Improve Your Communication Skills
How To Look At Art
Have you got a favourite painting? Mine is ‘A Portrait of the Countess Golovine’ painted by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, sometime around 1797. It is, unsurprisingly, a portrait of Countess Varvara Nikolaevna Golovine, a talented musician and artist from Russia. Elisabeth and the Countess became great friends and I love the way the Countess is smiling in the portrait, with a red shawl draped around her shoulders and her dark curly hair swept up in behind a scarf. The painting belongs to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, which is one of my favourite galleries.
I love going to art galleries and looking at paintings, but at first I found it quite a daunting thing to do. Have you ever been to an art gallery and not known where to start? Or heard art critics talking about symbolism, composition and form but not understood? Sometimes looking at art can sound difficult, and talking about it can be a whole other language!
But looking at art doesn’t have to be complicated. Things like symbolism, where objects in paintings are used to represent something that’s happening, like a skull symbolising death, can be important and the composition, or the way things in the painting are arranged, can tell us a lot about the artist and why the painted what they did.
Historical Fiction for Kids – A Book Review
What better way to #jumpintohistory, than to immerse yourself in historical fiction for kids… but where to start?
With so many great titles to chose from, you might find it difficult to plump for one of them. Louise is a life-long bookworm, and lover of historical fiction, and has some great tips.
I have always loved reading fiction books about history, especially books about girls.
I grew up reading fiction books about the lives of girls: Johanna Spyri’s Heidi, L.M Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon and Anne of Green Gables, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did series. I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods series, which is the story of Laura’s life growing in 19th century America. I always wanted to be Laura and have adventures living in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods, although I am still not very keen about the lack of indoor plumbing.
5 Things Parents Wish Their Kids Would Do …
… and 5 Things Kids Wish Their Parents Would Do!
Hello there! I’m Cat and I’m 12 years old, almost 13 (yay!) I’ve picked out 5 things I wish my parents would do, or rather… Wouldn’t do! And my mum has done the same with 5 things she wishes that my brother and I would do.
Go grab a piece of paper and do this with your parents – you might surprise each other!
What are Superstitions?
Do you believe in good luck? Are some people luckier than others? Or is it all in your mind? Carolyn Ward explains how you can make your own good luck, and what the word ‘superstitions’ means.
What is Procrastination, and Do You Have Time to Read This Right Now?
I’ve been trying to write this article for a while, but, well. I mean, I’ve had the time, but there just seems to be so much else to do. Like rearranging my books or the clothes in my wardrobe into colour order. And yesterday, I just had to plait all the tassels on my blanket and look through all my old photo albums.
Sound familiar? Procrastination is the science, no, the art of doing trivial things whilst putting off something important, like doing your homework or, ahem, writing an article. But putting things off for too long can get you into trouble. It’s much better to get on with tidying your room or revising for an exam than it is to see how many two pence coins you can balance on your nose (I managed 5 yesterday).