Impressionist Lapbook Finished

Wow, wow and double wow!  Gman has completed his Impressionist lapbook and is sooooo proud of it (and quite rightly so!).  You can check out his blog, Gmans Ramblings, to see what he has written about it, and check out some pictures below:

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It is great to see Gman getting into something like this.  It has caught his imagination and done wonders for his self-esteem.

Painting and Sewing and Stuff

We have been continuing with our Impressionism' theme and Gman has nearly finished putting his first lapbook together on the subject (pictures will follow!).  In the meantime we have visited the excellent Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to check out their Impressionist collection (and were also wowed by the Ancient Egyptian stuff there) and painted some more in the style of famous painters.

Firstly, the boys did these paintings, inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night":

[caption id="attachment_231" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's painting inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night""][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_232" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's interpretation of Van Gogh's "Starry Night""][/caption]

Then, we had a go at using some unexpected colours for everyday landscapes, in the style of Paul Gauguin.  Waif chose to paint orange grass, purple trees, a green and blue sun and a red sky.  He loved choosing different wacky colours for his:

[caption id="attachment_233" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's wacky colours"][/caption]

Gman was a bit more hesitant about the whole colour thing and initially referred to a colour wheel so he could select the "right" wrong colour (!) but he soon got into it.  He chose to paint from a sketch he had made on the train to Cambridge of things he could see out of the window.  He has blue and yellow grass, orange gravestones, purple barns and a green sky with blue clouds, with a purple window frame round the outside:

[caption id="attachment_234" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's crazy colours"][/caption]

Gman has also been turning his hand to sewing some napkins this week.  He has made two reversible napkins using the sewing machine and is very proud of them.  He has even put pictures on his own blog:  here and here.

[caption id="attachment_235" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman shows off his new napkin"][/caption]

New Best Place Ever and More Impressionist Art

We have had a busy few weeks of living and learning (can you have one without the other?).  On a lovely sunny morning last week we went exploring at a local nature reserve we had never been to before - Dersingham Bog Nature Reserve.  Here you can see the old Wolverton Cliff (now 2km from the sea but 6,000 years ago at the sea's edge) and explore the bog using the boardwalk.  There was, of course, plenty of mud :-)  Gman officially declared this the "Best Place Ever" so I am sure we will be returning for more adventures soon.

We have also been continuing on our Impressionist theme.  Gman is putting a lapbook together on the Impressionist artists, while Waif is happy just to join in with the painting.

The boys have:

Painted trees in the style of Monet:

[caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's tree painting"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_203" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's tree painting"][/caption]

Created cityscapes in the style of Pissarro.  Firstly using sponge painting, secondly using oil pastels and water colours:

[caption id="attachment_212" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman concentrates on cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Waif adds to cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_209" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Finished sponge printed cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_211" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman works on his wax resist cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_206" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif creating cityscape with oil pastels"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_210" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's finished watercolour resist cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_226" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's watercolour city"][/caption]

Tried out pointillism in the style of Seurat:

[caption id="attachment_207" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif tries out pointillist technique"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_213" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman gets pointy"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_208" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's pointillist island"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's pointillist beach scene"][/caption]

When they haven't been painting, the boys have been enjoying various computer based activities.  Gman has been playing BoulderDash, a game resurrected from Daddy's game playing youth.  Waif has been feverishly working his way through the Alphablocks game on the CBeebies site, and then translating this into words to make from his wooden alphabet bricks.  I was a bit surprised when he asked for help making the words "x-ray", "exit" and "hospital" and was relieved that the following day, the most important words of the day had become "brown", "flake" and "aero" ;-)