An arty day (thanks Beccy)xx

Today we had a wonderful day.  Sat outside in the glorious sunshine doing  just what Jasmin loves the best Art.

Beccy hosted today (thank youxx) and Melanie from Craftsafloat came and did a fab morning with the children.

After talking about primary colours and mixing colours.  The children looked at a seascape picture and recreated it, using watercolours and oil pastels.  The lines were drawn with the pastels, shaded with the water colours and water added afterwards to merge the colours together.

This was followed by felting using merino wool.  The children all chose a seascape picture and recreated it in felt.  We talked through why they liked the pictures, capturing moods and colour.

After picking the colours they started layering the wool, looking carefully at the pictures.  Once all the colours and shapes had been added, the next step was to add warm soapy water to bind the fibres together.  This was great fun.

Bubble wrap was then added on top and pressed firmly down to make sure that all the fibres had been soaked.

This was then rolled up tightly and all the water needed to be squeezed out.   This was done by rolling and rolling (lots)

The end results were amazing.

Jasmin just has to embroider sea creatures and sequins on to finish.

A lovely day. Thank you Melanie and Beccyxxx

Melanie talking through primary colours.

getting started with water colours

water colour and oil pastels

Jasmins seascape

starting layering

making sure everything is just right.

the fun part water squirting

adding colours and spirals

Jasmins seascapexxx

First Ice Skating Competition (proud mum moment)

Jasmin has been practising her routine really hard and tonight she competed in her first in house skating competition.  I was so proud of  her.

She loved all the dressing up and getting her hair done.

It was so lovely to watch all the girls, they all gave each other lots of encouragement. The parents were so lovely too applauding everyone.   There were three first prizes, one in each group and the others received a goody bag of lollies and sweets.

I asked Jasmin how she felt,  and did it make her want to carry on, she said it did, and she loved it.  So we are up at 6.00 in the morning happy daysxxx

before the competition

snake

warm up prep talk

final photo shoot, not v clear. def need new camera!!!

Girls world - Hair designs

Jasmin has loved watching the programme Hair.  She really enjoyed it when the stylists created sculpture with the hair.

She has created all sorts of styles (glad she has a girls world…much better than mums hair)

not sure how you would walk with this as your hair style...

What did we get up to in April (part two skating and biking)

Before we went on holiday Jasmin passed her level 7  ice skating and has just started level 8.

Whilst we were on holiday we arranged for Jasmin to have a few skating lessons, we didn't know until we arrived that it was with  Czech bronze olympic medalist Petr Barna who had skated with Torvill and Dean and Robin Cousins.

Skating is very different in Switzerland, a  lot of work is done on posture both on and off the ice, sticking to the basics for the first year, then moving forward.  Jasmin really ached after each session.  She also learnt the importance of warming up and down before each session.   The ice was so perfect too, no bumps at all... She can't wait to get through the rest of her levels so she can go on patch ice.

The rink was also never busy.

Jasmin also watched the Ice Princess, which must be good as it has over taken Frozen as her favourite film to watch.
We have spent sometime researching ice skating medalists.

Jasmin and Petre starting off a training session.

 Also whilst on holiday Jasmin learnt to ride her bike without stabilisers.  A kind man who owned the village shop let us borrow bikes without any charge for the time we was away.  He was just so happy that Jasmin was learning to ride  her bike.  Jasmin painted a picture for  him to say thank you at the end of the week.

Josh was brilliant with her, showing lots of patience whenever Jasmin became frustrated.

She was so proud of herself when she finally knew she could ride.

Josh showing Jasmin how to cycle

What did we get up to in April (part one) paintings..

Gosh its been ages since we have done a blog post, but we have been up to lots and had great fun on the way.

For three weeks we have been staying in France, in a lovely apartment in front of a castle.  Here we did painting, picnics and our Easter egg hunt.

Luckily for Jasmin in the owner of the apartment was an artist, so he did some art sessions with Jasmin, including preparing her own canvases.

Jasmin with Eric peppering the canvas and paints

getting started

Jasmin's first canvas work

Jasmin really enjoyed her art work and is wanting an easel for her birthday in May.