What's with the vdBs

Art Appreciation

2008-08-06T18:23:00.008+02:00

Where have I been for the month of July? The short answer .... haha .... learning more about art appreciation!

The long answer ........................ ;-)
Those of you who know about the Bravewriter website might know of the online writing courses they offer throughout the year. Each month under the 'One Thing' umbrella a course is offered where you get to focus on just one topic. Well, for the last four weeks I have been doing the Art Appreciation course facilitated by artist Beth Burgess.

The course was structured in the following way: week one - introduction to art, observation and building art vocab; week two - elements and principles of art; week three - researching art media and interpretation; week four - field trip to a museum and personal judgements. Each week we had 2 assignments to send in and then comment on other peoples assignments ~ I didn't get to comment as much as I would have liked. Beth did a brilliant job of teaching the necessity of specific vocabulary and introducing us to some pivotal pieces of art from history in such a brief period of time: pieces that we would not have had much, if any, familiarity with. The first couple of weeks were spent attempting to put our hearts (emotional responses) temporarily on the shelf and working our brains (logic, analysis) to learn to observe art. Man, all of us found it challenging, to say the least! One of the other ladies put it succinctly when she said that it took a commitment of our families, our time and our wallets. It became obvious very quickly that a huge amount of time was required, more than we had antipated, if I was going to get anything out of this, let alone finish the course work.

Everything that I had come to understand about how to learn also came into play during this month. How fascinating it was to discover that I was having to fight against and overcome old tendencies of how to learn and attempt to understand a new subject all at the same time! My family were great in getting behind me and giving me the time needed to get my head around some new ideas and complete as many of the assignments as I could. We journeyed together on this one and it truly was a team effort!

I still have a way to go but the effort it took to put aside my emotional responses, build a more specific art vocab and grasp a better understanding of the elements and principles of art was well worth it. A whole new world has just opened up and what better place to explore this incredible world but EUROPE!!

Brussels

2008-08-04T13:56:00.005+02:00

After kayaking we stopped by Brussels for dinner. At the Grand Place in Brussel's centrum we took heaps of photos of chocolate shops selling the famed Belgium chocolate - definitely a-must-see and not-to-be-missed taste sensation.

The kids stopped in here for yummy sweets

The shop we bought chocolate

The Goods!

One of the many other choccie shops

A museum in the stunning Grand Place - exquisite architecture in one square

Joris also took us to the Tintin Boutique just around the corner from Grand Place where we checked out the small english section of Tintin comics. This brought back fond childhood memories for Marcel of his favourite Tintin comics, so you never know these might just become a family favourite. I think we have a comic or two packed in boxed back in Australia that were presents from our friends the James'.

After dinner we jumped back in the car and headed home to Amsterdam. Needless to say, we all slept well that night!

On the way home from kayaking Joris showed us a little bit of Brussels ~ we stopped in for some dinner and a brief look around.

Kayaking in Belgium

2008-08-04T12:24:00.007+02:00

Ever thought about kayaking for 12 kms? Well, we were invited by our friend Joris to go with him to the south of Belgium for a day of kayaking. Leaving early Saturday morning we got to Anseremme just before 10am where we left the car and jumped on a train which took us further up the river. At the start of our 12 km kayak journey started with us entering the river by a ramp: we all loved that!

Marcel with Jackson and Sammy

Rolling down into the river!

Jassy at the front of the kayak

Marcel almost in mid-air!

One of the beautiful sites we floated past.

With some stops in between we were probably out on the river about 3 to 4 hours drifting at times or paddling or going over a couple of little dams. The nature was beautiful and oh so peaceful when we managed to get away from the crowds of others also kayaking down the same river. There was drama along the way with other people's kayaks capsizing or filling up with water (which thankfully didn't happen to us) and with the ocasional water fight with the paddles.

Surprisingly, the 12 kms went quite quickly and it was only the last couple of kilometres that we really started to feel some sore muscles!

Welcome to our vdB family blog

2008-08-03T19:49:00.000+02:00

Dear family and friends,

We have a new home for our family blog! Please come by as often as you can and feel free to drop us a line and tell us how you are going too. It's our hope that the posts here will be from all our family so that you can hear directly every member of the vdB family.

love from all the vdBs