a few of my paintings

Wow, I’ve been horrible with photos and info on my teacher training. I downloaded some photos of the painting work I did in the fall and it’s high time I shared it! Nothing too earth shattering but a learning and growing process none the less.

More recently we experimented with our adult interpretations of the early parts of the Hebrew creation story. This painting exercise was so liberating and exciting for me – I’m even pleased with the result. I don’t expect I’d want to lead grade three students in flicking water across their page but you never know;)

math geek

Okay, I don’t really think that’s me… Kevin is much more likely to fit that description but there might be a change brewing.

When I returned to school for the New Year we had a one week math course with a math professor/Waldorf parent and it got me all fired up about math. Then I learned that I would be with a middle school class during their geometry block, starting this week. The geometry I got in high school was easy enough for me to follow but it always seemed sooo dry and boring. Actually most of high school math was like that or missed me completely (I’m thinking the calculus we did with graphing calcuators – ugh).

After last week I was all excited about math, but concerned about the unfamiliar task of working with young adolescents and terrified about how to bring geometry in a way that would actually connect with them. I’m so thankful that I get to work with such a wise and sense aware mentor. I’m eating up all the new and interesting things I can learn about the golden section, compass and straight edge geometric constructions and the platonic solids. My head is spinning about all the cool things I need to investigate further and at the same time, I’m getting to experience some things that don’t usually come with math in school. Namely, looking at the golden section as used in art, exploring geometry with clay, leading meditative reflection, discovering the meaning of “new” words, finding an appetite for my own inner reflection and so much more.

And yeah, this math part… that piece about wanting to be a math teacher, the very thing that motivated me to even think about becoming a teacher so many years ago, is burning ever brighter within me. I love it and can’t wait for next week’s adventures!

handwork

It’s only been two weeks since I made this temporary move to smaller quarters with only only a fraction of my stuff but it’s been liberating to see how much more I can do with my time.  I’m still in shock that I’ve turned to hand sewing so often!

I already wrote about the bags I made the first week: the second one fits my eurythmy slippers perfectly and the other one has been used even more.  Sometimes I use it to carry all my tins of “colours” and other times my birks.  Then there were the leaf faeries we had for homework last week.

This weekend I returned to another one of my favourite handwork arts: KNITTING!

When I was first packing I thought I might have the opportunity to work on a 90% complete sweater that I started 3 or 4 Christmases ago.  In the end it didn’t fit in my bags. It’s a Christmas project anyways so to work on it at that time of year again will actually be quite nice and perhaps will help me relax and rest like I should! Here’s hoping I can block it will still fit:)

The mainstay of my knitting has been toques, especially the ear flap ones. I’ve been doing fewer and fewer every year – and none last year – so it has definitely felt like time for something new.

On Saturday I ventured to the yarn store and fell in love with yarn after yarn. I was craving something a bit bigger than a toque but smaller than a whole sweater and after much debating of patterns and yarns I settled on a sweater vest in this Manos blend of rich fall colours.

Working on it will force me to schedule some relax time but also keep my hands busy when I take a bit of a break to watch Bones once a week….

Have a great week!

nineteen days

… well now it’s only 18 days until I leave for my summer Waldorf intensive.   Yesterday a kindred spirit shared her countdown – she’s going to California for her training – and we both leave on the same day.  Nineteen is my favourite number  and I hadn’t even realized my departure was getting that close.

I like adventure, especially when it comes in the form of budget-wise, multi-modal, multi-destination travel.  As a result I’ll get a few days with my extended family out east, two airplane rides, a bus ride and a train ride.  If I can find a good and cheap luggage bag I’ll also take my foldy bike and use it and my feet to get around at my destination.  Have you seen my bike?  It’s so cool!

Another reason for excitement is that the decision of where to go finally came to me yesterday.  Unless something goes utterly wrong between now and then I’ll be off to Ontario in the fall!

I’m running out of time so I really must get to work on that dress.  Have a great weekend!

craving art!

While I was away my art supplies arrived at the in-laws and I’ve so been looking forward to playing with the paint and making my first attempts at drawing.  At the pace I’m going at it’s really going to be hard to get all my readings done for my anthroposophy course.  Oops!

I had really thought I would do some reading during our trip but 30 pages was about all I could manage.  Ocean waves are so mesmerizing and the 12 1/2 hours of daylight didn’t leave much time for enjoying a book outdoors.  I did the most reading as a way to calm down after seeing so many creepy crawlies outside of our tent on the last night.  I’m good with most bugs but I’d never seen that many beetles and sow bugs and I’d be quite happy to avoid a similar situation again.  Instead of falling swiftly into dreamland I was moderately freaking out about them being in all our gear or inside the tent.  Reading definitely helped.

Despite my lack of reading I feel like I learned so much on all fronts during our trip and I’m really looking forward to the days when my occupation brings me to such an active learning environment on a regular basis.  I’m also excited about painting for “real” in the next few days.

I now have the “basic” set of colours: golden and lemon yellow; crimson and vermillion red, ultramarine and prussian blue.  I’m also on the lookout for a used chalkboard so I can try my hand at drawing on a larger surface.  Waldorf classrooms look so amazing in part because of the artwork teachers are able to come up with for the black boards.  Bright colourful chalk helps and now I have some of that too.  I think it’s going to take me a while to build back my drawing skills, thus why I’m wanting to start now!

I purchased a recorder a few months back so that I could figure out the melodies to some songs in books I borrowed from the school here.  I don’t remember enjoying the recorder when I was in grade 4 but I love it now.  It was so hard to be without it during vacation but the opportunity to try the kinder harp for the first time certainly made up for it.  In the kindergarten the teacher used it to create light, soothing music to help the children prepare for their afternoon nap.  I didn’t know what I was doing but I was able to make up some pretty nice melodies.  That pentatonic scale makes musical experimentation so easy and satisfying!

I’ve got a lot of things to do this weekend but here is a photo from my first art experiment – I’ll be writing out the words to one of the new songs we’re using in playgroup so that it’s easier for the parents to follow along.

It’s really interesting to see how the colour moves on the paper.  I changed this painting a number of times – creating the green on the outside and then unpainting some of it so that the green didn’t look so solid.

I don’t claim that it’s beautiful bt it was fun to do and definitely a nice start.  I’m going to try another one with a yellow wash across the page first.  I’ll have to wait and see what happens!

everybody needs art

I came across Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall’s books online only a few weeks ago but they sounded so good!  Their books are from the 70’s and are unlike most of the children’s books I’ve seen.  Most of the children’s books found in Waldorf stores are from Europe and I really like how these are from a little closer to home – the southwestern US.  Not quite where we travelled in the fall, but close.  The author writes about the more important things in life – nature, imagination, family and creativity.  The sample pages I viewed on-line featured amazing desert styled drawings.

Today I finally made a trip to the bookstore to pick up “everybody needs a rock“.  At first I was disappointed that there was so much less colour inside than on the cover but it didn’t take long to recognize how beautiful and inspiring the drawings are.

Looking at the book convinced me that I just had to get started painting.  I’ll still be getting paint from Ontario (since Stockmar is so hard to find) but I was able to pick up a few sheets of watercolour paper, a paint brush and water soluble wax pastels.  I tried them in the store and they were definitely cool so we’ll see.

Kevin just started on dinner – Annie’s bhangra burritos.  I can’t wait to try them and then start mucking around with colour and water!

dare to change

I can’t remember how I discovered this book but I know it was back in August and it took 5 full months to get a copy.   My local bookseller thought they could get a copy but it was actually out of print.  An old copy of the book finally made it into my sweet little hands just before Christmas.  From all the reviews I read this was going to be “the” book so waiting drove me crazy.  I’m so glad I hung in there and I now feel it’s my duty to share my thoughts on this book.

I haven’t read it as quickly as I’d like because I can’t bear to read it in bed (this 18 year old book is bad news for my allergies).  Despite this I burned through 80% of the book before vacation.  Then I let it sit.

When I picked it up on the weekend it was even better than I remembered.  All that thinking I was doing last week about why it’s so important to leave was echoed in the pages I was reading.  This surprised me initially but then I remembered that this whole book has felt that way and it’s completely unlike anything else I’ve ever read.  It’s like having a heart to heart with friends who have grappled with the same dilemma and come out shining.  They’re not giving advice or telling you what to do, just sharing their stories.  When you’re in that place where you can’t figure out what’s wrong it can be really hard to talk about it and this book was just the ticket I needed to get started.

The book is essentially an analysis of the common threads the author has noticed in her work with people who have made life changing career moves to better align with their authentic selves.  She calls these folks questers.  Early on I could see how closely I related to these folks who value happiness and alignment over a big paycheck.  Yeah, that’s me, and  just like the folks Kanchier writes about I found myself off course.

I’ve been in a job that I pretty near hate for 4 years and was expected to return to this month.  From the very beginning I had thought about leaving but my doubts were equally large.  The day that I left I knew I didn’t want to go back but I couldn’t figure out what a more satisfying solution would be.   Fortunately the past year has allowed me the time to think about this and I finally have an answer.  I’m going to become a teacher; a Waldorf or at least Waldorf inspired one.

With my new found clarity and an extension to my leave I couldn’t be happier!  This book really has changed my life and it could quite possibly change yours too.