magical braiding

  

We have just started a Norse mythology block in our schooling recently. It's one of those topics that I could spend months on.  I love myths, legends, fairy tales and fantasy....... Greek and Roman myths, Arthurian legends, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Celtic mythology, legendary heroes and beasts, folktales and folklore. All of it is fascinating because no matter how unrealistic it sounds, somewhere in the depths of time, there must have been some reason, some grain of truth, that started the legend and was consequently embroidered and enlarged until it became the larger than life and almost unbelievable, heroic deed we hear of today. These myths are raw and often bloody but to me, they convey a feeling of connection with those long ago people that were striving to make some sense of the world around them in an age where everything was still unknown and death was lurking at every corner. 

There is a rawness and simplicity and innocence about them - the good are good and the evil are evil and most of the time, good will triumph..... and if it doesn't at first eventually it will. 

I'm also a woman that likes a happy ending in a book or movie and I won't read anything else! 

Okay, so last week we did a bit of knot work drawing as a lead up to the Norse myths. Now, I'm not sure how Nordic this style of knot is - it looks more Celtic - but for our purposes it is fine. This is actually a continuation of the Form Drawing we have been doing in Grades 2 and 3. Rudolf Steiner introduced form drawing which is considered to strengthen eye hand coordination and is a support for writing, amongst other more aesthetic processes - it's also a lot of fun!!
This little bit of braiding came together without too much tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth...... and when we got to the colouring in part .........wow! it was quite magical to see the pattern emerge!

Here goes....... 

We used an A4 sheet of paper and drew a grid of 8 x 3 squares - the darker lines.

Then those squares were divided into four smaller squares using dashed lines. You could just mark them with lighter lines instead. 

Now make a dot on every other line along the two centre dark lines, as shown. 

Make crosses by joining the dots.

Now make little arches on every second 'x'. Do the same along the bottom but remember to make the arches on alternate 'x's, as shown above. 

This next part is just a little bit confusing but if you happen to have a smart 13 year old nearby, ask them to help...... it will be sorted in no time, sigh...... You need to make large arches over the small ones, always taking them from the dot to the left of a small arch, right over the small arch until you end at the right hand dot just past the small arch.
These big arches have to go to the top of the grid.
You might have to follow my pic - I'm not sure how to explain it any better than this! You will start to see the pattern now, so that may make a difference for you. 

In the pic above, you can see the threads weaving over and under - there are three - and you need to follow one and erase the lines to give it the woven effect. Remember, if it goes under one then it must go over the next one. 

Start colouring the threads in different colours now, erasing any pencil marks as you go along.
It's really quite magical - all of a sudden you can see this intricate design that a moment before looked just like a heap of dots and dashes on the paper! I got really excited about it, much to my children's dismay and kept oohing and aahing in delight!!  

Here are a few we did. You might notice the bottom green one has been turned into what looks like a knot on the end...... it's not hard to do once you've put all the arches in and rubbed out some lines. It's also a slightly more rounded shape - the boxes for that one were done freehand and look smaller and perhaps more rectangular than the red one. That one's my favourite! 

Do have a play around - it is so much fun and such a surprise when it suddenly makes sense!!

I've linked up with Natural Suburbia today because it's the first time for a long time that we've done anything very creative!