For Chinese New Year Kino10, a local organisation who specialise in short film screenings, organised a programme of Chinese short film screenings at the Barber Institute. Unfortunately we already had plans so couldn’t get there, but a number of the films screened are available online. Here are a couple of my favourites: Hua Yang De Nian Hua,
这是我 的作业: 上个星期六早上十点半就 我开车去了Barber Institute美术馆在伯明翰的大学。 我上利诺雕刻印刷的课。 课的话题是中国的艺术, 因为上个星期是中国新年。 我和我的同学去Barber 美术馆看中国的艺术, 然后我们画了一幅图。 我画了福的汉字和梅花盛开。 这是我的印刷！ A more detailed version of this post is available in English, here
Me and Phil took part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Watch today, in our (small) garden. We didn’t do too badly, we saw blackbirds, sparrows, blue/coal/great tits, wood pigeons and a robin. Hopefully next year, once we’ve spent some time working on the garden and making it more nature friendly, we’ll do even better.
Moderate success at the big garden bird watch Read More »
I attended a linocut printing workshop at the Barber Institue today (there was an old fashioned gender divide in our house as I did some chores and went to a craft workshop, while Phil went into Liverpool to watch football!). This is the second printing workshop I’ve attended at the Barber. They’re more relaxed than other workshops
Good Fortune (福) in Linocut Read More »
I managed to do a spot of baking this week, including these Pacman butter biscuits. Unfortunately I ran out of icing sugar so I created quite a few red Blinkys but didn’t managed the Pinkys, Inkys and Clydes I was also planning to make.
To see in the Chinese New Year, me and Phil went to see a traditional Chinese music concert at the Midland Arts Centre (MAC) yesterday evening. The Jasmine Moon Ensemble played a selection of folk songs from across China, as well as more modern songs in the traditional style and a handful of film scores. They
新年快乐! Seeing in the Chinese New Year with the Jasmine Moon ensemble Read More »
This week my Mandarin teacher taught our class a quick and easy method of creating paper cuts to celebrate the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival. This paper cut features the Chinese character 春 (chun) which means spring and is the first part of the word 春节 (Chūnjié) which means Spring Festival. All you need to
Quick and dirty Chinese New Year paper cut Read More »
Lately one of our neighbour’s dogs has been breaking in to our garden. A few weeks ago Phil caught him chomping a hole in one of the fence panels big enough to put his head through and watch what Phil was up to. Since then he’s moved on to creating dog-sized holes that he can
My Mandarin teacher asked the class to each try and write a few sentences every few days. I thought I might post my attempts on the blog , as a way of encouraging me to do it. Let me know if you spot any errors! As you can see these posts are necessarily going to be a bit
我的花园 – practicing my Mandarin Read More »
This weekend me and Phil went to see the Lost in Lace exhibition currently on at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG). It included a really diverse collection of works inspired by lace, by both UK and international artists. Enclosed below are images of three of my favourite pieces from the exhibition. These give a