Our Orchid Tree

Just another beautiful Sabbath day...had to take a picture of the blossoms on our Orchid tree out in the front yard.......the Kuhn's brought us this sappling a couple of years ago to plant. The whole tree has grown to 10 feet and is covered with these beautiful pink and purple flowers!.....sigh..... I LOVE flowers........and now that spring is here I have this intense desire to just throw everything to the wind and spend the time outside soaking up the nice temperates and beautiful sights and sounds. I know it won't last long as hot weather will be here before we know it!!!!! I can't wait for Jocelyn to come over so we can plant the petunias in the flower bed!

What a DAY!

So, I wish you all could have seen me today....if you can imagine, I was loaded down to the T trying to get to school on time....I was bringing extra "stuff" to do our photogram in Design 1.....jar lids, lace, tissue paper, ribbon, crystal plates, anything that was "sheer." All this was in addition to my normal HUGE bag of art supplies that fits over my shoulder and is about 2 1/2 feet wide, plus my art case with all my other artist tools (aka a tackle box). It was quite comical as I kept dropping stuff on my way out to the car. My earring popped off and fell somewhere on the driveway as one of my bags whizzed past my ear. So I'm on my knees looking under the car, we are already 10 minutes late getting out the door and Jennifer is calmly saying, "Mom, it's okay. You'll find it." Not that I was in a PaNiC, I'm sure she was interpreting the look on my face as sheer "freak out" but this earring was one that I had bought in Hawaii at the swap meet in the Aloha stadium, which means I only paid $4 for them. So I am digging around in the cracks of the driveway looking for the lost earring, no actually I am digging around in the grass that has grown in the cracks of the driveway. Five minutes later.....nothing......I jump in the car and head to school. Halfway there I pray for a parking place (if you are late you have to park way out by the hospital and hike to class). Found a great parking place right up front.....juggle everything up a huge flight of stairs....watch Jenny take two stairs at a time and then smile down at me as I am just making the first landing.....huff, puff, huff, puff......everything is falling off my shoulders. I'm telling myself, "stay calm, don't lose it in front of Jenny." I wasn't really trying to be super MOM, I just didn't want to hear her laugh at me! I made it to class with seconds to spare and just put my head down on the table to wait for our exercise in the darkroom. At this point I'm thinking "what have I done to myself? What crazy notion made me start school?" I prayed for my earring.....I'm almost sure that it is stuck in my tire since I had to take off without finding it. There is no happy ending here of course. As of this writing tonight I still haven't found it....but my juggling act continued throughout the day. We left class to go downstairs to the darkroom where I created 4 photograms, then had to juggle all my supplies plus 4 wet photograms back up the stairs!!! Needless to say I was the last one back to class. I managed to get to the car after class, ran to Hobby Lobby to buy more paint and a big hole punch for the next project that's due and spent the day painting out grayscale swatches, which, by the way, are lying all over the house to dry. Dad's gone to bed and I suddenly have this vision of him climbing over Mt. Everest to get there. Now I have to go pack up all the boxes I left out in my room from early this morning when I was digging for "stuff." I'm tired..........

The Easter Egg Hunt!

Our Easter Egg Hunters!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone and Happy Birthday to Zac. We love you all and hope that you enjoyed some wonderful time with your families celebrating this holiday together.

Papa and Ivy

Couldn't resist putting a picture of Papa on the blog holding our newest granddaughter, Ivy. She is so cute and looks a lot like her Dad, at this point. Jeannie and Ivy are doing great and I'm sure our son, Charlie, is happy they have recuperated from their difficult birth. We are just so happy to have Ivy here and Jeannie doing well!

Web of Shapes

Hey guys this is a design I put together for my class. Its called the Mandala project and I kind of wanted my finished project to not look like a Mandala and to create a sense of movement by making the shapes slightly bigger. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed creating it. I call it a web of shapes.

Radial Symmetry

Here is my latest design from Design 1, a piece on radial symmetry. I call it Explosion! For this I studied mandalas. I searched online for radial designs in nature and decided to push the envelope a bit and have it break apart as it moved from the center.

Midterms!

This is my midterm project! I had to do a piece in the manner of another artist so I choose Miwa Yanagi. She uses a lot of symmetry in her work and some of her images represent the restricted roles of women in Japan, so I did a piece showing the openness of women in other parts of the world: some even taking on the role of men......Notice there is no ceiling and the windows are open. There are lots of layers in this photoshopped piece. If you want to see a contrast of Yanagi's work, just google her name and look at some of her images from the Elevator Girls series. This was fun ....I still have more to go on three other projects!

Radical Waves, Jen's First Post!

Hi, it's me, Jen. Just wanted to post one of my latest designs since Mom is posting some of her work. In this piece, which I call Radical Waves(Mar 2008), I wanted to experiment with radial design using the computer and observe how colors react to one another. I am learning alot in my Design class and I feel it is refining my ability to see design in my everyday life. It is so amazing!

Learning the Ropes

Well, our class played a Photoshop tennis match in our digital imaging class this week and this was the image I created and then lobbed over to another artist. The Perfect Match. I have not included his additions as I don't have his permission to place it on the blog yet.

This next image was created two weeks ago for our second project of the semester. We were to put together a compilation of images that represented our favorite song. So here is my interpretation of Rob Thomas's "Little Wonders."

A Tranquil Moment

I love photography, art, design, and those things that touch the heart so I couldn't resist sharing this image I snapped of a the sun setting on the island of Oahu from the North shore on Sunset Beach (2007). It was a moving experience. Just a quiet awe as we watched the ocean and earth come together, wrapping us in its warm glow, the sound of gentle waves licking their way across the sand.

A Beginning

Don't have time to load anything today but I have created my first blog. I hope this will be a vehicle for passing information and happy moments to my family and friends in the midst of all the craziness of school.....yes......I am in school after a long 30 some years absence as a student. I am deeply immersed in studying art and design. Who knew that I would follow that route! I always thought I would study music.....I love to play piano....but here I am.....feeling my way through Design 1 and Digital Imaging. Hopefully I will get a chance during spring break to post some of my designs.