Student Artwork

My kids assignment was to make an animation cel. This lesson plan I wrote on my own required they develop their own character from head to toe, give it some expression, and color it. They then they had to make a background in watercolor that their character fit in with. They took a transparency and painted their character backwards on it with acrylic paint. These are some of the first done:





It was a lot of fun and it seems like the kids really enjoyed it! I'm proud of them!

Bored on a plane again?

So Temp and I like to be crazy and creative on our flights, and this picture was one of the end products. We like to have one of us start with a little part of the drawing, I think I started with the head and it just went out of control from there: (but I like it!!)

Good news!

Salvador had a little scare. He has had a heart murmur since I have had him, but his last annual check-up gave us some scary news. The doctor suggested that we get an ultrasound of his heart, and that "she" would be concerned if it were her cat.
I made an appt. with a cardiologist, and today we went. Sal definitely has a heart murmur, but it's not too serious right now. We expected at least he would start medicine to stop the progression of his cardio-myopethy, but she said we didn't have to. Eventually it will progress, but we are fortunate it's not too bad right now. Because he has had this his whole life, he will probably live a lot longer. The typical cat is diagnosed/or develops this at around Sal's age now (middle age) and don't have much more life to live. But Sal is doing ok, and I am very pleased!! Those of you who have pets, make sure to do the annual exam, you could prolong or save your animal's life!

atlanta airport

restaurant in airport

fire off the freeway

this was fire we saw off 59 in houston

starting 'em young

big food

family dinner-elliott's & curtis'

new art series

making your own art is about personal expression. i struggle with that. i don't like to dive into my feelings or experiences, i guess i prefer to talk about them.
being surrounded by great working artists in the past months, and knowing that being a working artist will enhance my skills as an art teacher, i decided to explore my interests. i typically draw fun cartoons, or paint scenes that have little meaning when i think about it.
i have always been intrigued by the older man's face. i have done a lot of cartooning and pencil drawings, and i want to do more. i started trying to think of why. i typically answered with "old man have wrinkles that are really interesting to draw". but now i am thinking it's a little more deeper than that. i grew up on the same street with an amazing man: Bob Tracey. he was in his 70's when i was growing up on early street, and we had an amazing bond. we'd sit on a bench in the park and talk. he has met every president since kennedy, and he was named citizen of the nation by a president, he served in 2 wars and earned a purple heart. he inspired me to volunteer, to go for what i want, to have pride. this lead me to believe that maybe those wrinkles i adore so much represent stories of the man's past. for every wrinkle is an amazing story that needs to be told.
so i have decided to do an intense art study on older men. men that tell great stories. i want to paint, collage, draw, photograph these men. the man in the picture above is a man i was taught by today for an art teacher development day. he told great stories inbetween teaching us techniques in drawing, so i decided he would be my first candidate. i am uncomfortable about asking people that i don't know to take their pictures-let alone portraits, but i got the courage today, i told him my purpose and he was honored. i was start soon on his first portrait, and future portraits i hope to also make are bob tracey and my grandfather.

Our honeybee population

Have you noticed we haven't seen as many bees around in the past year? Being that I worked at Botanical Gardens, we took notice because they were a part of our daily lives and affecting our plants. We teach lessons on honeybees, and things were changing...
There were theories about where they were, one of them being that cell phone signals were confusing the bees so they weren't able to return to their hives. I found out tonight, that was a false statement made by a doctor in Britain.
On PBS's Nature, I learned that 1/3 of our honeybee population in the past year has disappeared. Have you thought about what bees help make in our daily lives? Besides the obvious-honey, they also pollinate our flowers-which produces fruit and vegetables. The honey contributes to our peanut butter, breads, desserts, etc.
The cause of this all-CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder is said to be a combination of problems. Ranging from pesticides, virus, and malnutrition. These things make the bees sick and disoriented, and at times the bee travels up to 3 miles away from their hive to pollinate and they are too weak or confused to return to the hive.
There are just certain things that grab my attention, and this was one of them. Here is a link if you want to learn more: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bees/.


Side note: I saw "Into the Wild" last night, an absolutely fabulous movie. It's about this college grad that dreams of going to Alaska-no money, no partner, just him and nature. It was a great realization of what we depend on in life. "Money makes us cautious" is one thing he said, but at the same time, love is a big part of being happy in life. I highly recommend seeing the movie.

Now carved

Temp's is a skull with sunglasses, mine is a witch on a broomstick, and Sal's is a cat on a broomstick. It was fun!!

We've made our decision

the final choices for temp, me and sal

Pumpkins!

so many choices!

Saturday

Temp looks like a model here!
Good times!
Old buddies!
Reunion!
Laughter with good friends! Happy B-day Emilie!

bowling w/ my buddies

good times!

Garfield

1st mobile blog. this is sal curled up in a box reminscent of Garfield

Altered Books

Temp and I were feeling creative, so we decided to start a new project idea. A couple of months ago, I saw a set of encyclopedias on the side of the road that were extremely outdated-yet in good condition. We picked them up and brought them home in hopes of doing this altered books project with my students. Now, since I know my classes, I am teaching all one class to 127 students, and 1 set of encyclopedias won't cover all of them. So Temp and I each took one for ourselves.
Altered Books is when somebody recycles a book that typically could otherwise be thrown in the landfill-or it could be new, and makes it their own. From cover to cover, they can rip, paint, glue, collage, cut, disassemble, whatever they want to that book to make it their own.
I have decided to make mine more of a journal or scrapbook. I have memories of old boyfriend letters, invitations, photos, newspapers that span important events in my life dating back to the 80's. I was a scrapbooker at the age of 7, and people probably don't know that about me.
Anyway, I have a lot of loose stuff that I wanted to catalog, and this is my opportunity. I am going to combine my art skills with my memories and come up with a giant yearbook of my life! (Not in any special order). Each time I make new pages, I am going to blog about it. Enjoy!

Improvise

So when you have a bum foot, and you love to go hiking and hang out with nature, you need to improvise. So Templeton and I have been canoeing, for the last 3 weekends. Last weekend, we purchased our own.

It's been a lot of fun going out into the open waters. We have gone to Newport News Park, Northwest State Park in Chesapeake, and today we went to Williamsburg, the Waller Mill Park. It's so beautiful out, and we got to stop by the outlets on the way home! Here are some pics from our canoe trip (more on flickr):

Lately

So I started teaching at the high school and am really enjoying it. Right now I teach 6 Intro to Art classes with the hopes in the future of including a graphic design curriculum in the future as well as teach photography. New teacher gets the least desirable classes at first. That's fine, because all my experience teaching besides public school has been basically "intro to art", and I love to teach kids techniques they have never seen before, or even just teach them the HOW TO DRAW! I am at a school that is a challenge, but I think I really do live for challenges! A lot of these kids haven't taken art since 5th grade, and I consider it my job to rope them in, and get them to be an appreciater of the arts as well. We have gangs at my school that threaten gang wars at each other, we have kids that are repeating their 4th year of freshman year and are 19. I grew up in an urban school, but not this urban. It's eye-opening. At this point, I would say I'd rather be in this environment than a rich school. I have learned so much from these kids already, and I think they are learning from me too--not just art. I have been teaching them about respect, social skills, vocation in art....sometimes skills they have never been taught. I encourage an environment of fun, laughter, interaction, sarcasm, but everyone works too. I know I have a different approach, but it works for me, and I come home the least stressed I ever have from a job. Because I truely feel I am making a difference. The school is newly renovated, only 5 years old, so we have really nice facilities. Every room has a projector mounted on ceiling, every teacher gets a laptop. The only thing is, there are 3 classrooms, 4 teachers, so I teach in every classroom while that particular teacher takes their prepping period. I have my own office instead of a desk in the classroom. I kinda like that better. I am curious to see how this year unfolds, but in the meantime, I am stoked I took time off to get my Masters and make a career change-I am too young to feel trapped and bitter about my job.




On a side note, I hurt my foot about a month ago. I have been seeing specialists and I have been diagnosed with my muscle on the top of my foot being torn--to the point off my bone. They say at least 4 months to recover, but I will do my best to be up and running a lot quicker than that. It's been eye-opening being a teacher where you have to be on your feet all day, and all the pain that it causes. The more I am on it, the more it can't heal because scar tissue cannot form. I try to sit when I can, and have the kids do more of the running around the class. Appreciate your feet, appreciate being able to run and long walks, because I for sure took that for granted. All from a guy stepping on my foot at kickball with cleats on. Darn him...

This week in photos

Templeton and I went to the Virginia Beach Aquarium and really enjoyed watching the sea turtles. The silouhettes provided by the children made for an interesting photo.


Templeton got this box and Sal kept jumping in it. We kept saying that it looked like he was riding in a boat the way he sat with ease. On the rainy Sunday afternoon, we sat on our porch to make it a real boat for him. I think he is pleased! The boat isn't the prettiest, but Sal is ok with it.

How many does it take?

Templeton and I went canoeing at Newport News Park. I told him my favorite bird is the Great Blue Heron after seeing them at work. One appeared shortly after that. I took pictures along the resevoir throughout our canoe trip, but then int he parking lot I spotted one along the beachy area. He wasn't as scared as the other ones so I kept getting closer and closer. 22 shots of the one bird later, I have a couple of shots I liked. I am obsessed with taking tons of shots of one subject so I can pick and choose my favorite. After uploading all these pics, I felt it was a shame to never look at all the work that was involved in getting the one shot I was proud of-so I made a composite of every shot, in order, to see the development of one subject and my camera.


I would say this one, number 4 is my favorite.

You're the Insulation

Our condo has been very hot the past couple of weeks, and after thinking and paying someone to come out and tell us there was nothing wrong with our A/C, he suggested we needed insulation. The condo association pulled together and spent 6 hours total, from cleaning out squirrel mummies and old radiator pipes to blowing in recycled newspaper insulation (cellulose) to keep the heat from entering our condo. Life as a homeowner...
Before picture of attic:

Templeton prepping for the start, surrounded by bags of insulation, totaling 50 bags.

Our neighbors Sean and Ben helped us. Sean and I packed this machine called the Cocoon with the insulation, and it grinded it up sending up a hose to the attic for Ben and Temp to spread thru the attic.

The finished product. 9 inches deep, roughly 2000 sq. feet, 50 bags later.

Happy Saturdays! (Sarcasm)

New layout

I thought I'd upgrade my blogger to the more efficient layout after all this time. Dragging and dropping page elements. I am hoping the new layout will inspire me to write more.
Temp and I's goal next summer is to go to Spain, amongst other countries in Europe. My freshman year of college, Temp and became friends. We made a goal with each other to go to Europe once we graduated. I think because we had a lot of similar interests and just got a long pretty well. (Pre-dating) Right after graduation, I had already started working a full-time job, and Temp got the job of a lifetime going on tour with pro-skaters, filming them. We weren't ready for the big trip and life had other plans for us at that time. Through the last 5 years, most of the time we couldn't financially dream of going there with me being in school and our move back to VA. So this is it, we finally will have 2 incomes, I will have summer off, and Temp can afford to take some time.
I have never been to Europe, Temp has. I think it will be amazing. We have sat together in the car driving across the country, to and from NJ, NC, SC, GA, etc and get along so well. We laugh, play games, learn more about each other. I think a trip to Europe will suit us well, and we'll finally achieve that goal we set (by next summer) it will be 10 years in the making!

Goings ons

Everyday I ponder about what I am gonna write in my blog. I get frustrated when others don't update regularly, but I am slackin' myself. I feel really busy this summer between work and other activities. I find myself not really enjoying being in front of the computer, but wanting to be outside working on my garden, sitting on the porch, going for a walk. I get excited about a kickball practice because I get to be with friends, forget about any stresses, and get some good exercise. I go to the gym at least 3 times a week, and that's been good for me. I was applying for jobs a lot, but fortunately that search is over. My kickball team for the summer won the championship so that was cool! I am still trying to work on that painting on scrap metal, I just need good sit-down time for it. I am really excited about new music and always classic rock. Led Zeppelin has really brought a smile to my face on the way to work in the mornings. I am just so happy with life right now, good friends, busy, good job, new job, and wonderful husband. Well here is a picture of the updated painting, you can see how it started a couple of blog entries below. I promise to write more often now!

My story

I laid in bed thinking about Father's Day gift ideas, and thought of making a memory book of my father and I. From when I was a toddler to today, expressing all that he has taught me thru our experiences we shared. I imagine collecting photographs depicting our story and compiling it in a picture, journal format.

I then started thinking about my life as a whole and how crazy it's been! I think typically when you are older, you don't share your life stories as much until you are really old with grandkids or something. When you meet new people, it's usually how are you today, what do you do? When you get a little closer, it's the daily questions, never what have you done? Who are you? What has made you YOU!

I kept thinking of everything that has made me ME, and how I just couldn't get rest until I wrote about it:

I was born in Grand Rapids, MI, at the time I had 2 brothers and a stay at home mom. I lived there until I was about 3 and have vivid memories of the home I grew up in. I have described it to my parents along with stories and they seem to be on point. This is the start of my strong memory!

We moved to NJ when I was 3 and I remember the car ride, eating those orange crackers with peanut butter in them. I remember being in a car seat. I have memories of hating taking naps, and being fascinated by clouds covering the sun in my bedroom windows making it appear darker then lighter in the room. I was always fond of TV and made my own mini tv guides so I knew what was on next. We all had tv's in our rooms, so I spent a lot of time there.

I remember being in my first car accident with my neighbor, mom and brothers. We went to visit a horse ranch, and stopped to get ice cream. A large van crashed into us, and we spent the evening at a chiropractors office listening to Elton John. I was a gymnast, and was pretty successful at it. I was a girl scout and always looked forward to crafts. I had a classmate that was the class artist and I was jealous of his constant attention and recognition. I played soccer from 5th grade on until today. I was pretty insecure and not really close to my brothers. I spent my weekends with my dad going to hardware stores and soccer games. I had a couple of close friends, but never was the type to be invited to a lot of parties. I never really had my own.

I had a "sick" childhood, from being diagnosed with a brain tumor-which later turned into water on my brain. To mitral valve prolapse, gastritis, epstein barr virus, esophagitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, hiatal hernia... and the list goes on. I feel like I was sick at the time, but all of these diseases have not plagued me into my adulthood--or since I started college except for hypoglycemia. I feel that a lot of my sicknesses were put into my head, and that kinda freaks me out.

I have an adopted brother from Korea who we adopted when I was 12. I ended babysitting him a lot and it gave me a wake-up call to raising children. I bonded with him and think he was an important addition to my family. He is now 15 and we aren't as close. He's a typical teenager I guess.

I never was motivated to go to college, no one in my family went. I worked hard, but was never the straight A student. I always enjoyed art though. Junior high was the worst time for me, I had a low self-esteem, got picked-on a lot, and lost close friends that I had from my childhood. I went to high school and felt comfortable with the older kids than I did with my own age. I had lots of crushes on guys, some would say I was boy crazy. I think that I like the challenge, and I felt pretty if I got their attention. I was never a bad girl, just innocent crushes.

I was in a horrible car accident when I was learning to drive. My father and I went over the edge of a parking lot when he was teaching me to drive and we went 30 feet straight into the ground. He broke ribs, I hurt my knee and jaw. I was scared to drive for awhile, and it was a big reality check. I got my license a little later than most.

In high school I was determined to be recognized as an artist. I painted murals, designed billboards, entered contests. I wanted to beat that boy in reputation of being the best artist. Senior year, we were both voted class artist. But I got Best in the Visual Arts of our class. I felt that was one of my biggest accomplishments.

I decided to study Graphic Design in college. I was never the best, and did not invest what I should have in college. I enjoyed the social aspect, still never had drank or smoked. I just liked the party atmosphere and studying people. To this day, I enjoy being around strangers, interacting with strangers. I am trying to figure out why. I get anxiety in talking with people I know, maybe out of fear that they will judge me. Strangers are a clean slate, any conversation is ok, and people are more likely to open up in my experiences. When we talk to our friends on a daily basis, it's more of the day to day talk...I can talk about the most random stuff with a stranger. My sophomore year I accomplished my life's dream. I always appreciated Walt Disney and had the opportunity to do an internship there. I met a guy the week before leaving and he asked my dream in life. Cheesiest line I ever heard! I told him to work for Walt Disney Animation. Just so happens, his uncle was the director of animation. He gave me his uncle's contact info, never saw him again. I went to Disney, worked days interning and learning about animation, and worked nights on an attraction called Alien Encounter. It was the dream come true.

I went thru a hardcore religious phase. I started going to a Baptist church and went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. I hated having to evangelize to people about how wrong Catholicism was (when i was raised Catholic), but working with the people of that country, hearing their stories, partaking in their daily lives was a life changing experience.

I started dating my husband at the end of college. We were good friends for 3 years and often pondered the idea of dating him. I would be jealous if he was dating another girl, but was too scared to tell him. I finally decided I had nothing to lose as were to go our separate ways when we graduated. It was one of the best things to ever happen to me. After college I got a wonderful job at a company called Decipher. I was a production asst. and made playing cards and promotional items for Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, etc. What a great job that i loved. I worked with people that were fun and easy to talk to. But Templeton had gotten a job touring with skateboarders (a dream come true) and then moved to Los Angeles. I knew to make the relationship work, I'd have to go out there too. I moved out there and struggled the most I ever have. I couldn't get a job for 3 months. I first lived in a house with at least 8 vegans pursuing a job in acting. I finally moved in with my roommate from DisneyWorld and got a job as a gopher for a production company. I got up at 5am, drove to Venice, got coffees and bagels for the staff. I was at their beck and call. During my free time that day, I talked to the animators that were currently working on Barbie commercials and told them that was my thing. I was an artist, not meant to be a gopher!! They called me the next day and for 4 months I was an artist for Mattel Barbie commercials. This was LA!! The job was winding down and I needed to get something more stable. I applied and got a job as a head art teacher and manager of an art school out there in Northridge, CA. After 8 weeks of art, managerial and observing, and I lead an art school for a year. I discovered my passion.

After much frustration with California, and the desire to settle down with my then-boyfriend. We moved back to Virginia. I got a job as the art manager of a screenprinting company and hated every minute of it. I had never been surrounded by such mean, corruptive people, and had to leave after 6 months or so. I decided to return to college and get my masters in education because that was my true passion. During that time, I married the most wonderful man in the world. I have taught at private art studios and now am looking for that public school position to open up.

I am proud of who I am and what I have done. I wish I had a closer relationship to my family, but we are all too independent for that I think. I have my insecurities like having fears of disappointing people, calling people to hang out. I think I fear letting people get to close to me. I have big dreams for my future, and have many shared dreams with my husband. I am goal oriented, and when I say I will do something, I will. I have a cat that I adore, and he relaxes me. I had a great, picturesque wedding day, and great home. This is my story....try it some time, it's hard!

Good night.

New canvas

I am attempting to paint this....

on this... scrap metal. Gonna paint in oil paints...to be continued.

Yummy steaks!

Dollar Store Steaks, can't get better! Saw this in Greenbriar...

This was on Ellen this morning, SO FUNNY!

A Beautiful Job

Norfolk Botanical Gardens

yes

party, saturday, be there.

Finished Colin

This is the finished piece. Wow...I am just recently into watercolor as of this past fall. I think I have made 5 pieces now total. I enjoy the medium. I used to avoid it like the plague, but now I am stoked. Anyway, I finished this quicker than I had originally planned so I could send it to Lila on her first Mother's Day...

I'm Back!!

While finishing up student teaching, I have been working on some projects that I wanted to share:
This is a portrait I am doing of my new nephew Colin, this is the pencil drawing, next is watercolor.

My cooperating teacher at my student teaching introduced me to a new form of photography. It's called Polaroid transfers. I brought slide film on my trip to Seattle and developed them. You put the slide in a machine that basically takes a polaroid picture of your slide. The first image is a scan of the original slide photo. The second picture is where i put the polaroid picture in boiling water and pulled off the emulsion of the polaroid. Basically the ink part of the picture leaving only the white backing. I then put in cold water, wet a piece of fabric and pressed the emulsion onto the fabric. Basically it ends up being a translucent, fragile piece of a picture. The last picture is a "lift" of the negative of the polaroid picture (basically the black side that you rip off). I rubbed that on to a piece of Reeves BFK paper. Then at home I used colored pencils and watercolor to enhance it. Being that it's the ink from the negative, the image is not very strong in color.
They are all taken from the original slide. It's pretty cool!

New member of our family

My oldest brother Rob and his wife Lila had a baby boy this morning named Colin Robert. I am really stoked for them, wanted to share with everyone! --Aunt Kellie

Russian Tunnel Footy

This 3150 m long tunnel in Russia is the longest in-city tunnel of Europe. There is a river running over it and water leaks at some points. When the temperature reaches -38 degrees like it did this winter, the road freezes and the result is the attached video taken during a single day with the tunnel camera.

CPR Update

Chest presses, not breaths, better CPR

Chest compression — not mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — seems to be the key in helping someone recover from cardiac arrest, according to new research that further bolsters advice from heart experts. For more, go to: http://health.yahoo.com/news/_173117

Bowling

Temp and I went bowling last night. I had a lucky night and both times when the red pin was in the middle of my stack, I bowled strikes! So I got 2 free games! Then at the end of the 2nd game, I got 4 spares and a strike and ended with the 143--I think my highest score! YAHOO!