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Hello E&D Wombats and Possums, and anyone else reading!
I am half way across the world from you in a little town called Battle Lake, in the state of Minnesota. It took me one whole day and a half of the next day to get to America, on two different planes. When I arrived luckily it was night time so I was able to get some sleep, and then I had one day looking around the city of Minnesota. I walked around the city and found a very large art gallery with paintings and plates and clothing from as long as 100-150 years ago.
The next day, I spent nearly a whole day travelling by bus to a town called Fargo, where our painting teacher, Keiko, and I were picked up by two ladies who then drove us 2 more hours to the town of Battle Lake. So I have spent a lot of time on planes, in buses, cars and taxi's to get where I am staying for 5 days.
Today was the first day of our painting class, and there are 21 ladies in our class. Usually there would also
be some men, but not this time!
They all think my accent is funny! Imagine that. I think I speak the most normal, and they have an accent!
I am missing our tea ceremonies in the afternoons at preschool, as everyone drinks coffee here. I had to go to the grocery store today to buy some tea bags.
Today we did two paintings. Our teacher did a demonstration first and then we all painted from the same photo of a river in Japan with very high mountains and bamboo boats, and then after lunch we did another whole painting using just one colour paint. This is called a tonal study. Miss Dee might be able to google and show you what a tonal study looks like. We used a colour called Neutral Tint which is a little like black. We used this one colour paint with lots of water to make light greys, and then with not much water at all to make darker tones of grey and black. I forgot to take a picture of my paintings to show you but I can do this tomorrow when I get to my class.
You
can see in the photos our teacher Keiko, stands at the front and she has a mirror set up above her so that we can all see what she is painting from where we sit or stand to watch.
Tomorrow if the weather is fine we are planning to paint outdoors just like we did with the Wombats last Thursday over in the Church grounds. Do you remember we took our easels and our painting gear. We needed our hats and sunscreen to protect ourselves. We will take all of our equipment that we need with us.
We are hoping to paint the grain elevator, which there are pictures of below. This used to hold grain and other crops, but it is not used any more. I asked why it is called a grain 'elevator', as this is another name we would call a lift in Australia (like when you are at the shops with mum and a pram or shopping trolley, you need to use the lift). They explained that the grain goes up the ramps that you may be able to see in some of the photos - so the grain is 'elevated'. The area where
I am is considered some of the most fertile soil in the whole of America, and there are many farms all around this area. They have black soil, and grain and vegetable crops grow well in this area.
I have been very excited to see two squirrels, as I have never seen a squirrel before except on TV. They tell me you see them a bit like we would see cats or dogs at home, they are very common. There are also lots and lots of very large dragonflies. I think they would be about 10cm, they are so big, and there were about 50 flying around us in the late afternoon yesterday and today. They come to this area to be near the water, as there are many lakes in this region called Otter Tail County.
Below in the photos you might also see a big blue water tank that is up high above the buildings. It is a full circle/ball, and we don't have these in Australia, so I have been asking how it catches much water from such a small opening at the top. Nobody can tell me the answer, so
I think this needs some more research, because our Aussie water tanks are circular but have flat tops so that they catch the most water possible.
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