Woah-livia

This chick is a total babe. Also she is my baby sister. I enjoy taking photos and have been practicing with some of my family, most recently Olivia's senior photos and my sisters newborn photos. Baby wasn't really newborn by the time I got my hands on him so he was a little wiggly. Wiggles and indignant cries at being put in strange positions makes taking baby pictures hard....but oh so cute. Let's just say Olivia was easier to photograph. Not only is she photogenic, beautiful, and a snappy dresser but she is also a dancer. aka-she can do crap that other people just can't in a photo. Enjoy her crazy moves.

Cheater Pants

Sometimes I feel like a cheater when I art. The project in my drawing class this week focused on stencil drawings with chalk. Something about using a stencil to create my project felt like a trick, like I wasn't trying as hard. Art teaches me new things every day. Mainly I have been grasping the fact that art isn't any one thing. It is everywhere in everything and there are countless ways to create. I have the same problem of feeling like I am cheating somehow when I do projects with computer programs like in my Photoshop class this semester. After our first digital painting my teacher proclaimed his distaste for all who call digital art "fake". The painter has to have skill, creativity, and knowledge to make a painting whether on the computer with a mouse or on a canvas with a brush. Another of my great teachers says that all art is a self portrait because no two people create the same and no two projects are alike. So for your enjoyment today is my stencil and chalk portrait of Aaron, also digitally remastered for his less colorful and more "manly" tastes, as well as my recent digital painting. Thanks to Aaron, Michelle, and Phillip for being my models.

I Resist. Wax Resist.

I don't like trying new things. It makes me uncomfortable. I love art. Art classes make me uncomfortable. The older I get the more I understand that what makes you uncomfortable changes you and change is usually good. Now I'm not saying that I'm going to start wearing a corset everyday because the discomfort will be good for me but doing things a little different IS good for me.

Wax resist is new for me and I don't love how it came out but it was a lot of fun to try. Oil pastel drawing covered with India ink and then scratched out. Great texture, not a lot of space for detail. Also below is watercolor and India ink, also new for me.

Try new things! It's scary and fun.

I'm a cheapskate, okay?

 

I've decided that I love to paint and that it cost's too much. With this discovery I went to my favorite place (okay, favorite might be a strong word), Deseret Industries, and picked out some nice big fat ugly pictures in pretty rustic frames for five whole dollars and just went nuts and painting over those ugly old pictures. Aaron was out of town on a business training trip all week and it was spring break so I had a lot of time on my hands. Of course I couldn't very well paint my assignment on the very holy spring break, so I did a couple of procrastination paintings instead. The first one just started out as a willy nilly color smash and kind of evolved into looking landscape-esque. I guess I'm not quite comfortable with full on abstract art just yet. The second one I decided to paint my wedding temple, Logan. I have this great picture in my house of it with a pretty flowering bush and some tree's and figured that was as good a subject as any out there. Anyhow, enjoy, I know I did.

Monet - The Master

 

I am taking an introductory oil painting class this semester and it has quickly become an obsession. I have always loved the idea of painting and I have always been terrified of it. Each new day when I pick up a brush I shake in my boots for a few minutes before I get up the courage to just do it. I love it! The most recent project was for us to find a master impressionist and try to copy their work. It is easy to look at a beautiful painting and say to yourself that it would be so easy to create it but the Masters are called that for a reason. I chose Monet partially because he uses color so wonderfully and also because he is one of the few of his time that didn't just love women in their birthday suits. I had a lot of fun doing this piece but it was also way more frustrating than my first painting because I was trying so hard to duplicate this amazing thing. I don't think I could ever be done trying to make it perfect if it weren't for due dates and all that nonsense. I have a much greater appreciation for the amazing impressionist painters out there, new and old. Now enjoy a few quotes from our good friend, Claude Monet.

"People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love." 

"Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment."

Family Portrait Project: Sister Keni Hill

This one is for dear sweet Sister Keni Hill who is serving a Latter Day Saint mission in Cusco, Peru! One of my favorite things about drawing people versus giraffes or bowls of fruit is that I stare at someone for long periods of time (in a non creepy way) so I get to really enjoy what is special about them. I don't know how well I captured her likeness but I did see a lot of family resemblance with her and my younger sister Olivia. All of my sisters have really similar noses except for Olivia and I just could never pin who she got that from. The answer is someone on my Dad's side of the family because Miss Keni here has the same nose!

Family Portrait Project: Fab Gab

 I don't know what it is about these Rowley girls but they are just too photogenic. Why is everyone getting old so quickly? For some reason Gabby is forever 6 in my mind but she seems to be getting older anyhow. What gives her the right I ask!? Now just look at her, gorgeous and rockin' the braid crown. I figured a high contrast monochromatic piece would be nice since I burnt up a bunch of my color on sunbursts recently.