Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Children's Art: Crumpled paper sculpture

Posted on 4/08/2015by with No comments
Yesterday we tried something, we already did a couple of years ago.
The children were immediately happy to work on crumpled paper sculptures again :-)

 We crumpled a sheet of white paper. The task was to color all zones which are darker because of shadow. We used simple school water colors for this.

 Soon the children started to do experiments like, flattening the paper after coloring, seeing what it looks like then. Or flattening and crumpling again and working a second or even third round over it.

 Here are some results:
I like this experiment, since it allows to train observation ability besides of the creative potential ;-)

Children's Crafts: Glassnugget Suncatcher

Posted on 4/08/2015by with No comments
Somewhere in the internet I found this kind of lovely sun catcher, we simply had to try out ourselves.

 It is easily done:
We took transparent lids of yoghurt or creme cheese. On the deeper side of the lids we poured rather a lot of school glue. In the wet glue we put glass nuggets and glass pearls. The whole thing had to dry a couple of days.
To tell the truth, other than reported elsewhere, we were even after a week not able to peel the lids away....
Anyway, we hang the sun catchers just within the lids on the window using  transparent power strips. We like the effect a lot and now wait for real sunshine to even see more shining :-)



Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Water frog - Pelophylax

Posted on 4/07/2015by with No comments
Pelophylax or water frog is a widespread frog living in Eurasia.

 We met one on our hike in the forest between Sonderborg and Höruphavn on Easter Sunday :-)

Grass snake (Natrix natrix)

Posted on 4/07/2015by with No comments
On our walk on Easter Sunday we met a nice lady, who informed us, that a bit the beach further down within a pile of rocks there was a bunch of grass snake (Natrix natrix).
After a little search we found them and it was really exciting to observe them moving back and fourth between the stone :-)
It was a little difficult to count them, since most of them were hiding, but I guess it might have been about a dozen of them.

Höruphavn hiking - 04/05/2015

Posted on 4/07/2015by with No comments
On Easter Sunday we did our traditional walk to Höruphavn....
Well this is the second successive year we did it, and we didn't reach Höruphavn, but anyway......;-)

 The forest above the cliff between Sonderborg and Höruphavn is a wonderful hiking area and we enjoyed the sunny weather.
Since Easter this year is a bit earlier, the nature is not as far already as last year, but still we had some nice encounter....


Sonderborg/Denmark - 04/04/2015

Posted on 4/07/2015by with No comments
On the second day of our Easter trip we reached Sonderborg/Denmark.

 The journey was fine, since we had less wind, no one felt seasick this time :-). But the down side of it was, that it took us much longer to reach Sonderborg and we had to use the engine for assistance for a good part of the trip.

 In the evening we felt quite cold, but anyway being back in Sonderborg just felt like coming home :-)

 The harbor was still rather empty but more and more ships were put into water over the following days.


Bagenkop/Langeland Denmark - 04/03/2015

Posted on 4/07/2015by with No comments
We are sailing again!

 Being a few days off over Easter, we went ahead and brought Madita from Kiel-Möltenort/Germany to her summer berth Sonderborg/Denmark.

Since the wind came from northwest, we went to Bagenkop on the south side of danish island Langeland first.
Well, all went well, although the children and me felt a tiny little bit seasick...The sun was shining all day and therefore the cold (5-7°C air temperature) was not that bad...

We have been here before and liked it, but this time we once more realized how nice this place is.
In 2003 wild Exmoor ponies were brought to the south part of Langeland and since then live here wildly, without human assistance. They were not just brought here as a tourist attraction but to crop the meadows of Klise Nor, which was anticipated to be of benefit for the bird life.

And we are very fond of the stained glas windows of the church showing the story when Jesus calmed the storm.


Sunday, April 5, 2015

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Children's Crafts: Window decoration for Easter time

Posted on 4/01/2015by with No comments
The children and me love to decorate the windows and mostly we do it according to the season.

 A tradition for Eastern is to have parchment paper eggs.
You need two identical egg shaped cardboard frames. We glue the frames from two sides on parchment paper, then cut around the egg and be ready for the real fun part of it: Each year we try something new. This time we decided to use washitape.
Some results:
(Btw the flowers you see in the first picture are Kirigami flowers....)


Monday, March 30, 2015

Spring flowers :-)

Posted on 3/30/2015by with No comments
Not much to say about these... I simply love spring flowers a lot!
Except for the daffodils those are not out in the garden yet, but I couldn't resist to buy some from the market garden.
 Chess Flower (Fritillaria meleagris)

Closed ecological system

Posted on 3/30/2015by with No comments
One of our little science projects with the children was to build a closed ecological system, which means that once it is set up, nothing goes in or out.
We took sand, some water plants and one (!) water snail, put all in a glass jar and closed the lid safely. We placed it on the window sill for enough sunlight over the radiator for good temperature.....
Actually we soon figured out that TinkyWinky, our snail, has a little companion.... At first we worried for overpopulation, but since it is still the two of them, we are quite sure, that they are of different race and the second snail, which the children named Little Tinky, came with the plants....
Anyway, I never would have anticipated the system to work so nicely...but it is running now for four or five weeks, the water is clear, the inhabitant seem busy and lively and the plants grown in a reasonable way :-)
Although TinkyWinky and Little Tinky live in their own world, they somehow belong to the family by now :-)

Btw: No need to worry, in case anything goes wrong, we have an evacuation plan for them....

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Children's Art: Pattern

Posted on 3/29/2015by with No comments
Here we tried to start working with patterns a bit Paul Klee like....I guess it is just a beginning and we will continue working with this method some time.

 The children first draw lines pencil to divide a sheet of watercolor paper.
Afterwards the colored the different segments with different colors using water colors.
When the watercolors dried they were asked to put patterns in a layer over the whole piece.
As you can see the decided for different approaches ;-)


Children's Art: Find the Figure

Posted on 3/29/2015by with No comments
Here we made a little experiment:
The children put some watercolors they chose loosely on sheets of simple white drawing paper.
After it dried they searched for figures in it and marked them with a fine black waterproof marker.

 I give you two examples out of a whole bunch of paintings:

End of Hibernation!

Posted on 3/29/2015by with No comments
Yesterday Madita's winter break ended.....
She is back in her element and we are eagerly hoping, that Eastern will bring good winds and weather for the transfer to Sonderborg/Denmark....

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Friday, March 13, 2015

Venice/Italy - 03/03/2015

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While we stayed in South Tyrol we took the chance and drove to Venice and spent the day there....

 It was the fulfillment of two dreams: To come back here one day (Wolfgang and me have been here in 2003 as a later honeymoon and simply loved this place) and to show this special beauty to the children.
They were fond of the idea, since we once read a children's book "Thief Lord" (German "Herr der Diebe") taking place in Venice, which they liked so very much, that they re-played the story for month....

We had the most wonderful day here and what Lena said, while we walked through the streets, over the bridges and driving by water bus expresses best how we all felt....

She said:" I wish there would be no need to blink my eyes, so that I could intake every single detail every single moment!

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Bozen South Tyrol/Itlay - 03/01-03/06/2015

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It was a long trip south by car. The landscape changed and suddenly the mountain rang Alps lay in front of us. For the children the first time to see Europe's highest mountains and for us as well a compelling sight.

 We stayed in South Tyrol's capital city Bozen and enjoyed the, at this time of the year rather calm medieval city center and the nature of the surrounding mountains with small villages a lot.

One morning we spent in the so called "Ötzi" museum, the South Tyrol archaeological museum. The exhibition explains a lot research results achieved after a 5300 years old mummy was found frozen on the mountains 20 years ago.

An other day we visited the Nature Museum South Tyrol, where we learned a lot about the geological development of the alps as well as the flora and fauna in this region.

During our stay in Bozen we perambulated several churches: The Marien Dom at the Walther Place in the center of the city, the Franziskaner Church and the Herz-Jesu Church. It was rather new for the children to see such elaborately decorated churches since there are more used to the sparse northern style....

Koblenz/Germany - 02/28/15

Posted on 3/12/2015by with No comments
Lucky us, we had a full week vacation during spring break last week...and we went ....surprise surprise....not to the north as usually, but to the south...
Our final destination was South Tyrol/Italy, but we took a break in Koblenz for one day and visited Wolfgang's family.

Since we stayed only for one day, we took time to take the aerial lift starting in the city center going up to fortress Ehrenbreitstein on the opposite site of the river Rhein.
The view was fantastic, especially overseeing the Deutsche Eck, where the rivers Rhein and Mosel meet and where a sculpture of Kaiser Wilhelm I. is located on an artificial headland.
After arriving safely at the fortress Ehrenbreitstein we spent the whole morning exploring the huge territory.
The first castle was built in this place around 1000 p. Chr. The precursor of the now still existing fortress was constructed in the 16. century.

In the afternoon we had a pleasant walk at the Rhein Wiesen, where we met some nice ladies, who reside in some preferential location with view on the river Rhein and many children passing by willed to collect green for them ;-)

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Spot of the Week - Werder/Havel Germany

Posted on 2/24/2015by with No comments
Winter is a good time to think about where we have been before and where we liked it.
When we still lived in Berlin we visited at one wonderful, sunny and colorful autumn day the small town Werder (Havel), which is 10km South of Potsdam or 40 km from Berlin city centre.

 The town is located on an island within the river Havel. It was first mentioned in 1317.

 The region is acknowledged as a recreation area and well known for fruit-growing, especially apples, cherries and strawberries.

 We like especially the mixture of town live surrounded by nature, particularly the river.

 Some impressions we preserved from our viste:

Imbued by Travel IX

Posted on 2/24/2015by with No comments
Yes it is true, the Baltic Sea in winter is not a nice, cosy place where you would like to stay outside all day.
But still....it fills my heart with excitement and I fell very attached to this, kind of rough, nature.


Baltic Sea in Winter - 2015 - Acrylic on Canvas - 120x100 cm - prints available at Saatchi Online

Imbued by travel VIII

Posted on 2/24/2015by with No comments
Our trip to Finland last fall was of major impression on every member of our family.

 A very first painting inspired by the beauty, quietness and peacefulness of the autumn atmosphere we were happy to experience there (and for sure just the beginning of a series ;-))


Finland - 2015 - Acrylic on Canvas - 100x80cm - $1000,- at Saatchi Online

Thursday, February 19, 2015

winter break

Posted on 2/19/2015by with No comments
We are still kind of hibernating...well not really since there ist some work going on at Madita during the last weeks:
Like removing rust from her keel and building up new layers of paint and antifouling; sanding and varnishing all the wood parts outside and some parts under deck; we bought two new hatches and started to adjust the width of the holes so they fit in.....

 A lot of this and that is left to be done, until it is time for her to be slipped back into her natural element...which should happen on March, 28th.....

 Until then we keep on dreaming about our next sailing trips ;-)

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

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