullabaloo, it was business as usual here at the Live Grow Nourish Create “Academy”

This week the boys have cycled, practiced shooting hoops in the (now deserted) basketball court, marvelled at the Number Devil, been to swimming classes, sketched ten tiny things, enjoyed reading and listening to poetry from this marvellous book and CD, hung out with other home-ed friends, been inspired by the amazing athletes competing in the Paralympics and had a hand in making the very welcome first batch of apple chutney of the season:

And because not-being-back-at-school didn’t wear them out too much, we were able to all enjoy taking in the beautiful sunset at a nearby beach:

It may be the end of summer, but there’s still plenty to enjoy in life, as always.

And just for Ben Naga, here’s the apple chutney recipe I use (give or take a chilli ) Hopefully you can read my writing

Brains, Words & Spines

One of my favourite places to visit on the interwebs is Brain Pickings.  Whether your thang is music, art, literature, philosophy or science, there is something there to tickle your brain cells. A regular feature is book spine poetry. It has been 20 years or more since I last made any serious attempt at writing poetry (and even then, I preferred to think of them as “song lyrics”!) but I thought that this was something I could have a go at, especially as it would involve taking pictures of piles of books – always a good thing

Here’s my first book spine poem:

Together under one roof -
the artful bird,
dog,
two monsters.
All families are psychotic.

And a slightly more profound attempt:

Taking the leap,
against the grain.
Real happiness -
the heart of the revolution.

If only I hadn’t recently given 50% of my book collection away

Sometimes I like to be silly

This week I have had fun making some quite silly index card art.

First up some talking gnomes with memory problems:

Then, some battling in pastel shades:

And today, there is a ninja in the flower garden:

The boys have been far more sensible, of course . Here’s Gman’s pandas:

And Waif’s wolf poetry:

And today, my husband MM, also made this rather awesome card:

On Giving

Over at his Nana’s house yesterday, Gman decided he would write some poetry – which you can read on his blog – and P (my much-beloved stepfather) mentioned that his father used to write poems and that he had a folder of his poetry. His dad would write poems on the train, and then painstakingly type them up on a manual typewriter. A labour of love, for sure. I don’t know much about P’s father – aside from the fact that he was a grocer by trade, and that he had been a prisoner of war in WWII. But reading his poetry, I felt a connection. His words conveyed the fact that he was a keen observer of life; a spiritual man; a thinker. It made me wish that I had known him.

One poem, in particular, touched my heart. It is called “On Giving”:

For me, this is a beautiful summing up of the practice of egoless generosity. I particularly love these lines:

Gifts of money, most can spare
Gifts of time – or love- more rare.
Self too often intervenes,
Mars the beauty of the scene.
When we think ourselves most right
Oft ’tis then we’ve lost our sight,
Blinded by our self-esteem,
We lose our soul, ‘tho vent our spleen.

On Mina, Boys, Education & Poetry

I think we all felt somewhat sad this week to have finished reading the really rather delightful My Name is Mina. This book, more than any other, seems to have sparked a creativity in the boys, most especially in Waif. Although he has been a fluent reader for some time, he has never really been interested in writing. However, with this book, that has changed and he has been writing stories and poems like they’re going out of fashion! Whereas Gman did go to school until the age of 8, Waif has never been to school and I think that, as a result, his style of learning is a lot more fluid and organic, and he seems less worried about “shoulds” and conventions. In addition, he has been exposed to “real” books and poetry (in the last month for example, we have read poetry by Lewis Carroll, Mary Oliver, Basho, Ryokan, William Blake – possibly not what 7 year olds at school are reading!) rather than textbooks and books written with particular curriculum-focused goals in mind (lol – I originally typed that as gaols – possibly rather fitting?!)

Anyway, here are a few poems he has written:

“Peace is”:

(my favourite line – “peace hasn’t got any shouting”)

“Spring”:

“Sandy Land Poem”:

And two odes to Corny (Gman’s pet corn snake):

I do wonder if a seven year old boy in a school setting would have the same freedom to write? If he would be teased by his peers for his love of flowers? If his poetry would be corrected so that it followed more “shoulds” and conventions? I don’t know, but I do know I am enjoying this new development

Be Amazed

Mary Oliver is one of my favourite poets.  She writes eloquently and beautifully and with a reverence for nature and spirit.  The verses included in this  journal spread are taken from her poem “The Sun“.  The scan isn’t great – the paint is actually much, much brighter – but I think it conveys the spirit in which it was created.  “Be amazed!”   Take time to pay close attention to the world and you can’t help but be amazed.  But how often do we take the time to be amazed?

In the words of the Buddha: “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

Which brings me neatly on to our sketches for this week’s Sketch Tuesday assignment, which is to sketch your very best blossom. Here’s my rather plain bloom:

Waif’s Morning Glory flowers:

Gman’s flower border:

After stating that drawing flowers wasn’t really “his cup of tea”, Gman then went on to do another flower drawing, and rather lovely it is too!:

Extraordinary Nonsense

Writing nonsense. It’s harder than you’d think. I know because I’ve tried.

One of the “extraordinary activities” in My Name is Mina is to write page of nonsense. This, I thought, I have to try. Here’s what I came up with:

Da schmergle wibbeth da flibberty raith und sminketh da postil off been
Und dan da schmergle bid sloweth da renchy und mayest da schmergle haff been
Da raith haff wendling bid main od ramith
Und dan da wendling mid wain
Ock oh! Ock oh! Ock oh!
Da wendling weepilst!
Da wendling weepilst!
Oh waif dan wendling bist reem?

Und dan da schmergle elfin da raith
Und wendling smid loffest ab leen
Ock way! Ock way! Ock way!
Da wendling smilfest!
Da wendling smilfest!
Da wendling smilfest bist leem

Lewis Carroll, eat your heart out

More Fun with Mina

As I thought, My Name is Mina is proving to be a source of lots of learning, and lots of fun.

Mina talks about different beliefs about death and the afterlife, which was a springboard for learning about funeral rites in different cultures. We read about historical views on the afterlife from the British Museum, and the boys did one of the suggested art activities, which was to design a tombstone for a historical or fictional character, including symbols related to their life. Gman did one for Bilbo Baggins (of Lord of the Rings):

Waif chose Buddha for his:

Mina also talks in the book about a Tibetan creation myth, whereby the universe emerges from an egg. This inspired some super pictures. Gman did two interpretations:

And here’s Waif’s interpretation, complete with all the planets:

Next stop: poetry. My Name is Mina is peppered with “extraordinary activities” for readers to do. One of these is to write a poem “that repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word until it almost loses its meaning. (It can be useful to choose a word that you don’t like, or that scares or disturbs you.)“  It’s a measure of how squeamish the boys are that Gman’s word was “fracture” and Waif’s was “needle”!! This is the first time Waif has written a poem and I think he did great:

If you’d like to read Gman’s poem, he has posted it on his own blog here: http://thebatamonblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/fractured-bone-poem/

I think it’s safe to say that we are enjoying this read and all the activities it has inspired.  Who needs a curriculum when you can be a free spirit like Mina?