Monday, May 30, 2011

Au Clair de la Lune, mon Ami Pierrot, please lend me your 'plume'

Au clair de la lune mon ami Pierrot 
(not often you see a sad face around here, is it?)


Prête-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot
(Be a sport! Loan me your quill, I have a few words I'd like to share)


Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu
Ouvre-moi ta porte pour l'amour de Dieu
(Go on. For the love of God open your door. I can't see a thing out here)

(background of a wee door I'm about to start once I've finished the backlog of projects hanging around)

Au clair de la lune, Pierrot replied
'Sorry cobber, have you seen the time? A bloke's gotta sleep!!!
What sort of hour is this to be up brandishing quills???
(heard that one before???!!!)
Try next door at Colombine's
She's up. I just saw the light go on.


You'll have to wait a couple of days for the rest of the story about Colombine and Pierrot.
I only just found them again after 6 years while looking for some old lamps to do up. I love the way Beaker 'tidies' our garage…! 

Anyway, Pierrot has gone to bed like any reasonable person. That is where I will be soon too.

In the mean time, I found my own quill and have a wee word to say to Pierrot and all of you:


Where ever you are… 
FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS
and make them big enough so you don't lose sight of them in your pursuit


Bonne nuit mes ami(e)s
xxxx

Thursday, May 26, 2011

If it's important, we will find a way!!


I will find a way to photograph everything I've been working on before the end of the week gulp - that's in two days so I can share it with you next week!! NO EXCUSES.

It's also EXCEPTIONALLY important that I rise early tomorrow and go for my 'patience of a saint Mum' run before the Messies get up, so that I can paint a special request onto some (holding my breath) VERY SMOOTH perspex with clear, deliberate strokes (No grumbly Mum shakes) once 'school' is over.

So that leaves me 3 minutes to keep my promise to myself and be in bed before midnight. I may have to cheat on the 3 mt teeth cleaning time then!!

Bonne nuit ;-) Hope you are all getting your important stuff done.
Love
xxx

Thursday, May 19, 2011

To paint the portrait of a bird or Pour faire le portrait d'un oiseau

Nearly a month ago I was meant to be taking off for 9 days. It seems that every time I go to Wales, I come back only in body, and my (freshly upgraded) mind remains in Wales for a good couple of weeks afterwards.

In the mean time, I have returned to Glorious Spring. Homeschooling outside. Painting outside. Life outside. And birds, eggs and birdlings everywhere ;-) It's literally a bird watcher's paradise on our very own doorstep.

Needless to say, we have been inspired. Libellule found this poem by Jacques Prévert*** in one of her homeschooling books. We decided it would be a welcome change to the very dry content of the rest of the French program we had initially elected to try.


Paint first a cage

with the door open
next paint
something pretty
something simple
something lovely
something of use
to the bird
then put the canvas near a tree
in a garden
in the woods
or in a forest






hide behind the tree
say nothing
don’t move…


Sometimes the bird comes quickly
but it can just as well take many years
before deciding
Don’t be disheartened
wait
wait years if need be
the pace of the bird’s arrival
bearing no relation
to the success of the painting


When the bird comes
if it comes
keep very still
wait for the bird to enter the cage
and once it has
gently close the door with the brush
then
paint out the bars one by one
taking care not to touch any of the bird’s feathers
Next paint the tree’s portrait
choosing the loveliest of its branches
for the bird
paint likewise the green leaves and fresh breeze
the sun’s scintillation
and the clamor of crickets in the heat of summer
and then wait until the bird decides to sing
If the bird does not sing
that’s a bad sign
A sign the painting is no good
but if it sings that’s a good sign
a sign you can sign

so you must softly pluck 
one of the bird's feathers

and you write your name in a corner of the painting


Libellule can't stay in one place for more than five minutes, so the rest of the poem (another painting for example) may never be completed. That however, is of  little consequence. This first part was enough fun. We will move on to other things...

Yikes!! There is a howl coming from the cherry tree. That must mean my break time is over. Sigh...

Bisous to you all …

PS.
I have been busy WORKING! Which is why you have had no news from this corner of the woods. Photos to come…



***Jacques Prévert (1900-1977) was a French poet whose poems are often about life in Paris after the Second World War. He also wrote several classic screenplays for film director Marcel Carné, the most famous of which, Les enfants du paradis (The Children of Paradise, 1945), is considered one of the greatest French films of all time. 


"His satirical attacks on rigid French education and the Catholic Church and other institutions of authority expressed France's post-war disillusionment and defiant spirit."