pebble in my pocket

Just finished wrapping my precious pebble collection in white tissue paper to make a magical experience for the year 3 classes at Drew Primary School next week. Inspired by The Pebble in my Pocket we are headed towards making ERUPTING VOLCANOS - I know!!!

spring term - years 2 & 4 at drew primary

Drawing, painting, cutting, construction and clay with y2 and y4 classes at Drew Primary School. A Necklace of Raindrops and Varjak Paw provided our jumping off points! These story books are treasure troves of creative potential and we stretched this potential to the fullest learning new art techniques and using unfamiliar materials. The children embraced my expectations and the challenges set for them, filling their art books to bursting with their imaginative work. After half term I'll return to years 1 and 3 for more literacy inspired art.

Happy yellow cat

 Shadow puppets

Painted papers, cut and carefully placed in repeat

 Painting technique - holding the brush still and turning the egg!

The Tigris River with fine brushes and ink

Teamwork

 Beautiful art book page

Collaboration inspired by Bastet, Egyptian cat goddess

wanderlust

For YEARS I have owned Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit. For some reason I've begun the book many times, but repeatedly and willingly cast it aside for other books. So, with the turn of the year I was determined to commit, focus and read Wanderlust... and I'm succeeding. Yesterday I read a line that reminded me that when walking long distance I see each step as a stitch, and when sewing each stitch for a step. Land and textile reflecting one another. On page 163 Rebecca writes, 'If walking sews together the land that ownership tears apart, then trespassing does so as a political statement.'

On the previous page is a passage that enabled me to see walking in a way I'd never considered before, that it is the antithesis of owning.'Walking focuses not on the boundary lines of ownership that break the land into pieces but on the paths that function as a kind of circulatory system connecting the whole organism. Walking is, in a way, the antithesis of owning. It postulates a mobile, empty-handed, shareable experience of land. Nomads have often been disturbing to nationalism because their roving blurs and perforates the boundaries that define nations; walking does the same thing on the smaller scale of private property.'

Wonderful.