Miscellaneous Mermaids

Wow, has it really been over a year since I updated this thing? I guess I haven't been doing so much craftish stuff lately... but I have now!

I made some mermaid softies for a craft fair at the primary school I volunteer at, each based on a different sea creature. (Yes, me and the sea creatures again!)


Stingray:


Leafy Seadragon:

Lionfish:

And, Angel Fish:

I'm honestly not sure about the future of this blog... I would like to be able to maintain something internet-based about my art and craft, but I often end up just having so many ideas I don't know which to follow, and I end up doing nothing. While I look foward to becoming a teacher, there is always this sense of uncertainty that I won't get to do many of the things I would like to do in life.

Then again, I suppose teaching is one of those professions where you can try out new and unusual projects, as long as they are suitable for kids and have some sort of educational value. Candy and I are currently planning a semester-long art project that explores the science of colour and light. Basically, the kids will pick their own areas of exploration in that area, and create a project about it in any medium they want. So, I expect we'll see some painting, some sculpture, some photography, some installation art, maybe even some machinery and digital presentations.

I'm guessing the blog will be on hiatus for... well, for a while. I start uni again next week, so it's unlikely that I'll have time to do anything artsy, let alone blog about it. Eventually, I hope to start up another, more permanent online project, but I don't really have a concrete idea at the moment what form this will take.

Anyway, goodbye for now, hopefully not forever,

xox Sarah.

Back again...

Hello, little blog...

...I'm sorry I neglected you all that time...

...see, I had that trip to London, then it was straight back to uni and the kids at school and....

...Please don't look at me like that...

So, the uni and school terms have finished, and I've got some time to myself. It doesn't feel as good as I thought it would, since I'm really starting to miss the kids at the school I volunteer at. Especially when so many of them leave at the end of year. All the Year sevens, some of the sixes, even a few fives now that the local private schools are taking kids at Year Six. (Seriously! Ten year olds in high school!) So, I'm feeling a bit down about that...

The last week of school was a fun one though. Our Term 4 project was making paper mache masks. The kids all loved it, and the teachers were really impressed. Whenever new families visited the school, the first thing the principal would show them was the shelf with the masks on it, so she could talk about the school's "creativity-nurturing environment" . She even organised for the kids to do a whole-school parade in them in front of the parents on the last day of the year...

Candy asked the kids if any of them wanted to come up and say a few words about the project at assembley. One of the Year 1s stepped up.

"Yes, Johnny, what would you like to say?"

"Ifffapffffmaaammmfffmaaammhhmm..."
"...Maybe take your mask off so the audience can hear you. Now, big voice."

"It's a person drowning and there's a big hole in their head where the shark bit their brains out." He turned the mask around so the audience could see the red scribble all over the back of the mask.

"And there's blood!"

Fortunately, the people in the audience had a good sense of humour!

Quick update

Well, it turns out that it IS possible to be a full-time uni student and volunteer primary school teacher two days a week... but not really possible to have a blogging life at the same time. So, now that the uni semester's finished, here's a quick rundown of what's been going on lately...

1. Uni's quite fun. I only have eight contact hours a week, but they sure make up for it in assignments! I'll admit it was a bit stressful at first. There's so many things that high school just doesn't prepare you for, like quoting and referencing in essays, but I think I've got the hang of it now.

2. At school, we're doing a comic book based project, which the kids love. They've come up with some amazing characters such as "Mr. Big-Nose the frog" and "The Musical Glue Ninja". I'll post pictures as soon as we get some scans of their work.

3. I haven't been walking Jasper as opften as I should, so he's gotten a bit more...cuddly lately. Dad's just invented a device for keeping him in shape. I think it might be a bit dangerous for passers-by, though! (Play the video below to see Jasper shakin' his booty with it!)

We've also had a few break-ins in our street lately. One night Jasper started barking at 4am, but we didn't get up to do anything about it. In the morning, we found the side gate open. Jasper may have scared off a potential burglar!

4. I'm still doing my drama, too. I've got to perform in a competition tomorrow...wish me luck!

And finally...
5. Mum and I are going on holiday soon. We're off to London for a month next week , and then I'll be staying with relatives in Texas for ten days. I'll post lots of holidy snaps when I get back, I promise!

Snakes Alive

The school I'm doing my work experience at is undergoing a few renovations, so the art room now has a nice little courtyard area outside it. Candy was thinking of making some sort of garden sculpture with the kids, and we came up with the idea of making a huge rainbow serpent that could function as a bench, decorated with mosaic. I did a sketch of my idea:

And then we got the kids to come up with their own ideas and make models of them:

Sequined snake

Winged Snake

Frill-Necked Snake

Pretty Rainbow Flying Ballerina Snake

Mummified Zombie Snake

Snake on Stilts

They seem pretty excited about the project, and so am I. I start uni tomorrow, though, so I'm not sure whether I'll be able to come in and help out in the next few weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to make time for both...

Dad on Avatar

Well, it seems the movie Avatar has done some nasty things to people, but I was never expecting one of my own family to fall victim to it...

Anyway, since it was Valentine's day on the weekend, the most unromantic man in the world decided to do something special this year and take my mother to see Avatar. He has not taken her on a date for FIVE. YEARS. So this was a really special occasion... until it all went horribly wrong.

Well, you know how I have a bad history with intense (or not-so-intense) movies? Turns out it's genetic. (Although I probably should have guessed this before when Mr. Sunshine fainted while watching a video in his sex-ed class). Halfway though Dad started to feel really uncomfortable and had to leave before he passed out. He says it was a combination of the 3D effects, the emotional strain, the sensory overload, and the massive plot holes that caused him to start stressing out. He does have a history of panic attacks, but he's never had one during a movie before. I guess the amazing, realistic special effects were just a little too realistic for him...

.

But even though he only saw half the movie, he was able to provide some interesting comments on it. Unlike most people, Dad cannot leave his brain at the door. His super engineer brain was working full-throttle while he was watching, trying to analyze every single detail. He was locked in an intellectual wrestling match with this movie, preying on its weak spots and mentally exposing its inconsistencies. Unfortunately...

...the movie won.

Anyway, here are some of the things he had to say about Avatar:

- "It was actually too realistic sometimes... in that scene where he's getting chased by the Hammerhead rhinoceros thing I started getting flashbacks to the time I nearly got run down by an elephant."

- "One thing that was doing my head in- what happens to the Avatars when they're not being used? I mean, I know they go to sleep or something, but wouldn't the other Na'vis notice that the new guy sleeps for eighteen hours a day and doesn't wake up when you jab him with a stick?"

- "The 3D was a bit much... hey, how do those glasses work, anyway? I bet they're specially polarized or something- I'll just hold them up to the light... yep, they're polarized..."

-" Is Naviland a low-gravity planet? Because those helicopters shouldn't have been able to fly in a 1G environment. The planet's gravity would have to equal about 0.5Gs in order for it to stay airborne like that. Then again, the scenes with the humans seemed to indicate that it had the same gravity as Earth, so that's a major inconsistency."

Mum told him he should write to the director and complain about it. I don't think they'll be seeing any more movies together anytime soon...

Images from here and here.

A ray of sunshine...

Mr Sunshine went back to school this week. He was actually quite good about it, as if he was happy to get away from his awful family for a change. He's a bit annoyed with Mum and Dad, though, since he's now banned from watching TV on weekdays.

Anyway, yesterday he got back from school and I was the only one home. Normally he would make a beeline for the TV without saying a word to me, but instead he just walked up to me and started telling me about his day. I was really taken aback, but it was nice- almost like the good ol' days. We ended up sitting down and just chatting away for about an hour or so before Dad got home. He told me about his new teachers, asked me what Year Eleven was going to be like, complained about Mum and Dad, talked about whether he should become a mechanic (what he wants to do) or an engineer (what Dad wants him to do), and even cracked a few jokes.

I didn't make a big deal of it, but I think he must have sensed that I was surprised, since halfway through the conversation he looked at me sheepishly and said:
" You do realize I'm just procrastinating from doing my homework, right?"
(Coz otherwise his sister might start to think he was enjoying the conversation, and we can't have that!). Anyway, the moment Dad got home he was back to his normal self, glowering at me to leave the room and looking disgruntledly at the switched-off television.

But it was nice to have that little ray of sunshine... maybe he really is on the mend?

Character sketch: Xander

My cousin Guy has been working on a fantasy novel for the past few years. We're not sure if it'll ever be finished, let alone published, but he's really devoted to it. Anyway, Guy sometimes gets me to illustrate some of the characters for him from time to time.This is Xander, who is the nephew of the novel's protagonist, Tristan. (Who bears an extraordinary resemblance to Guy's nephew, Alexander). In the book, he's about twelve years old, and enjoys tinkering with things and making explosives. Guy's probably going to complain about the goggles, since it's set in some sort of medieval time period, but I think they suit him.

(I'm allowed to have a little bit of artistic liscence, right?)