Monday, November 30, 2015

Oscarsborg/Norway - 08/07/2015

Posted on 11/30/2015by with No comments
This day was a complete traveling day.
We started with rain in Lindholmen going for the Oslo Fjord today. (There was some nasty side story, when we lost our brand-new dinghy with motor, because someone forget to fix the rope of it after getting the back-anchor inside.....but that was a completely different story and should be told at somewhen else....)

 At noon we took a break in Moss, which was great for shopping, filling up water and taking a warm shower, but.....Everyone on board agreed to rather move on than staying directly adjacent to the ferry terminal.....
Therefore we had a wonderful night trip along the Oslo Fjord until we reached Oscarsborg.
Since it was at the weekend the harbor was already overcrowded when we arrived late that evening. But the people were very, very friendly, pushed and pulled their boats and squeezed little Madita just in between (it felt a little like this crazy bus at Harry Potter's...;-) ). We had a very quiet night and were eager to explore Oscarsborg next morning.


Lindholmen/Norway - 08/06/2015

Posted on 11/30/2015by with No comments
The  same day we went on heading to the North.
Because of the main wind directions, our timeline and the fact that we had be back home in time, we decided to rather visit Oslo than Bergen.
Although we were a bit disappointed not to reach our previous goal, later it turned out, that it was the very right decision not only because, wen had a wonderful time visiting great places but also because the rather heavy wind from East over the next weeks would never had let us go comfortable back....

 Anyway after a nice journey along the Tronsberg Fjord, we reached Lindholmen, a very beautiful skerry and in fact the first skerry with forest on it we visited.

 It was a nice afternoon exploring the island and a gorgeous evening.
We were not so lucky to fish something, although one fish was jumping directly next to Madita our of the water..and I swear it poked it's tongue out at me...
however, a little later we saw swirling water movement, a seal showing it's head for a split second and then it swam in circles apparently rounding up some fish....it was an exciting experience to observe this directly next to our boat.

Gaso-Kalven/Norway - 08/06/2015

Posted on 11/30/2015by with No comments
At this morning we made a very short trip to the next small island, Gaso-Kalven, which was formerly used for military purposes. Since we were rather late in season, we were completely alone there, enjoyed the peace and discovered how nature gains back the territory.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Gaso/Norway - 08/05/2015

Posted on 11/24/2015by with No comments
There are no pictures of us crossing the Skagerrak in order to reach Norway.....It was a really rough trip with wind 5-6 Beaufort, sometimes 7 and waves going 3-4 meters high. Everybody on board felt awful and we kind of wondered whether Norway will be that much more beautiful than where we have been before.....to tell the truth: Yes :-)

 Reaching the area of Tronsberg/Norway at the west side of the Oslo Fjord, the sea calmed down and after 42,2 NM we finally found a beautiful anchoring place in front of the small island Gaso.
When the quietness of evening started to settle with beautiful light, we did, what Friedrich dreamt of for his entire life...we set up our very first campfire :-) The children roasted marshmallows and everyone felt comfortable again :-)

Havstensundet/Sweden - 08/04/2015

Posted on 11/24/2015by with No comments
We had a very calm trip with an amazingly clam Skagerrak. Last year when we made this passage it was rather rough and we were impressed by the waves splashing the rocks in the water.

 The reason to go for Havstensund was to get water and diesel, both we though would be easy to get here. Fuel was no problem, but there was no water at the pontoons and we had to get it from a near by tap going back and forth several times... anyway it is a nice day here with a very quiet atmosphere in the evening.

 After dinner we started for a short walk again. Boat neighbors told us that there is a very narrow way through the hill next to the harbor and we had to try that. Actually  it was very narrow and huge rocks were hanging over our heads. The children enjoyed the thrill of it a lot ;-)

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Seals

Posted on 8/30/2015by with 2 comments
On our summer vacation sailing trip to Norway we saw quite a few seals in the water; more than all the other years taken together...

 One evening, when we were mored on the rocks of the beautiful skerry Lindholmen/Norway, I just came on deck to take a last bit of the beautiful evening nature in, when I saw some unusual patterns of water movement. For a very short moment a seal was showing it's head, then dived again. Fish were jumping out of the water and from the pattern of the water movement we concluded that the seal hunted the fish by swimming in circles. It was a very exciting observation which lasted only a few minutes.

 Anyway it is rather tricky to take pictures of these sweeties, since they are gone almost every time, I had the camera ready....therefore only a few snapshots were taken, these rest we have to keep in our memories ;-)

Danemark-Ulön/Sweden - 08/03/2015

Posted on 8/30/2015by with No comments
On the second day of our summer vacation we already experienced the full beauty of the skerry landscape.

We had a very nice sailing trip passing the City of Lysekil and traveling through the Sotten-Chanel.
Up there in the North it was already off-season and we were quite happy that everything was less crowded and calmer.

Again we were very impressed and touched by the rock formations. Behind Lysekil the stones changed their color to relish and became very smooth and rounded.
Hugo insisted to stand at the bow the whole day, although the sun was burning down on him....At one point I a wet scarf around his head to cool his little brain a bit and he seemed to like that :-)

Early evening we anchored at a bay at the nature reserve Dannemark-Ulön and simply enjoyed being in nature for the rest of the day.


Stocken/Sweden - 08/02/2015

Posted on 8/30/2015by with No comments
At the beginning of August we finally started for our summer vacation.
A few weeks earlier Wolfgang and his cousin took care of bringing Madita to North Denmark to give us a chance to reach Norway and go back unhurriedly during the 3 and a half weeks time we are going to have....
We started from Frederikshavn/Denmark going North first. Our plan was to peek around the corner at Skagen to figure out how bad the Skagerrak with all it's waves would be....well the wind is coming from the west with 4-5 Beaufort.....when reaching the Skagerrak we spontaneously decided that the West Skerries of Sweden are perfect for the beginning, changed our course and ran for Stocken/Sweden. It was a good decision, as on every first longer trip everybody felt slightly seasick with no sealers to speak of yet. On open sea it was still pretty shaking, but once we reached the skerries all the sudden the waves calmed down and the last stretch towards Stocken was very pleasant :-)
We have been to Stocken twice before, a very calm little harbor with an excellent seafood shop ;-)


Thursday, July 30, 2015

Children's Crafts: And another T-shirt design...

Posted on 7/30/2015by with No comments
Once we are on vacation we will definitely need a lot of T-shirts for they get wet, ice cream stained or muddy so easily....

 Here comes another design we tried the other day with wax batik.

 The first exciting step was, that the children, under my supervision, were allowed to light a match stick and a candle.
They used the burning candle to make wax spot on a white T-shirt. The wax cooled and dried reasonably fast, so that they can turn over the T-shirt and do the back side. In between we put lots of kitchen roll, so the wax can not bleed through.

 Once the waxing was done we dyed the shirts with azure blue batik color following the instructions on the package.
Since the paint bath was hot, some wax melted but that didn't seem to be a problem.
After 30 minutes the shirts were taken out of the bath and rinsed thoroughly under running tape water.
We let the shirts dry and I ironed them with blotting paper to remove the wax from the fabric.

 We are content with the result, although we then realized that the kids could have used even more wax to spot the T-shirt. And a darker batik color might have given a even better result.
We are going to try that the next time ;-)


Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Children's Art: Painting like Georgia O'Keefe

Posted on 7/29/2015by with No comments
We read the book "My name is Georgia" together a few days ago...

 When Friedrich was on a playdate yesterday, Magdalena and I decided to try out some of Georgia's way of painting.
We collected some blossoms from the garden. For the painting we took mini canvases of 10x10cm and acrylic paint.
At first Magdalena had some doubts, but soon she relaxed and enjoyed the process of giving the painted petals structure by blending the colors a lot :-)


Children's Art: Print Workshop Day 7

Posted on 7/29/2015by with No comments
This was the last day of our printing workshop...

 This day's technique was embossing to make stamps out of styrofoam blocks.

 I heated styrofoam blocks with a hot air gun (which we normally need to work on Madita during winters, but there are special embossing air gun available...).
After 30 seconds something we pressed the blocks face down on different materials we laid out flat on a heat resistent surface.
after 20 seconds we had wonderful stamps. So far we did only a few prints with them, after coloring the blocks with ink pads, but I am pretty sure, that this technique will be great to create our own gift wraps.


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Children's Crafts: T-Shirt design

Posted on 7/28/2015by with No comments
Yesterday we prepared some T-shirts for our vacation :-)

 We put a grid on them using masking tape. The children colored each square with textile paint.
We did something similar before, with gold and silver paint on dark blue shirts.

Monday, July 27, 2015

Children's Art: Print Workshop Day 6

Posted on 7/27/2015by with No comments
Today is day 6 of our printing workshop at home.

 This time the children drew with ball pen on styrofoam plates, leaving impressions everywhere a line was made.
The prints were made after they applied linol paint with a brayer.

 The results are similar to the linol prints, but what I liked about it, that the children can do it all by themselves, since no ultra sharp instruments are necessary ;-)


Sunday, July 26, 2015

Children's Art: Print Workshop Day 5

Posted on 7/26/2015by with No comments
On Day 5 of our little printing workshop we tried stenciling.
The children drew the pattern on construction card board  and I did the cutting with this really very sharp stencil knife....
Well, the prints using these stencils worked in principle. But the card board turned out to be not the best material for this purpose, because first the edges wrinkled so that some paint run under it and second the cardboard dissipated after a few prints....
Anyway the principle became clear to the kids and we definitely will use this technique again, may be with freezer paper on textile?

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Children's Art: Print Workshop Day 4

Posted on 7/25/2015by with No comments
Yesterday we did something really experimental on our Day 4 of the printing workshop: We printed with thread....

 A piece of thread was dipped into acrylic paint and then laid and/or pulled over a piece of white paper.
Rather quickly the children figured out, that the piece of paper can be folded in the middle while the paint stained thread is on the paper and the thread can then be pulled out of it, leaving an interesting "butterfly" pattern.
Here are some pictures:

Friday, July 24, 2015

Children's Art: Print Workshop Day 3

Posted on 7/24/2015by with No comments
At day 3 of our printing workshop we made different kinds of stamps ourselves.

 It was a big fun for the children to mount different materials with double sticking tape of wood blocks or rolling pins. We used toe-seperator, papilot, felt decorative pieces like the little birds and butterflies, buttons, rubber bands, hair bands and many more...
Some stamps worked better than others, but all the textures will give excellent backgrounds for future projects.


Thursday, July 23, 2015

Children's Art: Print Workshop Day 2

Posted on 7/23/2015by with No comments
On Day 2 of our printing workshop we tried monotypes.

 We spread water-soluble printing color on a acrylic glass board using a brayer.
By using the eraser of a pencil we drew our pattern in the fresh paint.
For the print we simply had to lay a piece of paper onto the surface without much pressure. 
After one print you have to spread the paint again and draw something new, that is why it is called monotype ;-)
The children got some experience how thick the paint should be for good results and how detailed a picture can be.
I assume we might come back to this technique when it comes to making christmas cards ;-)

Children's Art: Print Workshop Day 1

Posted on 7/23/2015by with 2 comments
Now that we are finally free for the summer, we started to do a little printing workshop at home.
Actually we already did some printing before, since we couldn't wait for it (see here)...
Anyway on Day  1 four workshop we started with a classics doing linol prints. 
The children drew their motifs on soft cut boards and I did the cutting since the linol cutting knifes are really sharp and sometimes the material just gives way....
But the printing was all theirs :-)
We used different devices for pressing, since I am lucky to own a printing press. But doing it manually worked equally fine so the children stick to that way.


Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Skagen Area/Denmark - 07/18/2015

Posted on 7/22/2015by with No comments
We were early that day, before we had to go back to Hamburg, and drove up to the very North of Denmark, to have at least one good look at the Skagerrak, we plan to cross to reach Norway on our summer vacation.
This walk at the beach was just beautiful and recreative, with the wind and the salty air and the sound of the waves :-)

Saeby/Jytland Denmark 17/07/2015

Posted on 7/22/2015by with No comments
After leaving Laesø and being kind of shaken by the sea, we reached Saeby.
Although it started to rain, we had a very good walk at the beach where the children collected what felt like at least 1 ton of seashells :-)
On our way back we enjoyed the typical yellow colored houses of the old cloister and visiting the beautiful and rather big church of Saeby.


Laesø/Denmark - 07/16/2015

Posted on 7/22/2015by with No comments
At the beginning of the summer school break we were lucky to be a few days off before our real vacation is going to be a up in a few....
Since Madita is in Northern Denmark now waiting to hopefully jump over the Sakgerrak, we went to the island Laeso at the first day, enjoying the atmosphere of a busy summer holiday area and being in nature after a long school year...
The weather was great and we had good winds, but quite some waves from transversely behind, which gave me a good reminder of my old friend the sea sickness. Nevertheless, once being at land everything felt perfectly ;-)


Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)