sketchbook :: algebra

Here is a recent page spread from my sketchbook that I worked on while Kiddo was doing her algebra lesson. It's nice, sitting together at the kitchen table, both of us working. I stay nearby to offer help when needed, but mostly I try to stay out of the way. Especially when it comes to algebra. Although if I had had the benefit of the type of math instruction that Kiddo is receiving, I may have actually learned something in high school math classes. But I didn't have "Bruce". That's what we call the voice of the math instructor from her lessons. By now, Bruce is like a part of the family. Kind and reassuring, he gently inspires his listeners with logical and detailed explanations for every single problem, and never belittles an error or an incorrect answer. It's always okay. Maybe you forgot to reduce to the lowest terms. You get another try.

My new sketchbook doesn't fit onto my scanner. I merged the two scanned pages together in photoshop for the above image, which is why you see a line. I could have "photoshopped" that line out but decided to just let it go. It's either this way or snap a photo of the page spread, but I have a hard time getting the color adjusted correctly from photos. Either way, I enjoyed painting our decorative gourds while we sat together, Kiddo solving algebra problems, and all the while listening to Bruce. Great days.

Sketchbook Tuesday :: Thyme and synchronicity

Kiddo will be finishing up her 7th grade materials next week, and I have been pondering just what to have her work on over the summer. From experience I know that math must be continued without much of a break, otherwise too much is lost. We don't like spending a whole lot of time in review. But what else, if anything? While debating this homeschooling issue I came across this site, and ordered a couple of books. Their book for tweens seemed perfect. Kiddo and I can experiment with herbal remedies while tending my neglected herb garden this summer. Add in trips to the local farmers' market and we can be brewing up lip balms and cooking with herbal oils and butters all summer. She likes the idea of working with plants, especially in the kitchen, and is fascinated by the few stories I have of a great, great grandmother who was reportedly knowledgeable in herbal remedies. We have already begun by picking up a few herb plants and seeds to grow in pots, in order to supplement the few plants in my herb garden. But here's the synchronicity part. While planning all of this out, I spotted an ad for a book signing at a local  market. The book? The Essential Herbal for Natural Health. But what also caught my eye was that the author, Holly Bellebuono, used to live here and was a member of our little homeschool group! So with my new collection of reading material, and a few plants and seeds, we now have a summer homeschool curriculum in place.

Sketchbook Tuesday - Sunshine

In a vase, on our kitchen table anyway. Because I am not going to talk about the snow, ice, freezing rain, sleet, and snow, anymore. The only winter weather we haven't had so far is high winds. But now BLIZZARD conditions are in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow with 55 mph winds gusting to 70 miles an hour. So good. We can check that one off our winter weather events too.

But back to the sunshine. Kiddo's science lessons have been all about plants. Last week it was learning the parts of a flower. The Professor picked up some cheerful yellow gladiolus so she could examine the flower parts with a magnifying glass. With out winter palette of white and gray, it is so nice to have a bit of sunshine blossoms gracing our table.

Homeschool Planner

Click here to see samples or purchase

Creative thinking at work or what I do in my "spare" time. A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a planner book to use for our homeschool lessons. I searched high and low but couldn't find anything that really offered what I need to plan our weekly lessons. And I am getting tired of loose pages of notes all over the place. I really wanted something that would keep everything together in one place. Now I sometimes get free-lance work doing book design so I figured I could just make my own. I wanted it printed on a little heavier paper than regular copier paper, and with a sturdier cover, so I called our local office store to see what they would charge for printing and to make it coil bound so it would lay flat when opened. That was pretty pricey so I started looking online at the print-on-demand services. I found that Lulu could do exactly what I wanted at a much more resonable cost. I have received my copy and it is perfect. I am impressed with the quality of printing, it looks great.

Sometimes people question our decision to homeschool, or even the whole idea of homeschooling as an educational choice. Our common experience of having attended school makes it very difficult to imagine any other way of learning. Initially our decision was based on Kiddo's severe peanut allergy. Our local school system had no experience with kids that have food allergies and they still have only one nurse for an entire system of eight elementary schools and one high school covering an area of over 30 rural mountain miles. But now, our decision means so much more to us. It has become a way of life, a part of our day-to-day that has a natural rhythm and flow. As I sit here typing this Kiddo is working on another computer doing her math lesson, on her own for the most part, a big step towards self-directed learning. A skill that will take her far.

“I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.”
- Agatha Christie

For a while now I have been enjoying reading Zen Habits, and was delighted with this article on the topic of education.

Education Needs to Be Turned on Its Head

“Our culture lies. They say they want to encourage and reward individuality and creativity, but in practice they try to hammer down the pointy parts, and shame off the different parts.”
– Sandra Dodd

I almost forgot

To post these Everyday Matters drawing challenges! First is challenge #217, draw an umbrella. I sketched this with a brown watercolor pencil and then used watercolor washes. I kind of like the brown pencil more than ink for the initial sketch, it's a bit softer. Of course I got lost in all the folds of my umbrella's fabric, so I just went with it and played with the color.
This is for challenge # 218, draw a knife or a blade. So I drew this little pencil sharpener in graphite. Perspective is obviously something I need lots of practice with. And I'm all about pencil sharpeners. I have several of various types for various needs. This one stays in a plastic sandwich bag in my sketching kit. Both drawings are done in my small, square hand.book journal.

I have been busy lately making colored pencil drawings and plans for more colored pencil works. I will be sharing some of those drawings soon. This is also the week we do our annual achievement testing for our homeschool requirements. Good thing we have plenty of jelly beans and chocolates to keep us going! If you're ever searching for nut-free chocolates (and I know just how difficult that can be) here is an excellent company. Their candy has never even been in the same building with a peanut or nut. And it's really really good. Kiddo gets to have a chocolate bunny in her Easter basket that is safe for her to eat. And somehow my bag of dark chocolates left by the Easter bunny is quickly vanishing. But dark chocolate is good for you, right?

Merry Merry

Our holiday cards are finished and will be on their way in a day or two. This year all three of us took part in creating our cards. It was a fun family project. So here is the whole step-by-step process we did to make our works of holiday mail art.

First kiddo applied watercolor to paper in random color washes. You can see she enjoyed this part, paint splatters everywhere! You also get a peek of our kitchen/dining/project/school table with the world map and clear plastic cover.

Next we sprinkled salt onto the wet watercolor washes and watched the magic happen.

Then hubby carved potatoes to make stamps. After brushing the salt off the dried watercolors we cut them into the sizes we needed for our cards.

They were then stamped with hubby's holiday potato stamp designs.

Embellishments were added, letter stamps, silver and gold markers were used, buttons and bows. Each piece was then adhered to the front of a blank greeting card.

And it's a holly jolly season. Merry Merry to you!

Bye bye summer

ACEO Yellow Butterfly
colored pencil on paper
3.5 x 2.5 inches
©2008 Ann Thompson Nemcosky
Click here to buy

It's already been a busy week here. Looking at my calendar I see that August is almost behind us for another year. The remnants of Fay have been dumping much needed rain on our mountains but making for a string of gray and gloomy days, a foreshadowing of the seasons about to shift.

We have also had a shift in our routine from summer to the start of fall. Fall semester has begun for hubby. Kiddo's dance, art and other activities are beginning again for the academic year. And we began a new grade level with a change in curriculum last week. All of this is much more time consuming, especially for me on the homeschool front. Each jump in grade level places not only more demands on my student but more from me as the teacher as well. More subjects to include, more projects to do. Kiddo is doing great. I'm wiped out by the end of each day! It will take some getting used to, some settling in before I have a rhythm established for my time, as I am taking it in stages. Get the homeschool routine established first, then fill in the cracks of time with making art. Revisit my goals. Evaluate my time and plan a schedule. I am being nudged into autumn whether I like it or not.

Another Saturday

Here it is the end of another week and although I didn't get to everything I wanted to do this week I have several ideas at the starting gates. One huge chore I managed to accomplish was to organize all my files and images on my computer. Up until now I had no system for keeping track of art work images or design projects. So now I feel much better having a system in place that will hopefully help things go a lot more smoothly. And speaking of design work, it seems the jobs are piling up around here, keeping me quite busy. It's good and I know the work won't last but so long so I am holding many ideas I have for my own art work on reserve for when the design work ebbs again.

January is also a time when I re-evaluate where we are in our homeschool year. It's a half way point and a good time to revisit goals from the start of our school year and see where I need to focus more energy and add emphasis to areas that remain weak in kiddo's learning. And to marvel at the accomplishments that have been made to be sure those aren't lost in the shuffle. Much like my creative endeavors, homeschooling can become too much a routine and sometimes needs a good airing out.

Here I have two EDM challenges, #152, Draw a Nut, and #2, Draw a Lamp. These are both graphite in my small hand.book journal. As I work through these I can sense that even though I still have problems with perspective and proportion the drawing process is becoming easier for me. The lamp is one of two I have attached to my drawing table. Most of my art work time is at night, so good lighting is important. The acorn is from one of our oak trees. We had an awful lot of acorns in our yard this past fall. This little acorn has been sitting on the kitchen windowsill since then. There are no edible nuts in our house for obvious reasons.

What Do Bears Eat?

Is it Wednesday already!! I am really off schedule this week. Hopefully things will settle down into a regular routine soon. In the meantime, I have a yummy muffin recipe to share. My daughter made these muffins this past weekend and I quickly got a photograph before they disappeared. This was her first attempt at solo baking. Well, I did coach her a little, she is only 8, and she used a recipe I made up several years ago and always turns out well. And there is an "art" to cooking!

Kiddo was inspired to do some cooking because nutrition is part of her studies in science at the moment. She got the idea to relate her culinary experiments to the theme of her movie of choice for our movie night. When she finishes a row on her reading log she gets rewarded by choosing a movie to rent. Last weekend it was Brother Bear 2. So what do bears eat? Blueberries, of course.

Blueberry Citrus Muffins - makes 12

With whisk mix:
1 egg
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup melted butter (cooled)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

With spoon stir in:
2 cups flour
1 cup blueberries
*do not over mix*

Bake in greased or paper lined muffin pan at 400F for 25 minutes

I was really proud of her not only for coming up with a great idea but also for her enthusiasm for baking. Because of her food allergy, learning to cook and bake for herself will go a long way to empower her all her life, more than just being self sufficient. She already knows more about nutrition and reading food labels than most kids her age should know. She knows that the complete information isn't always on the label and that sometimes you have to call the company to find out exactly what is or isn't in a product. She knows that peanut is overly prevalent in the food industry - even to the point of being in some kinds of orange juice - so that you can't take anything for granted. And she is very aware of issues with cross-contamination in manufacturing processes.

The hardest part for her is when she is singled out because of her food allergy. Everyone gets the same treat at the party except her, she gets the special "safe" treat. If you know of a child with a food allergy please keep this in mind. The parents are not exaggerating and they are always correct in their requests and should be respected. Class or party treats should be the same and safe for everyone. These kids with food allergies know what they face in the world of processed food, restaurants and baked goods and really don't need any more "this is real life" lessons. How would you want your child treated? Okay. Done with my rant now. Please enjoy the muffins while I get back to making art now.

"Sing a Song of Seasons!"

Color Study #10

watercolor on paper
approx. 6 x 6 inches
copyright 2007 HRN
Private Collection

In the other gardens

And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

from Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have been spending the evening searching for poetry to use in our homeschool. So good for speech and memory practice, we try to study poetry often. There are many children's poetry books available, some I find at our local library, but I have also discovered some great sites online where you can browse poems by subject if you are searching for something specific. Like autumn themed poetry, for example. One such site that I often visit for poems to add to our collection is Can Teach: Songs & Poems, http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems.html. They have many poems appropriate for children conveniently listed under subject headings.

And speaking of things appropriate for children, this comes under the heading of what I wish I had known when my daughter was still a baby. Earlier this year I read Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce. It this 1977 classic he discusses the stages of child development and how they relate to growth and learning. With, "The child's need is to be a child," Pearce challenges the then and still popular educational model of forcing children into learning situations before they are developmentally ready and the damage that can be done as a result. Yet his message is positive in that by examining our ideas of parenting we can see where we are and only come away better.

The image I included with this post is part of a series of color studies my daughter has been working on lately. They are all wonderfully lively and unique expressions of her response to color and form. She says that she is not trying to paint anything specific, she is just working with color in her paintings. And she has done a lot of these lately!

The Plan

Morning In The Neighborhood
colored pencil on pastel paper
8 1/2 x 4 inches
copyright 2007 by Ann Thompson Nemcosky
$50.


Well, I've got a plan. For the time being anyway. Thinking realistically about managing my time and keeping up with everything I want to do forced me to actually devise a schedule. Really, I create schedules all the time so this is not something unfamiliar to me. Our method of homeschooling requires a schedule to help keep us on track. Plus there's all the extra activities my daughter participates in that must be taken into account. Then there's the day-to-day stuff like housework, errands, cooking and meal times. Add in time for making art, reading, and plain old relaxing and well, you can see that the days around here are pretty full.

Yet I do strive to maintain a balance, especially where my daughter is concerned. I firmly believe that kids need time for doing nothing. For that matter we grown-ups need the same thing, a bit of unscheduled time for quiet contemplation now and then. It's fine to have plenty of activities but I feel kids also need unstructured time to just be. That's where a real sense of self comes from. And where creativity gets a chance to grow. The pay off is that I have a child who has always been very self-directed. That's a good thing.

But back to my plan and how it relates to this blog. I have decided to plan for three posts per week, probably on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

~Mondays will be "Home" day. This is where I will share information and resources about anything having to do with home and homeschool. There is an art to both of these endeavors and it's a continual learning process.

~Wednesdays will be "Books". Here is where I will share all those books that have been and continue to be influential for my ongoing development as an artist.

~Fridays will be "Art Work" days where I will focus on the process, intent and artists of influence concerning my re-entry into the world of actively making art.

Of course I am hoping that you will share in the discussion on any or all of these topics. I will be posting artwork as often as possible, not just on Fridays, so please stay tuned...

And now, where are we going?

Gladiolus

colored pencil on pastel board
8" x 10"
copyright 2007
AnnThompson Nemcosky
sold

Lily colored pencil on pastel board
8" x 10"
copyright 2007 Ann Thompson Nemcosky
sold





"One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

So what does this quote have to do with art and homeschooling? How can these two subjects possibly be related? Well, in my life they have very much in common. Education, or rather learning, opens up endless possibilities. When I began our homeschooling journey I used a highly structured curriculum with my young daughter. We knew exactly where we were going each day, week, month, and year. To the end of the worksheet, the end of the chapter, the end of the text book. But did learning happen? Maybe. But it was a struggle. Obviously it wasn't long before we left the highly structured curriculum for a kind of learning that is more open ended. It took me a while but I finally did see that the point wasn't to complete the exercise. It's about the journey, not the end result. The purpose of education is, or should be, to instill a desire to learn.

Now, although I thought I had my goals as an artist firmly established oh, say 9 years ago, having a long awaited child made for a lot of changes. As a new parent, art was put on the back burner. There would be more time once this child started school. I could pick up teaching more classes and have more time for my art. I was content waiting. It was all good. Then we found we had a child with a life threatening food allergy. Sending her to school was too overwhelming. We were convinced the school would not be responsible enough with her life. So we began our homeschooling adventure. None of this was in the original plan. We never thought we'd be going this way. I immersed myself in learning everything I could about education and homeschooling. Now I can confidently say that home education is the best educational choice for our family.

But what happened to my art? Before my daughter came along I had been working in acrylics and oils on sometimes fairly large canvases. I finally began drawing again a little over a year ago. Graphite drawings of landscapes. Landscapes because this has always been an important subject to me. Graphite because it required little space, I could work at the kitchen table. There are no fumes or mess and I can work on a drawing in short spurts, between refilling juice glasses and folding laundry. This was all fine but my work wasn't going anywhere. Then one day while waiting for my daughter when she was in an art class, I picked up an art magazine and saw an article about using colored pencil. A little while later I started putting color into my graphite landscapes. Then reading about colored pencil artists. This lead to more experiments with the colored pencil medium. I was finally excited again about making art. I had found a medium that fit my needs and I had an interest in exploring further. None of this was in any plan. It was exactly because I didn't have a predetermined destination that I was more open to learning. So where will all this take me? I don't know yet. I'll have to wait and see.

We're here!

We have finally arrived in Blogland! This blog, Nemcosky Art, is a place for us to share our creative explorations in art. I will mostly show completed works by myself and Gary, although sometimes a work-in-progress will appear or works not to be included on our website, www.bluebirdhill.com. In addition to our sketching, drawing, and painting I will also include posts reflecting on homeschooling, our favorite books, recipes, and life with our dogs.
Thank you for joining us on our creative journey!

Avon Still Life
mixed media on paper
by Gary M. Nemcosky copyright 2007

Whalehead Sound

5" x 7" colored pencil on pastel board
by Ann Thompson Nemcosky copyright 2007