Falling in space

Last week we started some self portraits called "Falling Back in Space".  Inspired by OOdles of Art. 

 Today we painted them.  We used water color paint, experimented with crayon resist and some watercolor wash.

So much fun to learn together! 

More Chalk

We went to a friends house and did some chalk drawings with them.  We chose a winter scene from the book I bought from Southern HodgePodge.  

The finished projects!

We had so much fun, and I think they all did some really nice work!  Good job, girls!

Ice Crystals

This afternoon when we took a walk, we found a rotted log with ice crystals in it. The first picture I enlarged so you can see how fascinating they are!

Experiments in Absorbtion

Today we tried some experiments from Jameson's Lab

This one is watching the color move with the water as it is absorbed.

This one showed how the color moves from one jar to the other.

 And the last one shows blue and yellow both moving from jar to jar, and mixing together in the middle jar!

They were very impressive experiments!  And SO easy!  All we needed were paper towels, jars, water, food colors, markers, and a plastic box

Tabbi rocks!

It's funny how my kids have always been rock hounds, but I've never had much interest!  Today Tabbi picked out her 10 favorite rocks and told me why they are her favorites.

1. It's shaped like a robin's egg, so I colored it blue like a robin's egg.  (with a crayon! lol)
2. It's shiny and smooth and the color is swirly.  It looks like sand under the shine.
3. My most favorite of all.  It fits right in my hand.  It has lines (layers).
4. It's sparkly, has patches of different colors.
5. It looks like gold. (it's a piece of fool's gold)
6. It's shaped like a triangle with a cow's head carved in it.
7. It has a different cow's head carved in it.
8. The color looks like it's cracked and has a skunk carved in it.
9. It looks like a tiger so I call it a tiger rock.
10. It's sparkly and it's all white except for a big black spot.

So there you have it!  I guess those are good reasons to have a rock collection!

We also borrowed a couple of rock collections to look at.  This one belongs to Tabbi's brother, Nathanael.  He has some very interesting and different looking specimens, including, geodes, crystal, amethyst, turquesite, a sharks tooth and a fossil!

And these are some Native American artifacts that belong to my father.  He has a large collection of arrowheads.  The large stone on the right is a hide scraper.  The collection he has all came from my great grandfather's farm.  When they started to till the ground, they turned up many, many Native American artifacts.

 

Rock Collection

 Tabbi was very excited to make a box for some of her rock collection today.  We found a template at The Handbook of Nature Study blog.  This is only a SMALL part of her collection! lol  I don't have to go outside to find rocks... I find them all over the HOUSE!  And quite a few of them in the WASHING machine!  "Rocks" is a good topic for us to study this month!

Chalk Pastels

We recently bought an e-book called "A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels" from Southern Hodgepodge.  This afternoon we pulled out our chalks and worked on a chickadee picture. 

 We sat in front of the window so we could watch the chickadees on the feeder while we worked.

 Here are our finished pictures.  Mine above and Tabbi's below.  They might not look much like chickadees, but it was fun!

Sketch Tuesday

Today is "Sketch Tuesday". The assignment is to sketch a robot.  Tabbi and I decided to use her new watercolors and paint our sketches.

 Tabbi made a half-robot/half-person!

 Before I took the "frog" tape off.

 All finished! 

Geode's

New Year's Day we got our January newsletter from the Outdoor Hour Challenge.  It was about rocks!  How timely.  Tabbi's sister gave her a box of geode's for her birthday in December and we hadn't yet cracked them.  So we went out to the workshop and got cracking! lol

                                                                                      Some of them were pretty interesting inside!

Here are all 10 of them after they were opened.