Art, reading and life

This year we started the year with some painting.  Largely focusing on complimentary colours and how to mix them from after images.  We picked up some new Stockmar paints, as we were getting a bit low.  The book "Colour Dynamics" offered great inspiration and the idea for trialing mixing the colours we could see as after images.

Mixing after image colours.

Our stockmar paints.

Painting together

A selection of Irving's paitnings.

A selection of Arden's paintings.

 Veil Painting- stages....

 

 

 

  

A selection of my paintings.

Veil painting - transforming

Paintings on display.

Complementary colours in nature.

We also took a look at Jenny Hocking's book "The Palace Letters" after coming across it at the library.  Arden and I heard about the letters regarding Gough Whitlam's dismissal last year, and decided it was worth reading about.  Some of it was a bit dry for his level, but a significant amount of it was filled with intrigue and so as a book for us to read together it worked very well.  For more pleasureable reading we all read "Wind in the Willows" together.

Creating a cork board gradually.

We did some first aid again this Summer.  Arden and Irving's turn this year.

Since we were in and out of lockdown during this time, we adjusted our usual start to the year, which is March, did painting took some time out again and "started" for the year.  Given that we do a lot of natural learning and interest led learning even during our structured time it didn't hugely impact the beginning of the year.  As we always start gently as the heat can oftentimes still be oppressive in March.

This year we hired a car and did some weekend driving around Western Australia.

The Pinnacles.

Two Rocks

Crystals in the Caves at Yanchep.

Cervantes

Mundaring Weir.  Quite a big deal in Western Australia, where a lot of the state is desert.

The coast.

 Arden and Irving really enjoyed getting out and seeing a lot of the places that they have heard about.  Gabriel came along for abit, unfortunately Willow was busy for a lot of the weekend- so we were mostly a family of four for the weekend.  Something that is more common these days as we transition into a family with adults.  Sometimes all of us, sometimes 4 and sometimes 5.  It is interesting being able to experience the family in different ways as we transition into new ways of experiencing family life as a multi-generational family.

Dragonflies were studied for a bit, when we came across this one.

Arden had an opportunity to be photographed as a schoool student for WA maritime museum.  First time in a school uniform.  :D

Irving was making mobius strips.  We seem to have phases with them!

Some interesting reading on the English language.  Everyone enjoyed this!

Arden's jeans being patched to get every last bit of life out of them, until they are too small!

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2025

Later we were reading Bill Bryson's book on American English, but Arden and I did rather poorly at finishing that once he started at TAFE.  I think it's still in our reading pile.....ATM the only thing I'm still reading to Arden and Irving is Harry Potter.  We're onto the Half Blood Prince, and will read the final book next year, when Irving is 13.

My cork board has progressed quite a bit since then, but still a bit slowly!  There just aren't enough corks around anymore.

We did quite a bit of politics and political history around this time, as it became apparent to our family that Western Democracies, weren't quite democracies anymore.  We had had suspicions about Australia becoming odd quite some time ago, but we weren't aware quite how ubiquitous it was until covid happened.  

Seeing The Palace Letters, has reminded me of all the historic political reading that we were doing then.  Tragedy and Hope was challenging for Arden, in the early stages, and although I think I will read it to Irving too, I think I will omit a lot of the numerical values of costs of spending on warfare, unless Irving is particularly interested, as Arden found that challenging. He also happens to remember things quite easily, and so he found it a bit overwhelming initially, til I suggested he consider it more like a story, and that he just take in what he can. We read it over the course of about 18months, and he did like having read and understanding about Openheimer, when the movie came out (and he went to see it) as there is quite a lot about him in the book.

We also did quite a bit on the Australian political system and the constitution, and we learnt about the legal system and the Ombudsman- we had an excursion to the Ombudsman's office.  There is a Constitution Centre in WA, but after having a few excursions there over the years, and seeing what happened during covid, it became apparent that they are just really offering lip service to Democracy- by explaining how wonderful our past was.

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Our visit to Mundaring weir with our home school group can be found here.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2025/06/we-made-it.html