Chalk Art Tribute

Ian and I went to the chalk art festival in June and ever since that I've been wanting to do some chalk art. Since I'm somewhat limited to Aven's nap time, and due to that my own home, I chose to create my drawing on my front porch where it's shady.

I taught my Drawing 2 students about Keith Haring last school year and had them create a Keith Haring style drawing. I was initially interested in Haring because he was an artist who was working and popular during my childhood as opposed to artists who had been long dead. After doing quite a bit of research on him I became a huge fan of him, his work, his style, and his mission in life and in the art world. So, in short, I decided to create a Keith Haring style drawing of my little family on my front porch. The cement on my porch was less than accepting of the chalk that I was trying to apply, so I didn't get the rich colors I was hoping for, but I still had a lot of fun and managed to finish just before Aven woke up from her afternoon nap:

The part of Aven is being played by "radiant baby" and Grace turned out much smaller than I planned, but that's okay.

Thanks for the inspiration Keith . . .

Water

This should be my last post of photographs from our trip to Flaming Gorge on the 4th of July. As you may recall from my fire hydrant photo series, I work for a water and sewer company. A company that puts out a yearly calendar and I have previously been asked if I have any photographs to submit to be added to the calender. Since we are a water company they tend to have lots of photos with water, usually landscapes with lakes or rivers. So I have been on the lookout for some nice landscapes with water features for a while now. Here's some photos I took of the creek that runs behind the family cabin. None of these are traditional landscapes, but traditional landscapes aren't really my style anyway.

Car Show

While we were in Flaming Gorge for the 4th of July we went to a car show they were holding at the local lodge. I took a few shots there that I'm proud of. 

"Do Not"

This is the floor mat of a custom designed semi truck. The place was all decked out in orange, it had hardwood floors leather and a huge flat screen TV in back. The orange floor mat was what caught my eye. 

"Belt"

I think this was a dodge, I don't remember exactly. I just liked the engine.

 

"Green Milk"

 

This was on a old Model T that was fully restored. It was actually for sale, but a little out of my price range. I love the old milk bottle used as a radiator overflow.

Night Shooting

One of my favorite things about getting away from the city into the mountains is the sky at night. I love the stars at night away from the city lights they are so numerous and amazing. I also love how much light they shine down on us so much so that those of us with good night vision can still see on a dark night with a clear sky. I think a lot of night photography is cheesy but it's fun to do so I took a couple while we were at the cabin the other weekend.

Blood Forest

Ghostly Blood Forest

 Firefly

Firefly Spark

Stars

Moving Stars

Moving stars was hard to shoot, when your exposures are 20 minutes apart it sucks when you don't have the aperture and ISO set perfectly. I might have been easier if I could remember more about the math of photography.

Visuals Notebook

While working on my B.A. I was required to take a studio class that was all about art production. It was pretty much self-driven with weekly discussions. The only real assignment we got was to keep what the professors called a Visuals Notebook. In it we could do just about anything we wanted- draw, write, collage, or anything else we could think of. Keeping these notebooks was one of my favorite things I did in my degree program and it is something that I kept up for a couple years after I graduated. I have decided to start a new one because it's a good way to express my creativity in a small contained space and it's a great stress reliever. It has been harder than I thought it would be to work in it since I spend a significant amount of my time chasing after a one year old, but I have managed to get a few pages I like:

When I worked in the photo lab at Westminster I used to collect all kinds of interesting things students would throw away in the darkroom garbage can. I still have many of those things in a box along with a lot of other images and scraps that I collected from all kinds of different sources. I got that box out and created the above collage.


Several sketches of my hand, each in a different medium.

I really love drawing with vine charcoal, which is what I used to create the above sketch of the meadow near my family's cabin.

The same meadow that I sketched in the previous picture done in watercolor. Lately I have really been enjoying quick, expressive line drawings and paintings.

More pages to come . . . (hopefully!).

Little Lambkins

I have been feeling very crafty lately and am feeling more connected to crafty arts like scrap booking and fabric arts than I am to drawing and painting, maybe because I feel like my efforts are more useful and appreciated. Above is the lamb I made for Aven that was featured in this blog's first post. I liked it so much and had so much fun making it that I decided to try one using felted wool:

I love this version even more than the original and I think it turned out great. I really like the visible seam and the old-fashioned look it has. I am looking forward to making more stuffed animals and will be looking for different patterns and will definitely be working with felted wool again.

When I complete a drawing in my sketchbook Aven doesn't want to cuddle with it and carry it around the house- that must be why I am turning into such a Holly Homemaker.