European Starling in my Nature Journal

December 20, 2014 / thepantrybook / 1 Comment

I made a “map” of my watercolor palette, which I think really helps to know what colors to mix because it shows you the mid-tones and washes of each color, which is vastly different from how they appear dried in the palette.

I finally found something for opaque white details on top of watercolor – white gel pen!

My top “nature journal help” books of 2014. Obviously, you need a field guide. And I have really loved learning modern calligraphy, but the real stand-out for me is the Laws Guide to Drawing Birds. I think this is a MUST for any Charlotte Mason nature journal-er. It’s just an awesome book!

A bit of Calligraphy (handicrafts)

September 18, 2014September 25, 2014 / thepantrybook / 2 Comments

Since this is my first year with our Charlotte Mason homeschool co-op, I am not teaching any classes by myself. My main role is assistant to the handicrafts teacher – which is pretty much my dream come true. Because I LOOOOOOOVE handicrafts! Calligraphy, watercolor, sewing, knitting, quilting, collage, you name it – making useful and beautiful things by hand is what I was made to do! And it brings me such pleasure!!!

“I am, I can, I ought, I will” was the motto of the students in Charlotte Mason’s school. And this is the cover of my commonplace book (which is a lined Moleskine Cahier book). I plan to do another calligraphy of the motto with some fancy flourishes in a frame to display in our schooling room.

Our CM co-op incorporates a monochrome (all one color – i.e. pencil or pen, not with multiple colors of paint) reproduction of the subject of picture study (more like a visual narration than trying to reproduce the artist’s work), so we both needed an unruled notebook to hold the sketches.

Below, you can see all of Adele’s co-op school supplies: Adele’s leather-bound moleskine watercolor notebook, her picture study sketch notebook (I used an unruled Moleskine Cahier notebook), and a cute little (lined) polka dot notebook that I found for $1 on clearance! I just love that Adele is using high-quality art supplies. I think it helps Adele to treat her schoolwork with a lot of respect. And, these notebooks will be used for more than just one year; in some cases, they will be a lifelong treasure. =)

When Mom tries to squeeze in a bit of sewing, the kids run amok!

Everett exploring Adele’s math manipulatives . . .

P.S. FYI this is not a sponsored post. Moleskine has never heard of me! I don’t like “name-dropping” brand names but I also know that it’s nice to know what other people use if they think it is a quality product.

Supplies for Keeping Notebooks – What I Use

August 9, 2014August 11, 2014 / thepantrybook / 2 Comments

I’ve had a few requests for an updated list of supplies. So here it is. I am not a professional artist or anything like that, but I have tried a few different things and I’ve found several supplies that I really like to use. When I started my notebooks, I searched all over to find what other people were using, just to find a place to start, but I had a hard time finding a list like this.

First of all, if you haven’t read Laurie Bestvater’s book, The Living Page, then you should start with that. In her book, she has a list of suggested “keeping” supplies (although mostly generic descriptions and sometimes it’s nice to have a link to something specific) and, I admit, I kind of went wild. But, I think good quality art supplies are the best kind of “toys” or even “educational tools.” I am going to provide links to amazon because it might make things easier for someone who wants to just click and buy. I definitely prefer to support local small businesses, but oh-my-goodness “click and buy” without leaving the house is really helpful for me in my current stage of life. And, just a reminder these are NOT affiliate links. I have absolutely no bias in recommending any of these items.

Nature Notebook Supplies that I Use:

I realize now that my “better quality” supplies probably haven’t improved the quality of my artwork at all, but they HAVE made the process of using them more enjoyable. And, that is worth it to me =). Also, these are just the things that work for me, and even though what I like might not be the best choice for you, it’s possible that reading why I do or don’t like something will be helpful information. I hope so, anyway!

I have tried a variety of paint palettes, but this one is my current favorite. It is not small, but I did not want to use two separate palettes, so this is the one I use at home and also for travel. The palette comes empty and you use tubes of watercolor paint to put the colors where you want them – I suggest you take some time to plan out your colors in a way that makes sense to you before you put any paint down (I wish I had been smarter about my layout). Also, a little bit of watercolor paint goes a really long way, so you don’t need much at all in the palette. If you are doing nature study in a co-op group, you might consider splitting one really nice set of paint tubes between ten or so palettes – you’d probably still have lots leftover. This palette also has a long skinny section that holds a paintbrush or two. It even has a nifty spot to hook your thumb through so you can hold it when you are painting without a table (in my lap!). I bought this inexpensive set of paints and they work for me, but I haven’t tried a lot of brands of paint. Also, my nature journal is kind of bulky, but its beauty makes up for its weight. It is a handcrafted leatherbound watercolor journal from etsy. I can see the appeal of a smaller palette and a smaller journal, but these sizes work for me.

When I started my nature journal, I was frustrated when I tried to add details to my painting. I thought I needed a very small detail brush. I bought about five brushes (less than ten dollars each). Recently, I invested in one real sable brush and I wish I had started with that instead of buying multiple brushes. I personally don’t use more than one brush when I’m painting, so I think it’s best to get one high-quality brush. Also, the sable brush I bought (size 8) is a lot bigger than the small brushes but the bristles come to a point, so you can still paint a nice detail.

I’ve also tried several brands of waterbrushes – it’s a genius idea where the brush holds water in the stick part and you release the water by gently squeezing. But, since I am doing dry brush technique, I use very little water (just a few drops for a whole painting), and these get too wet too easily for my taste – but they aren’t expensive, so try it – you might love it.

Commonplace Book Supplies that I Use:

I bought a leather cover from etsy that holds three moleskine cahier notebooks. I love it! I like that I can take the books in and out easily, although I haven’t needed to yet. I thought I would be filling up a cahier book every month or so, but I write really small and am not even one-third of the way through my first one so far.

Calligraphy Supplies that I Use:

I have ventured into the world of pointed nib dip pen calligraphy. And it is sooooo fun! I bought this book, which has been the perfect guide!

These are my favorite nibs (they’re for manga drawing), but it’s a good idea to try lots of different ones. I also prefer the manga nib holder (because it’s wood and has a cushion at the top — and it’s not any more expensive than the plastic ones). I have several different inks – my favorite is a manga ink, because it’s a very rich dark black (almost shiny), but it’s also the most dangerous because it takes a long time to dry and some parts stay wet even overnight – this means that it is easy to ruin your whole project with one wrong move. It is so hard to do calligraphy without getting ink all over my fingers! I don’t mind ink on my fingers but I do not want it on my paper! =) I also have Speedball super black and also Daler Rowney FW Acrylic Artist ink. I think each ink reacts differently with different nibs and especially on different paper. You really can’t do calligraphy on printer paper. I use smooth bristol board paper.

Mrs. Bestvater suggested a writing desk (on an incline) in her book and I remember hearing how that’s helpful for calligraphy too. I tried a few ideas for making one myself, but I recently bought this one (large size) and I think it’s really great – very sturdy. I struggle with good posture, so having my writing surface higher really helps. I tried this wooden easel first because I like the look of the wood and it’s less expensive, but it is really intended to be used in a more upright angle – when I had it farther back it kept sliding down flat when I put pressure on it (as you do when painting or doing calligraphy). I ended up keeping it though because it really is lovely and it can still be used for upright painting and also for displaying picture study books.

Keeping Supplies that I do NOT recommend:

I bought a white sharpie with oil-based paint in it, that I hoped would allow me to add white dots on top of watercolor, but it isn’t nearly opaque enough. White gouache paint (the kind that comes with most watercolor paint tube sets) applied with a (not very wet) paint brush works much better.

I’ve also bought several sizes of Micron pens, but the super-fine tips seem to break quickly and they are not cheap. When not broken, though, these pens are excellent.

In my opinion, multiple brushes are a waste of money. I don’t want to mess with holding lots of brushes when I’m painting in my lap outside, so I think it’s best to put the same amount of money into one good brush.

I bought this Niji roll, but I don’t trust it to protect the bristles of a fancy sable brush (I just use the plastic sleeve it came in — it’s like stiff plastic tubing — and store the brush inside my plastic paint palette). I do have a few pencils that I like to use but I keep those at home and don’t like to fuss with them “in the field.”

To Minnesota and Maine and home again – July 2014

August 6, 2014August 7, 2014 / thepantrybook / 15 Comments

I had the privilege of attending a Charlotte Mason retreat in Minneapolis. My roommate brought her baby too! I thought Eleanor was a super-chubby baby until I saw Samuel, who is about a month older and extremely healthy! I think Eleanor must have had a growth spurt on the plane ride because she had really thinned out and looked especially scrawny next to her roomie.

I consider myself a Charlotte Mason purist, so the Charlotte Mason Living Education Retreat was just the thing to encourage me for the upcoming school year. I have zero desire to go to a generic “homeschool conference” in a humongous convention center with five thousand different curriculum vendors.

In a comical scene where I misread the schedule THREE times in a row, I encountered a conference attendee who asked about doing Classical Conversations with a Charlotte Mason curriculum. [Now, I will be the first to admit that I have not actually experienced Classical Conversations. For that matter, I haven’t done an official year of homeschooling the Charlotte Mason way yet — I am not even a real homeschooling mom using any curriculum or philosophy yet. But, I can’t keep quiet when I hear questions like this. Not that I’m an expert, mind you — but I certainly do have an opinion!] I responded that you could do anything you want, but doing CC would not be using the CM philosophy. CM focuses on ideas before facts, CC gives facts (to be memorized) for years before the child is allowed to feast on the ideas. As my dear friend Charissa reminds us, Charlotte Mason said, “The mind is an organ nourished upon ideas ONLY.” She elaborates further: “An idea is the live thing in our mind that grabs hold of us.” And, “Things of interest and ideas come before facts and symbols.”

I think, the educational model/philosophy/curriculum/etc. you choose all boils down to your goal. What are you trying to achieve? And a few more critical questions: how do you view the child, and how do we even learn anything, anyway? I know for certain that I have different goals for my children than the public school system and we fundamentally disagree on how children actually learn and even in our view of the child. These issues were brilliantly discussed and fleshed out by Dr. Jennifer Spencer in her talk “How Firm a Foundation.” I expect that the contents of her talk will be published by the Charlotte Mason Institute this year, along with the rest of the keynotes from their summer conference. Highly recommended!!

Because I, like Charlotte Mason, view a child as an image-bearer of God and a person, not an empty vessel to be filled with facts of the teacher’s choosing, my job as the “teacher” is really more of a facillitator. As such, I: provide the atmosphere, spread the feast, cultivate habits of attention and observation, provide a culture of self-education, provide scaffolding, ask for narration/copywork/conversation/etc., foster a love of books, not get between the child and the “thing” (the book, the music, the painting, etc. . . .), and not try to be my child’s Holy Spirit. I need to let the Holy Spirit and the books (or the “things”) themselves be the teacher/tutor. My role is to expose the child to a wide variety of subjects, because I don’t yet know the Holy Spirit’s calling for the child.

Perhaps the contrast between the CM philosophy and what-I’m-trying-to-avoid (in public school and also the classical method) are best described by James K. A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom (quoted in The Living Page): “What if education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions — our visions of “the good life” — and not merely about the dissemination of data and information as inputs to our thinking? What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? . . . What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know but about what we love?”

To me, this “better” idea of education, the Charlotte Mason philosophy, if I may be so bold, is really the sanctification of our mind (i.e. the bringing of our mind into submission to the Spirit). And, it is really giving the child the tools to self-educate in order to ultimately become equipped to serve and glorify God in that unique way that God planned from the beginning.

During the morning devotion at the conference, Nancy Kelly shared about the deeper meaning of “shalom” from theologian Cornelius Plantinga, “In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Saviour opens the doors and welcomes creatures in whom he delights.”

Nancy Kelly also quoted Saint Irenaeus, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive; and to be alive consists in beholding God.” Boom! How can we glorify Him if we don’t even truly “see” Him. How can we behold Him until we learn to look? And it all comes back to the art of noticing, cultivated by the notebooks.

In The Living Page, Laurie Bestvater says the purpose of a nature notebook is the acute observation (noticing) and recording of God’s creation. It is more about the process than the end result (i.e. what is happening in the heart and mind is more important than how accurately you are able to portray God’s amazing creation with your feeble art skills). She also says that the nature journal is a source of delight for a whole life, a companion. She is right! I’ve only had mine for a bit longer than a year, but it really is a source of delight to me.

Keeping a notebook is actually transforming me too. I see things now that certainly have been there all along, but I never noticed them before. Also, I have been programmed to be a consumer (quite successfully, I might add), but this, too, is changing. While we were out and about in Maine, Adele noticed a multitude of tourist shops and asked me about them. I told her that when people go on a vacation they like to buy something to remember the vacation once they are at home. Well, I could feel the urge to buy something myself, but then I remembered my recent entries (the puffin and the sea gulls) in my notebook and I didn’t feel the need to buy anything to “remember” my vacation.

I have posted my nature notebook entries on this blog as I’ve added them, one at a time, but I thought I would post them all right here – so they are in one place. I’ve added some fancier tools along the way (a quality paintbrush and new paints) so it’s kind of cool to see how things have (hopefully) improved since I began. And, I’ve recently started learning real calligraphy (pointed nib dipped in ink) – I’m excited to add that into my nature notebook too! I’ll start with the most recent entries and work backward.

We went to Monhegan Island for a day and hiked to some very lovely views. We stopped for a little rest and I decided to paint a puffin because my landscape skills aren’t really able to capture the beauty of what I was seeing. Adele painted a puffin right beside me!

My almost-done puffin and my paint palette that I love love love!

Art Update for Adele’s Gallery Wall

June 30, 2014 / thepantrybook / 3 Comments

I really liked how my recent paint experiments turned out — my first time playing around with acrylics (i.e. cheap craft paint). I liked them so much I decided to “frame” them (i.e. tape them up with washi tape) on Adele’s rotating gallery wall. Wanna see?

This one (above) used to have a blue background, but Adele’s room doesn’t really have any blue, so I painted it over with pink. And added a bit of background flair!

And when I got up to Adele’s room, I realized that the yellow I used for the background of this one was the same paint I used for this frame. I like it! I don’t love the greens that I used (it was all I had on hand), so I’ll probably redo the green portions in a few days when my next Amazon order of Martha Stewart craft paint arrives. Oh happy day!

Moving, and Adele and I took an art class

March 14, 2014March 14, 2014 / thepantrybook / 2 Comments

A friend of mine just happens to be a professional artist who teaches classes to homeschoolers. I asked her if I could take the class too and she said yes. We just finished eight weeks of so-much-fun! So, it was five little girls rangin between five and ten years old . . . and me. I loved it! Each week we learned about an artist (both about their life and also about their style – or their preferred medium). Then we chose a piece to try to emulate.

Here are a few things I have drawn or painted lately.

Georgia O’Keefe and watercolors (mine’s on the right)

My first time working with charcoal and learning about shadow. I do NOT see the appeal of working with charcoal – it is soooooo messy!!!!

Henri Matisse and cut-outs/collage (mine’s on top)

This is just a random Painted Bunting that I drew from our Bird Field guide – my contribution to Adele’s gallery wall.

Here it is in it’s habitat =)

Adele drew this Junco at the bird feeder a few days ago – I love it!

There are a few more pieces I’d like to show you, but they are packed – because we are moving – TOMORROW.

Believe it or not, we went to look at a house on February 28th, and we both just felt like it was perfect (even though it is at the tippy top of our budget), so we put in a rental application that same day. We both felt like we couldn’t buy right now because we don’t know how long we’ll be in the area and we’ve lost so much (and are still losing so much) money on our house in Mystic, we don’t want to be out-of-state landlords again if we can help it. FYI our renters are exercising their military clause and getting out of the one year lease after only six months because they are being transferred to WA (oh, and one of those rent payments went to the realtors, so with the vacancy during the winter, that’s five months of rent coming in out of NINE!). And, the rental price for many of the houses here is significantly less than the projected mortgage payment would be if we were to buy the house. i.e. we couldn’t afford to buy the houses we were looking at renting! And for the ones we could barely afford, it would max us out and we wouldn’t have any money left to fix them up (which the ones we could afford definitely needed!) because real estate here is just so expensive – and the weather here is awful, so it’s not even like paying a lot to live in San Diego or Hawaii or something glamorous with a beach and mild weather. And even if we could swing buying a fixer, then we’d have about a MILLION dollars in debt between the two mortgages – which freaks us both out. Thankfully, we have zero consumer debt, but still. Debt is debt, which the bible says is slavery, which is less than desirable. And we are still paying my law school student loans . . . So, yeah, we are still renting. All that to say, it took a few nerve-wracking days to find out if our application was accepted (someone else had also put in an application a few days before we saw the house) and we had a super-tiny window of time during which we could give notice to our landlord and still be out of this house by April 1st (my cut-off to move before my due date). SO, when we finally found out that we got the house, it was an immediate rush to notify our landlord and get packing. P.S. Our landlord had originally wanted to put our house on the market during the month of April, so we aren’t leaving him in a lurch. He just didn’t want us to move out in the middle of winter, which April isn’t supposed to be the middle of winter but here it is the middle of March and it’s forecasted to snow on Monday!!

Anywho, now I am completely surrounded by boxes, and we are moving TOMORROW! So, this is by way of an excuse for not posting lately. But, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be overloading you with pictures as soon as I get over there and get my camera out. Basically, the house is AMAAAAZING! It is light and bright! Everything is freshly painted white (whereas this house wasn’t painted since at least the last two tenants have lived here) and it’s all hardwood floors (dirty carpets in a rental creep me out especially with a new baby coming and with Everett on the floor). And, maybe best of all, the kitchen is open to the family room/living room/couch room/fireplace room (we haven’t decided what to call that one yet). Technically there are two column things and a half wall separating the two rooms, but it’s the most open of any house I’ve ever lived in. And, the cream on top of my ice cream Sundae is the fact that there is a master bathroom at all and that it has an enormous soaking jacuzzi tub!! To say nothing of the laundry on the main floor and the laundry chute – I don’t have to go down to a disgusting unfinished basement 100 times a day to do laundry!!! I think this house will be quite close to heaven-on-earth. OK, not even close, but a vast improvement on this one for sure! Oh, did I mention the location? It’s less than three miles to Derm Dad’s work, so he can easily ride his bike or hop on a bus (that goes directly to the hospital and comes every 15 minutes all day long). He never dreamed we’d find a place with an even shorter commute than he has now! Did you know that it’s not unusual for people in this area to have commutes of one or even two hours (both ways)?!?!? The new house is close to church, too. And yet, it’s just two houses from a dead end (whereas we are on an extremely busy street now – there is literally a bus stop right in front of our house and people are walking in front of our house all times of day and night because of the metro station) and at the end of our new dead-end street there is a really nice park! So, I am super-excited to be moving to the new house, but I am also completely overwhelmed with the actual work of packing and moving. =) Ha! I’m not afraid to work hard, and packing and organizing is truly something I enjoy doing, but I have been really surprised with how my bursts of energy seem to get shorter and shorter, followed by extreme fatigue (think elephant-tranquilizer-tired), then contractions and cramping. And I still have seven weeks until my due date! So, I am listening to my body and taking a rest when I get tired. Which means that we will be making a few trips over here during the next two weeks to get all the stuff that didn’t get packed. Also, we are out of boxes. =)

The walk-through is today, so we packed the car (well, as packed as it can be with two car seats in it) with our kitchen essentials and some fragile stuff. That way we can at least eat right away. Because food for a pregnant lady is an around the clock concern. What, you don’t wake up in the middle of the night starving? OK, maybe that’s just me. Pray for us, kay?

P.S. I’ve been awake for over an hour (Everett is an extremely early riser!!) and it’s still pitch black dark outside! crazy!

Give me a few days to get a bit settled and then I’ll be back to show you everything. I have some really exciting plans for the new house. And, while I’ve been taking my rest breaks, I’ve been reading some really amazing books – I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

All’s grace!

Nicole

The Role and Influence of Mothers (from 1908)

December 21, 2013 / thepantrybook / Leave a comment

This article is from the Volume 19 of the Parent’s Reviews (a newsletter edited by Charlotte Mason, with articles written about her educational philosophy). It was written by L. Nott Bower and originally published in 1908, but I agree with the blogger at archipelago that it is every bit as true about the situation today.

EXCELLENT READING!!!

Part one HERE

Part two HERE

Part three HERE

Part four forthcoming (not sure when)

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