School Art 2014/15- Kate

Some school and home art by Kate -

Sometime in the school year, Kate decided she needed to attend art enrichment class, so she had me sign her up for an after-school community art program. Normally very socially-motivated (i.e. "I'll only go to this-and-that if my friend X is also attending") she was so determined to do art that she didn't care if she was the youngest in the class, or if she didn't know anyone in it.

These first five images are her work from that class. 

Father's Day art.

More Father's Day art.

Mother's Day school art.

Mother-and-child squid home art that Kate drew for me.

Close-up of the bunnies that Kate's head is ostensibly full of.

Clay turtle, handformed. I got to help in this class, too!

Kate updates: Like her older sisters, Kate is enjoying ice-skating lessons. Being the youngest and least self-conscious, she tried the most enthusiastically initially, and fell hardest and picked herself up the miserablest and continued the uncaringestly. And now glides on the ice the bravest.

Together with Jenna, Kate resumes swimming lessons in the fall. She still does a lot of home art, and her latest craze is drawing Minecraft skins (players' individual online avatar outfits). She still does wicked still life and regularly begs to "do crafts". We'd tried to pull together a plan to have her and a close friend attend a summer clay class at the nearby art school but life got in the way.

This is also the summer that Kate is fully and independently riding her bike, so we've been enjoying family bike rides to nearby parks and around the neighborhood. 

Writing-wise, Kate is continuing her suspenseful Detective Bunny series (she's up to Book 4), in which the intrepid sleuth solves mysteries and thwarts the dastardly plans of evil villains. And Bunny herself, Kate's beloved white floppy sidekick, still goes on every single one of Kate's real summer adventures.

School Art 2014/15 - Jenna

Here are the highlights of Jenna's artwork from school -

Clay owl, handformed. I got to help out in this class, and we had a blast. 

Relief printing

Leaf relief

Leaf relief print

This was one of four scenes Jenna made for a project on tornadoes -
hers was a cardboard puppet theater with changing backdrops
and a single stick puppet protagonist who survives the disaster.

Other Jenna updates: Jenna has also started ice-skating lessons this summer. Initially not interested at all in this particular sport, she became very enthusiastic after trying it out for herself at a friend's ice-skating theme birthday party. 

Jenna is continuing to write her Color Girls stories and attended a writing workshop at the library with Emily and two older neighbor friends this August. She wasn't quite old enough to meet the recommended entry age criterion, but they let her in anyway, because she was so interested in it, and she enjoyed it.

After taking a break from swimming lessons during the school year (the two younger girls wanted to just do gymnastics), Jenna will resume them in the fall. She's very excited to once again swim with instruction - we've been enjoying recreational water-splashing at our water park, but it's nothing like real swimming!

Finally, Jenna has fallen in love with Enid Blyton (yes!). She's finished the Secret Seven series and is a thirdway through the Famous Five. After trying out different series on and off for the past couple of years, she's found an author she really enjoys and is thrilled at the prospect of going through my entire (and very extensive) collection of childhood Blyton books.

School Art 2014/15 - Emily

Last week, the girls received their "Your Teacher For Next Year Is. . ." letters in the post. This is always a very exciting letter for the kids to get and everyone waits with bated breath around the time the hear the notifications have been sent out. Then they call their friends, or bike over to their friends' houses to compare teacher assignments and collect information about whom else to expect as classmates in the coming year. 

The girls are all thrilled that they will be getting wonderful teachers in the 2015/16 school year - these are teachers their older sisters have had and loved, or teachers they've heard wonderful things about and in whose classes they secretly hoped they'd be. 

The Teacher Letters are also a prod for me to get started on back-to-school prep: buying school supplies (done!), getting medical exams done (done!), signing them up for after-school activities in the fall (done!) and clearing the art basket and documenting last year's art, for example. I may procrastinate on everything else in my life, but not school stuff. There's just so much of it, in so many forms, that it's just easier to do it now than panic during (and thus waste) the last few days of the precious summer hols.

Here, therefore, are the highlights of last year's school art.

First up is Emily's - Jenna's and Kate's will be in the next two posts.

Research project on an animal of choice

Earlier this winter, Emily and I joined other amateur potters at a nearby high school to throw clay bowls for Bowls for Brain Power (previously called the Empty Bowls Project). It's been 8 years since I last threw a bowl so it was a comedy of errors until, with some assistance from the other potters, we found our groove and turned out a bowl or two each. Emily enjoyed working on the wheel so much that we want to do this again, perhaps next winter when there isn't a lot else to do.

Other Emily updates: she is playing the trombone in the school band along with her other 5th-grade classmates. The music teachers have begun band instruction in the summer, to get the kids used to their instruments so that by the time the school year is in full swing in the fall, they are already comfortable playing on them.

Emily is also finishing swimming team prep sessions next week - this is the preparation step before trying out for competitive swimming, if it is something she wants to pursue later. Because the hours are late in the evening, she only does team prep in the summer; doing it during the school year, which she would dearly enjoy, would simply be too exhausting.

And finally, she has started ice-skating lessons along with her sisters! One can't live in Minnesota and not know how to ice-skate - it'd be like living in Singapore and not being able to swim. She loves it, and is excited about continuing lessons in the fall after school.

Hummus

My first taste of hummus was several decades ago in England, of all places. I was a traveling companion to an aunt (hellooooo Auntie Moe!) and she introduced me to hummus. Also taramasalata, which I thought was funny because it was pink, but that doesn't come into this story much. Both were delicious, but both were forgotten after that vacation and I'd returned to Singapore, where it's hard to find either (since neither are particularly local favorites).

Years later, I rediscovered the store-bought kind here in the US, and ate it with everything and in everything (except desserts). 

But I'd also wanted to make it myself, especially since everyone says it's so ridiculously easy. So I did. 

The only reason I'd waited this long (apart from my general propensity for procrastination) is the ease with which one can pick up an inexpensive store-bought tub in a multitude of flavors and brands. Why make when you can buy? is my life motto, because it saves time which, unlike money, one can never earn back.

Then one day I found tahini in my regular supermarket, lurking inconspicuously next to the peanut butters - without even having to go hunting in a gourmet grocery store, mind you! - and decided that the stars had aligned. 

It was as easy as I'd heard, and more delicious than.

Here is the recipe.

I didn't make any changes to it, but I did add leftover black beans to half a batch and pureed them in.

I'm not discriminating against store-bought, though - all hummus is good.

I Found An Icing

Some weeks ago, I spent a solo weekend in New York to visit Edwin and Jono. There was a lot of eating involved, about half of which was dessert/treats. And one of those treats was a caramel cake at Magnolia Bakery.

It was devastating.

Not only did I eat ALL the icing, when I never eat frosting in general (I scrape it off and just eat the cake), I also came home craving it and harboring covetous desires to replicate it.

The problem: I'd have to bake a cake to put the icing on.

I like cakes, but a whole cake seemed a bit much when all I needed was a slice or two. I momentarily considered buying a box mix and tossing away about 80% of the cake, but I couldn't bring myself to put good icing on a Betty Crocker yellow cake. Wrong in so many ways. 

Then I remembered that last winter, I'd made a sugee cake and, in an attempt to exercise restraint, disallowed myself from eating the last quarter of it and instead put it in the back of the freezer for a rainy day.

Hurrah!

On my birthday, I dug out that bit of cake, along with some good Irish butter I'd also been hoarding and made the caramel pecan buttercream icing that had so haunted me.

Amazing. Almondy-pecany-buttery perfection.

Who would've thought - sugee cake and caramel icing? Even Mum didn't believe it when I told her - sugee cake, apparently, is more familiarly served au naturel or with fondant and royal icing, particularly at weddings.

What do I care about following food rules?

Anyway, here is the recipe - see notes below:

• 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 5 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar 
• 11/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Notes:

1. I quartered this recipe.
2. I used much less confectioner's sugar
3. I totally forgot to add the milk
4. I added crushed pecans as a sprinkle