right where I need to be

art journal junky

2011-02-19T13:54:00.001-07:00

I've always been an avid journal writer but I wanted to try something more creative; keeping an art/visual journal. We all need to eat, drink, and sleep everyday the basics carnal needs to survive but I am going to add keeping an art journal to the list - for me anyway. I don't know why I didn't think of it before but now that I've started I'm addicted. I was sitting at work one day trying to come up with ways to use my creative mind everyday without having to spend a lot of money or time, something that doesn't consume my room by the end of it like most of my art projects do. That's when I decided to start a visual journal. I have always sketched and doodled in my journals but now I'm taking it to the next level. I have done a bunch of pages but I am still experimenting with different ways to portray my thoughts: collage, mixed media, transfers, and all sorts of mediums. So far I'm happy with the results and it's nice to have something creative to look forward to when I have 30 minutes or so after work, or when I'm watching a movie. It also helps with developing ideas for bigger projects I have in mind. I love it that it's contained in a journal and that will be a fun little treat for my children and posterity to enjoy for years and years. Here's just a sample of some pages I've done. I'm going to try and blog with new pages every week or so.

cover

my tribute to BYU when I graduated

I think it's important to keep a journal, it doesn't have to be a visual one but write down your story! Everyone has a story. Your experiences, your feelings, ideas, thoughts, and dreams all combine to form your life and your journey, which is your story. And a great way to keep a relative reflection of all those things that have happened in your life is to keep a journal. A daily journal, a weekly journal, a month end summary journal, any or all these are ways you can keep track and record your experiences.

I'M BACK

2011-02-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

I know it's been awhile but I am ready to be a blogger again. I have some great ideas of how to keep this blog somewhat interesting, I am also open to ideas... Come back in a few days to see what I have in mind.

ALMOST DONE

2010-06-22T20:41:00.002-06:00

There's so much to write but I will keep it brief:

I finished spring term at BYU on Wednesday of last week and started summer term yesterday, and all that really means is that I'm getting closer to graduating. This term I'm taking ASL (sign language) and beginners golf :) I haven't taken ASL for a few years so I was really nervous about the class - well I still am - so I show up on Monday and sure enough I got about MAYBE 60% of what the teacher was saying, well signing I guess. I have no idea how I'm going to keep up. It is such a fun language though, and I'm excited to master it one day. Right now I'm just trying to figure out if she said the quizzes are on Thursdays or Fridays, haha. I've got a lot of catching up to do that's for sure.

The sun has been pretty consistent these last few days which makes me VERY happy. I have fun plans for the summer and all of them include the sun. I recently purchased a Seven Peaks water park season pass, my sister and I are going to play tennis once a week, outdoor soccer, hiking, vacations... let me see, yup need the sun for all those things :)

To "celebrate" the summer solstice yesterday, we took a hike to the top of Ensign Peak to watch the sunset. It is fun to look out over the valley and a nice sunset doesn't hurt either. I love that we have such a beautiful world filled with endless colors and a variety of life.

Jungle

2010-05-15T10:31:00.002-06:00

This weekend I have the house to myself and although it's nice to have silence it gets lonely. The biggest dilemmas I'm facing however are 1). the leftovers in the fridge and 2). the jungle/maze throughout the first floor. Leftovers; I don't want them to go bad but I don't want to eat them either. I'm thinking of giving them to the 14 chickens we have but I try to avoid them as much as possible. I guess I can't let them starve until Monday. Not to mention at some point I am going to have to collect the eggs. In summary I don't do well with leftovers or chickens.

Now for the jungle; since the house is mainly empty (except for me and the dog) we decided to have the carpets cleaned by the Hunt's relatives who have a cleaner. Maneuvering around our kitchen is hard enough but now trying to do it with 4 trees (real trees in their planters), 6 chairs and other odds and ends piled in it becomes nearly impossible. Don't get me started on the hallway. For the next 24 hours I am to get in and out of the house by going out the back and through the garage. It wouldn't be that bad if there weren't 7 of the 14 chickens running free in the backyard who flock to your feet every time you walk outside. It made for an interesting morning. BUT on the good side we have clean carpets, YAHOO!

quick look

2010-04-15T18:25:00.005-06:00

10 random facts from my life right now

1. I have painted a little over 10 oil paintings this semester

2. will be graduating with a BA in studio arts in December if all goes well

3. I'm considering going to grad school

4. will be attending institute by the University of Utah to gain more gospel insight and to meet new people

5. trying to find a coed outdoor soccer league to play on this summer

6. was very successful in my figure drawing class this semester - I was a little nervous about it

7. turning 23 in three weeks, partay!

8. my little space heater sounds like crickets and reminds me of home (PA)

9. currently reading "Watership Down" by Richard Adams

10. pushing myself in the art world - trying new mediums, ideas, and working through them without fear of failure

I'm still feeling very happy about where my life is right now. I'm truly blessed with the best family and great friends who support and love me.

freedom comes from discipline

2010-03-25T12:04:00.006-06:00

This is my new motto lately:

FREEDOM COMES FROM DISCIPLINE

Isn't it so true? Freedom to do what I want only happens when I have discipline in my life, otherwise I am stuck in bad habits or addictive behaviors that NEVER allow for freedom. Since I have been focusing on this these last few weeks my life has taken a turn for the better (not that it was bad before). I feel SO good about where my life is headed. Of course I have my days where it's difficult to get out of bed and I become numb when I think about my good friend, Dave, leaving for Afghanistan in a few weeks. *Anyone who reads this please keep him and all our troops in your prayers.

Other than that school keeps me very busy, it's crunch time now that the semester is coming to an end. I try and find time to play though :) Just last night I went to the BYU vs Utah rugby game at the Rio Tinto stadium - home of the Real Salt Lake soccer team - kind of funny that the first game I saw in that stadium wasn't even a soccer game. I have a confession though; I am a Utah rugby fan, and they won!

I do think the fact that the sun is coming out more and more each day has something to do with this renewed happiness on life. Summer is around the corner and I have big plans for it. I graduate at the end of the year. I am surrounded by my family and friends. I just know this year is going to be a good one, because I am determined to make it one.

Robert Graves

2010-03-13T16:07:00.002-07:00

I am recently intrigued by the poet Robert Graves, okay I'm more intrigued with his poems than him of course. Here are a couple of my favorites.

In Broken Images

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

Symptoms of Love

Love is universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

I like his poems so much for some reason, I'm even doing on art project on them... be looking forward to that :)

Classes

2010-02-06T21:40:00.009-07:00

Since I spend pretty much all my time in class or doing homework I don't have much else to blog about. So here is what I've been up to this week in school.

Digital Art:

LOVE this class. I am learning all about photoshop and it's amazing. This week we had to do an appropriation piece (where you take something recognizable, or a recognizable style and change it to fit your own meaning). I have been on this theme of war lately and so I chose an image of George Washington, for we all know he was a great military leader, and I put him in a Warhol style. Both pretty recognizable :) On the bottom is a quote by George Washington and an image of his signature, as far as I know it is anyway.

Figure Drawing:

These first two images are a practice assignment to help with proportions and understanding the breakdown of the shapes of the body. We had to look at our model and draw the different shapes we saw.

This drawing is just the latest one I did in class. We were focusing a bit more on the torso. The face, or mainly the eyes, are just blocked in shapes to get the idea of where the features are. It is fun to watch my progress with each class and assignment.

Painting:

This class is not for my major, just a fun painting class to keep me learning. Our first assignments were to paint this teapot two different times. The first time we had to only use black and white - which I really don't like using black at all but did for the sake of completing the assignment. The second time we had to use the colors in the color wheel, it was a challenge but had a interesting outcome.
Obviously you can see why I don't have much time to do anything else during the week. I'm thinking at least once a week I will post my latest assignments so mainly my mom and dad, and anyone else who enjoys art stuff, can see what I do in school.

Opportunity

2010-01-26T11:43:00.002-07:00

My good friend Brad works for a furniture company, they make rad furniture by the way, and they needed someone to touch up their catalog - change the cover, add some images etc. I was very excited for the opportunity to put my skills to work. This is the catalog cover we went with, I came up with a couple different options but this one worked the best with what they wanted. The logo was already designed so I just had to choose the image and change the color around a lot. It was a healthy challenge and now I'm finally using my photoshop program. The work I had to do on the inside of the catalog definitely tested my knowledge.

Thanks Brad!

Watercolors

2010-01-17T11:29:00.006-07:00

Well here are the pictures I promised...

Let me explain the assignments quickly first. We had to paint 2 paintings of a sculpture, 2 of places we have never been, 2 of a warning sign, 2 of a collage, 4 quick watercolor sketches, 5 outside, and 5 inside. I don't have all the paintings posted because some of them I didn't like at all. Here are my favorites the rest can be viewed by clicking on this link - watercolors.

The New Year

2010-01-08T13:26:00.006-07:00

2009 was a pretty good year but I want to make 2010 even better.

I know it's been awhile since I've posted on here, I get so caught up in school and life that I forget. I have a lot of new art to show everyone and hopefully I will get to it soon. I took a watercolor class this last semester and actually enjoyed it. Watercolor does not intimidate me anymore even though I have tons more to learn in the medium.

Bookbinding was a success and I made some pretty cool books and boxes, a great skill to have under my belt. Actually one of the books I made is being put in the Book Arts Show at BYU in the HBLL (the library) first floor auditorium from mid January through February. Note: all my BYU friends should check it out.

Another one of my works is showing right now in one of the HFAC galleries, gallery 303. It's a painting of a hanging still life that we did for my oil painting class. The picture below is the actual announcement for the show and what it looks like from that angle... I took the liberty of circling my painting in blue for the sake of the blog, so you can see which one is mine. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when my painting ended up in the photo for the flyer. The piece in the middle that is hanging down is what we had to paint. It's been really neat to be in the art program and to have opportunities to show my work, even if it's just in the BYU art galleries. For now anyway :)

This semester I am taking an oil painting class, digital art, figure drawing, and lithography. I think I'm looking forward to digital art the most, I don't know much about it and can't wait to learn.

So far 2010 has started out ok. It's been pretty cold outside but that gives me an excuse to cuddle up by the fire and read a good book or take a nap. I had an EGD procedure yesterday (where they stick a scope down your throat to look at the insides of my stomach, esophagus etc.) Luckily I was put to sleep so no big deal. I am grateful for medication that can do that - put you to sleep that is - it made for a less stressful procedure on my end. I went home and was given specific instructions not to drive or make any big decisions, sssooooo I slept the rest of the day, very relaxing. Other than that I'm back to working and going to school.

Well if anyone is interested here are my 2010 resolutions...

graduate
get all A's
take a kickboxing class
learn sign language better
eat more healthy
continue reading books (outside of school assignments)
finish up random projects I have lying around
meditation/yoga type stuff

Pumpkin Carving

2009-10-30T21:01:00.007-06:00

This year Jaime grew a ton of pumpkins, so on Monday night we got together and had a carving/caramel party. It was very fun but also very messy.

The kids before the carving began with a few of the pumpkins

My pumpkin! I know kind of gruesome but we had a few little ones that we didn't know what to do with. I think it turned out pretty rad.

The malfunction pumpkin(s), we didn't end up carving this one because it is cool on its own.

Three of the finished pumpkins. The one on the left was Lincoln's and it is supposed to be throwing up pumpkin insides but we are saving that for outside :) Oh how I love Halloween.

Ceramics

2009-10-20T20:23:00.009-06:00

Here are the rest of the pieces that I did in ceramics. It is a block class so it ended yesterday. It's bitter sweet, sad because I love the class but happy because now I have less to worry about.

The first two pieces were assignments where we had to make something man made. So I chose a commercial chicken and a headband, I made a ring as well but it's still in the car and it's raining so I don't want to get it out.

Then we had to make two pieces that were organic, but we had a lot of freedom - we could abstract it, just do a piece of it etc. The first one is from a piece of driftwood and the second one is from a shell.

For our final piece we had to chose one of our organic pieces and blow it up. It had to be 20 inches tall, minimum, mine ended being exactly 25 inches tall and 19 inches wide and the base is 54 inches round, basically gigantic! I have no clue what I'm going to do with it, any ideas? Or does anyone want it? :)

Definitely a fun class, I liked it more than I thought I would.

p.s. ALL the pieces are hollow inside.

Painting Fundamentals

2009-09-27T15:36:00.006-06:00

I am taking painting fundamentals right now, and here are some of assignments we've had so far.

This is my lovely color wheel, it took a lot more time than I thought but turned out OK.

2. Our second assignment was to take two complementary colors and mix them together to make a middle gray, in theory this is supposed to be possible. This was challenging for sure but it was interesting to see how many different colors I could get out of using mainly the 2 complementary colors. The top picture I used blue and orange and the bottom picture I used red and green. I found that red and green were easier to manipulate into that middle gray.

3. The last out of class assignment I did was this painting. We were to use mainly grays, such as the ones from the charts above. Also we could use tertiary colors, but the painting had to be 80% grays. I like the painting but wish I had more time on it to make it better.

p.s. thanks to my friend Catania (check out her blog she has some great creative and artsy stuff) I have arranged my art in different categories easy to find, just click on the link below my header and enjoy! I haven't uploaded many pictures yet, be patient with me.

Ceramics project #1

2009-09-27T15:10:00.005-06:00

Our first project in ceramics was to learn the basics. We had to make a sphere, cone, and cylinder out of slabs. Once we got those checked off we had to assemble them together however we wanted using 90% of our objects. THEN we cooked them THEN we glazed them and fired them Raku style. The glazes really were unpredictable which made it so fun. This is how my piece turned out, not sure what I'm going to do with it but that's a problem for another day.

We just finished our 3 man made objects - they are currently in the kiln - well should be out by now. I haven't taken pictures of them yet. Next we are working on 2 organic objects, I've chosen a shell and also a piece of driftwood. I'm excited to see how they will turn out.

I'm still around

2009-09-23T23:03:00.002-06:00

Sorry to all my fans out there that read this :) haha. I have been really busy since school has started. I love it though, I'm taking some of the best classes: ceramics, painting, bookbinding, watercolor, humanities, and statistics (not so great but I'm learning to enjoy it). I'm working on posting pictures of some of the projects I've been working on, so keep an eye out for that.

Other updates:

Embarrassing moment of the week; I went on a date a bit ago and we went bowling. On a good night I will bowl over 80, at least, well on this particular night I didn't even do that... how sad. My date was nice about it though. Really I just let him win ;)

Al Rounds (the artist I work for) had a tent at the Utah State Fair, we closed the gallery to devote our time there. It was fun to get out and meet a lot of different people. Not to mention there were funnel cakes, my favorite!

What else is new? hhmmm, one of my best friends and I have started spending girl time together in the morning by taking walks. It has been very nice to not only get outside but to also spend that time with her. I recommend we all make time to be with the people we love as much as we can.

I'm going to end on that note. Look forward to new more exciting posts soon.

random funny things

2009-08-20T12:23:00.002-06:00

Every once in awhile I get a good forwarded e-mail from a friend, and usually spend a good 10 minutes laughing about it. Here is one that I read today.

completely random thoughts:

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

-There is a great need for a sarcasm font.

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

-How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

-While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

-MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

-There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

-Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

Canoe Trip

2009-08-09T15:56:00.023-06:00

For a week in July my family took a canoe trip in the Adirondacks (New York). We had done this trip before many years ago, and decided to brave the waters and do it again. We canoed around a total of 45 miles and had to portage (carry) our canoes 3 different times - each about a mile or less - but a very LONG mile at that. The weather was great except for on the second day it started raining about 30 min before we got to our campsite, and was off and on until the next afternoon. Boy did we get lucky, the last few days had 60% chance of rain/thunderstorms, I guess we were the blessed 40% that didn't get the rain. It was funny though because the second we started to load our stuff in the cars when we got back the clouds let go and the rain came. We were being looked out for.

Fun memories were made and I'm very grateful for such a fun family that likes to get out in nature.

Here are just a few of the TONS of pictures I took. Enjoy!

The canoe rental place...
At the dock about to leave, life as we knew it was about to end.
Tiff and Jer on the first lake

The sisters

My cousin Shannon and her husband Alonzo
Jer and Emma
Kent and my cousin - plus tent mate - Julie

Emmy pretending to be a tree

I found this tree that had been uprooted and it made for a perfect picture frame.

Sad the trip was over, but happy to be returning to a shower and my bed.

New Haircut

2009-07-10T11:06:00.001-06:00

I'm sad because I have cut off a lot of my hair! What was I thinking?

Just kidding, I LOVE IT!

Side view...

and the back view.

Do you guys like it?

Keeping New Years Resolutions

2009-07-03T14:23:00.000-06:00

One of my resolutions this year was to read more books - outside of school assignments - so far I have been doing well and I have read 6 books! It may not seem like a lot to most of you, but for me it's a new record. These are the books that I've read so far:

1). This book was okay, I didn't realize until after I bought it at the thrift store and starting reading it that it is the last book in a sequel. What better book to read than the last one though?

2). "Girl With A Pearl Earring" I definitely enjoyed. Tiffany and I attempted to listen to it on CD while driving to and from Phoenix but the CD player was temperamental, therefore, I took it out from the library because I had to see how it was going to end. I enjoyed it because I studied this artist (Johannes Vermeer) in Art History and had fun reading about this authors point of view of him even though it was completely fictional.

3). This book was entertaining. I read most of it while I was sick with the flu a month ago. I'm not sure I care for the authors style of writing but I still read it :)

4). "A Long Way Gone" had my attention throughout. It is a true story of a boy soldier and even though the theme is rather depressing, there is an underlying positive message. This book made me even more grateful for the wonderful life I have.

5). This was a cute little love story that, of course, had a good ending to it.

6). Now this memoir enlightened me on what emotional courage really is.

The question I throw out now is what should I read next?? Anyone read a good book lately that they would recommend?

Oh and also may this post be a reminder for everyone to keep working on those resolutions/goals!

SMASH!!!

2009-06-26T11:47:00.001-06:00

As many of you know I spend most of my time at my two jobs - the gallery and soccer - so basically that's what most of my posts will be about until I upload photos from the other fun things I do. OK now let me tell you work (soccer) last night was INSANE!

The night started off frustrating, my game was first and it seems that every other week my team doesn't show up so we played a man down and the opposing team had no mercy and kept slamming the ball in the back of the goal, the good thing was we all got a lot of exercise trying to make up for only having 5 people not 6.

After my game I went to work keeping score etc. The next few games were easy but the 4th game in was out of control. Both teams VERY competitive - this is co-ed mind you. One of the teams in particular thought the ref was in favor of the other team (because it was our managers team and their family). Things got crazy and players got angry; angry at the ref, at me, at the other team - a lot of words were exchanged and dangerous plays out of spite. At one point of the game a player shot the ball as hard as he could and the defender got in the way and took the block to the head! (hence the picture). From my angle it looked like he got hit in the stomach but suddenly he started staggering and fell to the ground, I thought he was out. The player decided to get back up within seconds of being down and every time he got up he fell back down. All of us kept telling the guy to STAY DOWN and relax for a minute, but he insisted, and he walked off the field with a huge smile on his face as if he was on cloud nine and said to me in a high pitched voice "that's never happened before." He's got to be messed up from that blow, probably a concussion.

The game finally ended with a bunch of blue and yellow cards thrown, yet one of the teams felt the need to stick around and complain to the manager about how horrible and unfair the game was and how the ref and I were favoring the other team. Anyway the last and final complaint was that the facility has gone down hill because now it is run by all women. Oh dear! I just have to laugh at that. We always tell people who say that, "well why don't you come back in the office and try to run the place?" But I think everyone is upset because we are actually enforcing ALL the rules now. It gets stressful and it doesn't help that the night doesn't end until about 12:30 - but what can I say, I love soccer.

Now that I've probably put whoever braved to read this novel to sleep, I will end by saying HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Update on my life

2009-06-19T13:35:00.000-06:00

So I'm sitting here at work (I work at an art gallery for all those who don't know) and the building is shaking because of the all the construction. I'm worried the paintings are going to fall off the wall. Anyway I've been here since 10 this morning and I'm not going to lie I'm a little bored. If any of you are bored right now you should go to "alrounds.com" and check out the art that I'm surrounded by everyday, AND maybe purchase something as well :)

This particular piece is called "Cobblestones" and it's one of my favorites. Al Rounds is very talented, isn't he?

Moving on: last night I played in my indoor co-ed soccer game and I made some awesome moves. We played the top team in the league and we tied them 7-7. I'm trying to get better by only touching the ball 2 times before I pass it, so far I've been somewhat successful. It's a fun league and I look forward to playing every week, well almost. I should take pictures of all my friends there and post them on here... we'll see.

DAY 1 (of my blogging)

2009-06-19T11:50:00.000-06:00

So by special request of my mom I am starting a blog. So here it goes...

Watercolor

2009-03-17T11:15:00.002-06:00

Watercolors done for BYU class

Drawings

2009-03-05T13:04:00.002-07:00

I had to draw some form of a bike for an application to an art school WAY back when :)

incomplete drawing from my figure drawing class at BYU

Drawing I did when I was applying for the BYU art program - I got in obviously

more to come

Acrylic

2009-03-04T13:24:00.001-07:00

more to come

Bookbinding

2009-03-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

soon to come

Collage

2009-03-03T13:05:00.001-07:00

Christmas collage

more to come

Ceramics

2009-03-03T13:04:00.004-07:00

BYU ceramics class

Oils

2009-03-03T12:53:00.004-07:00

These are some of my oil paintings I've done