First tries with the boys

Hi, I am Laurent the companion of Saara and the dad of the 2 wonderful boys which are Étienne and Aarni.
When Saara talk me about her project with our family, I didn't know really what to do. It was the beginning of Summer... in Finland, it's a very short season. My idea was to enjoy as much as possible the beautiful days.

Finally, after few time, I decided to try to do some "art" with my sons. Always, I have been attracted by video and mainly things made as stop motion or in hyperlapse. So, I started to think than maybe I should try to do something like that with Étienne and Aarni.

So, first thing to do : check software available for Ubuntu to do that.
I found few: Cinelerra, KDenlive, Pitivi and OpenShot Video Editor. I tested them because I have never use this kind of software before with some pictures taken from my hard drive. OpenShot Video Editor is the one which is the most suitable for me.

The second step, I did it with my Jolla phone. It was the first material who comes in my mind. To be honest, mobile phones are not the greatest tools to use for this kind of project. Any way, I success to realize a short video (see below or on the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfnR_quDnq0).

It's very basic but It was also for me my first one ever.

After that, because using a phone is not so easy to realise a series of pictures for goal to realise a film in stop motion, I decided to dust off our old camera to use it with a tripod.
It's a nice camera, a Nikon D40 from the mid 2000's. Very easy to use to do this kind of work. Unfortunately, with this kind of device of 10 years old, the memory card is from the same time. By this fact, I was limited to 1Gb of storage.

I finally success to take 331 pictures to realise my second short. For this one, I also tried to guide the boys as a real director. This last idea was not the best. Spontaneity is better with children like that.

The result.

Available also here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJCbDy4fvcs

Another Shed,

 Here is a shed of Etienne:

Etienne used water colours.

There is a sunset, flying stars and family of mole (or vole,- I am not sure). 

Etienne is a bit excited of flying stars for the moment, as we have been reading the moomin story about flying star: "Comet in Moominland ". And he have been full of questions about comets. Even he was not speaking of it while painting, I think he might had an influence of it.

 

Colours and atmosphere are similar, even in our book what we have been reading the picture is in black and white. (And, of course, there are no moles or voles)

Shed.

I didn't know what it mean, but now I know. I guess closest name for it in Finnish would be "vaja". So our task for our residency was to make together plan for one shed. Today I am not working in my grey cube, and my younger son is not at daycare, so about first thing in the morning was drawing.

Aarni used crayons for his plan

So the theme of drawing is the castle of " Sleeping Beauty", I think that the profile of the shed resemble to him the walls of the castle. He was singing while drawing "Prinsessa ruusu linnassa...! (the song about Sleeping Beauty) and I guess that he was imagining the roses who climb everywhere around the castle and finally hide it. We have been reading the story, and singing the song together but it have been a while. I have notice that Aarni have great memory. So here is Aarnis plan:

With Etienne we will make still another.

Things I know / like about Great Britain.

I have visited Great Britain three times, if I count correctly.

First time I was there send by my parents to learn language for two weeks or something. I was staying in my fathers friend family. If I remember well, family was living in New Castle. Actually I start to think that the place was after all Middlesbrough. They were proud of James Cook there as he was born there. And we did some travelling around. We visited York, which in my memories was a city with old stone buildings and some record shops. Also I remember to have some time of of my own there. I was teenager then and family I visited was worried of me. Then I remember we were going to some seaside city, my guess would be Scarborough. I remember it was place of many casinos.

Second time it was in London, and round trip to Bath and Stonehenge. I was about 20 years old and I did some museums, bars, concerts and shopping. I stayed one week.

Third time it was in Aberdeen, where my father was working. That happened after year 2000. I was there two weeks. We did some travelling around and I was by myself often also in Aberdeen city. City was grey, and paintings in museum was grey also and I liked it. I remember in super market shopping trolleys was giant comparing to my experience, and also packages of food and things like washing powders.

So my first hand knowledge about Great Britain is limited. ( I don't even know how I should call it Great Britain, Britain, UK...?) But I like lot of things from Great Britain!

Fudge, Jane Austen, Inspector Morse, Endeavour, Shaun the sheep, Joanne Harris, Peter Pan, Buzzcocks, Pink Floyd, Jehtro Tull, Pet Shop Boys, Alice in wonderland, Yes, J. R. R. Tolkien, Tom Hodgkinson, Jeeves and Wooster, Harry Potter, Fish and Chips, Midsomer Murders, Agatha Christie, Richard Adams, Rudyard Kipling, Kate Bush, Kate Winslet, Douglas Adams, Robin Hood, Knights of the Round Table, Avalon, Stonehenge, Led Zeppelin, Sex Pistols, Full breakfast, Banksy, Iron Maiden, King Crimson, Queen, Monty Python, Tea, Castles, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Old graveyards, Druids, James Bond, London, Roger Dean, Beth Gibbons, Kelly Reilly, Martin Clunes, Milk man, gardening, William Morris, John Henry Dearle, Hot water bottles, red haired people, liquorice allsorts, Highland Cattle, Fireman Sam, Downton Abbey, the fact that it is an island, Oxford. Bob the builder.