When All the World is Full of Snow

 

I never know just where to go,

when all the world is full of snow.

 I do not want to make a track,

not even to the shed and back.

 

I only want to watch and wait,

while snow moths settle on the gate,

 and swarming frost flakes fill the trees

with billions of albino bees

 

I only want myself to be

as silent as a winter tree,

to hear the swirling stillness grow;

when all the world is full of snow.

~ N.M. Bodecker

 

Oh my, there is so much that I want to blog about, seriously I have a long list...but I must refrain from being on this computer for hours!  It just has to be a bit a day.  So today, I'd like to share with you part one of our art snow studies.  But first I just have to share, as you can see from the photo above, we got snow today!  It hasn't amounted to more than a heavy dusting, but it was enough to get out and have loads of fun in it.  I got some amazing macro photos of the snowflakes!  But all about that will be one of my other posts!  Ok, back to art.

After all the fun being outside, we settled in to get a few of our regular studies done, and then we turned our focus to art.  First about Artist Anna Mary Robertson Moses, or more affectionately known as Grandma Moses.

If you've never read about her before, oh please spend some time doing so; after I read about her I just wanted so much to have been able to know her in person.  Here is an amazing woman who dedicated all of her young and middle aged adulthood to others, and only started painting in her 70's, after arthritis made it impossible for her to do embroidery anymore.  She painted through her 70's, 80's, and 90's, and lived to be 101 years old!  Here are two books that we have read:

Grandma Moses, by Mike Venezia

Grandma Moses, by Alexandra Wallner

We also viewed the slideshow of her works of art HERE.  Since we have been studying snow, we paid particular attention to all of her snow scenes.  The painting below is entitled January from 1956.

After learning about Grandma Moses, we did a quite messy but fun art project using "snow-like" materials we found around the house, such as marshmallows, sugar, cotton balls, and glitter glue.

 

 

For the second half of our art study, we will be finishing up the last season from Nature's Paintbox which will feature the medium pen and ink.  AND finish up listening to Antonio Vivaldi ,The Four Seasons - Winter.

Ok, before I go, I just have to share one macro photo that I took today of some snowflakes!