Of Vibrancy and Weddings

 I can't help but ogle over these colors.

My husband was a best man at a wedding this last Saturday. I have had the chance to get to know this couple over the past two and a half years since me and A.J. got married. A.J. and the groom Aaron have been best friends for years and years now; something that I can't even begin to imagine as I never lived in more than one place for longer than three or four years. All my childhood friends have long since moved on as I have to new adventures. A part of me really wishes for this kind of connection with people and so I find myself living some childhood dreams through my husband who gave a great best man's speech about falling in love and forgiveness. What great memories we are building with A.J's old friends and my new friends, and such vibrancy and warmth to remember such occasions by.

Making it fun!

I have not as of yet written anything about me teaching art at the Learning Foundation and Performing Art Charter School. I am their Art teacher and Bus Driver. An interesting combo but I enjoy it. The question arose when it was time to have the art students draw a still life; how to make it interesting and fun? I enjoy still lifes myself but kids in general do not. The typical bowl of fruit is what every student dreads. So then it dawned on me. It's almost Halloween, why not put Halloween objects together in a still life. We also, did the still lifes on black paper with chalk pastels for that extra awesome "pop". I drew a couple of sketches for the kids as examples to help demonstrate how to use the pastels on black paper and how to create an interesting composition. I had forgotten how much I enjoy using pastels. I kinda stared to feel addicted to drawing these pictures and I believe I am going to be dragging out my pastels more often. It's amazing how much we learn teaching.

Inspiration

My purple stripey socks are so fun I couldn't help but take lots of pictures of my feet.

Halloween is so great for the imagination.

I began to think about ballerinas with stripey socks.

So, I of course had to pull out my ballet slippers.

I think that stripey socks will definitely be showing up in one of my ballerina paintings before too long.

Peace Reigns

The next painting in my ballerina series. The goal for this series was originally 20 paintings but with all the other projects I've got going and also teaching art at a charter school, it is taking my longer than I had hoped. I have decided that in order to get a little bit of peace back into my life, as this painting suggests, I need to cut back on the number of extra projects I am taking on so that I can focus on getting....oh say.... the rest of this series done in a timely manner. Time goes by too fast and I always try to cram in too many awesome projects. Time to evaluate which projects would be good, which project would be better, and which project would be BEST!

A Young Woman's Influence

I just finished this one and entered it into the LDS Church Art Competition. Now we play the waiting game to see if I even get accepted into the competition. I will know by the end of December.

I was majorly influenced by the Young Women that I work with at church. We have such great Young Women; if you can't tell, I am quite proud of them. The theme for the competition is Make known His wonderful works. The painting illustrates how one young women's influence for good can in turn influence others who in turn influence others for good. It's a beautiful cascade that snowballs and can effect many people. I have seen this with our own girls in our ward how even small acts of service and kindness change peoples lives.

Finished.....Two Months Ago.

How does time get away from you? But the mural turned out nice and is a hit at the school!