Flying Yogi

Well, she hasn't quite mastered "yogic flying" yet, rofl, but we've just got back from Emily's yoga presentation and she's definitely walking on air, so I guess that's half way there! :-)) Our small bendy person was very confident in the display they did. She wasn't due to get a certificate because she hasn't had her first test yet (as it's quite strict in that respect, they have to have attended ten lessons before the first test), but in fact she was awarded a special certificate of achievement for excellent work and effort :-)) She was exceedingly chuffed, as were we. And I forgot my camera, so guess who has no piccies of the event?? Tomorrow Emily's going back to the yoga studio for a photoshoot/interview for the local press, so that should be fun.

Yesterday Emily and I worked on maths in the morning, and also practised more perspective drawing - this time a country lane disappearing into the distance i.e one point perspective instead of the two point perspective of a cityscape. Emily also had fun taking a little cardboard viewfinder and her sketchpad out into the garden and sketching little parts of things, odd angles and strange shapes.

In the afternoon Emily completed a verrrrryy long Viking quiz; she knew most of the answers anyway, despite our dire lack of effort in that department. We also spent some time puzzling out what happened to the Viking age in the end (i.e. the Norman conquest and the spread of Christianity) and pondered (yet again) making a nice big timeline to show the various periods of history. It was meant to go down our stairs, but that's been turned into an art gallery. So it's been put off yet again. That was the one thing I was really keen to do back in September 04 when Emily left school, rofl. Guess we'll get round to it one day.

Emily and Jon's art class last night was a tricky one. Just as the class had started to get to grips with the acrylics, Gary moved the goalposts and had them all painting in watercolours instead. They had to sketch and then paint a secluded cove picture. Here's Jon's rather lovely effort:
followed by Emily's - bless her, she's got the perspective kind of muddled here, but it was a smashing attempt at a difficult task and I love her watercolour sky, the blended textures in the rocks and the spray effect. Can't get over how happy she is to spend a whole two hours working on a painting - I'm sure I wasn't capable of that aged seven (or even now!).
Today we had a fantastically fun morning doing Encaustic Art (painting with molten wax and an iron) for hours. Back in September 2001, Jon won an encaustic art starter set in a competition, and we completely forgot about it as Emily was far too young to be using an iron then. The other night I stumbled across Create & Craft TV when I was looking for something else, and they had an hour long demonstration on there, which prompted us to dig out our set. I love that channel now, actually - it's great for arty inspiration, so long as you don't have your credit card anywhere near...
So, here's a gallery of Emily's encuastic art efforts. The top set of three, from the left, are "Staircase in the Sky", "Arrival of the Birds", "Sunset over a Mountain Road"; the next set of three from left are "View up the Valley", "Bridge over the Ice Lake" and "Steps to a Flower", and the bottom two from left are "Alien City Reflection" and "View from the Cavemouth"