Mrs. Messer's "Watermelon" Portrait

Today I delivered the finished commissioned portrait of the two kids eating watermelon. (See the photo from January 12th blog, below.) This was for my Literature teacher at BSU. She really loved it and may even have another commission for me later on. Yay!

My literature teacher is Mrs. Neidy Messer from BSU. When I met with her today, I told her how much her classes on literature have been a major contribution to my life and have really helped me to grow as a person. As an artist, I can really relate to the creative approach of famous writers like Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London, etc. Not only were the literature classes fun but the knowledge, insights and philosophies I studied in those classes will stay with me for the rest of my life. These classes really helped me to think about the choices I make in life.

I am reminded of an old Twilight Zone episode called "Changing of the Guard" where a literature teacher has to retire and he thinks his life's work has been a waste of time. He thinks that everything he taught his students was forgotten. Then in the middle of the night, he goes to his classroom one last time and suddenly the room fills up with former students from his class. But these are students who have died, so they are actually spirits. Then one by one, they come up to the professor to tell him about something they learned from his class that stayed with them and had a major influence on them. The professor is so touched he actually cries. It is on of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes and actually helped persuade me to choose teaching as a career.

I recently saw this episode again during a Twilight Zone marathon during New Year's Eve and I couldn't help but think about my teacher, Mrs. Messer. Only I didn't want to wait until I was a ghost to tell her how much I appreciated her! She said that she doesn't get a lot of this kind of feedback and was very glad to hear it.

Art Day!

Except for the hour I spent fixing dinner, I spent the entire day doing what I love the most--creating art. It is nice to have a day when I can be this free!

The painting of the two children (above) happily eating watermelon is actually a portrait commission that I have been working on for several months and finally finished. This portrait is for a teacher at Boise State University. I am really happy with the way it turned out. It was done entirely with colored pencil and Turpenoid.

I even found some time to start on a new piece. It will be called "Massage Therapy" and features penguins. I know you are asking, "What does massage have to do with penguins?" Well, you will just have to wait until this piece is finished, then I will show you!

My Autumn Day Oil Painting

Today I went to BSU and retrieved my oil paintings from the 215 painting class I took last semester. We weren't allowed to take any of the paintings home until the class was officially overwith. This one was a Plein Air Painting that I painted in October. I was painting outside on the BSU campus and the weather was pretty good that day. I really like the way it turned out. I tried to get an impressionist style feeling to it.

You Have Entered The Twilight Zone

I have always thought of this period of time between December 26 and January 1st as a type of "Twilight Zone." Life does not go on as normal. At least not until everyone has had some time to recover from holiday madness and being frazzled with Christmas joy. I think it is particularly appropriate that the Sy-Fy channel is having their annual "Twilight Zone" marathon today.

I feel even more in the Twilight Zone this week because I am battling my way through a holiday virus that has given me an upper respiratory infection and has reduced my brain to jello. I have watched the entire "Back To The Future" series of movies on AMC about 3 times now. At least this virus had the good fortune of hitting me after Christmas and my Christmas Eve concert choir experience, which was wonderful.

I have had some brief periods of feeling pretty good and I have been working on a commissioned portrait that I am doing for my English Teacher at BSU. It is coming along very well and I plan to have it done before I go back to school in mid-January.

By next week I hope to have my brain back again.

Vineyard Boise Choir Flash Mob

Merry Christmas! For your entertainment today, I have included a video clip of the Vineyard Choir singing at the mall in "flash mob" style. See if you can spot me. I am the one with the glasses, short brown hair, black turtleneck, and a blue and green peacock-like poncho.

Flash Mob Concert at the Mall

Beside the visual arts, my other passion in musical arts, so I am going to get a little off topic here and tell you a story that relates to the musical arts.

Once upon a time there was a brand new church choir that decided to go to the Boise Town Square Mall and do an impromptu choral performance of Angels We Have Heard On High right in the middle of the food court! This sort of thing is called a "flash Mob." Why it is called that, I'm not really sure. Maybe it originated from the term "streaking."

Anyway, the choir decided to do this for a couple of reasons. First, to remind people that Christmas is about love and the birth of Christ; second, it was a not so sublte advertisement of our choir and the Christmas Eve concert we are going to have at the Vineyard this Friday.

This little "flash mob" performance occurred yesterday at around 4:00 p.m. The Vineyard Christmas Choir went to the local mall and we found tables in the food court. Then at 4:00 p.m. one brave person from our choir stood up in the middle of all the lunching and munching and began to sing a solo of Angels We Have Heard On High. It was fun to watch the looks of surprise with that what's-going-on look on their face. Then I stood up along with about 3 other people to sing the next line, turning it into a quartet, then more and more people stand up and start singing, until the entire choir is singing from wherever they happen to be in the food court. I have never done anything like this before and it was really fun! Some people smiled, some even sang along with the choir, and some just went right on eating their lunch. There was a rumor going around that this little incident might end up on the local news channel, but I haven't seen anything yet. There were a couple of people with cameras taking pictures and someone with a video camera, but no one from the local news channels.

There is nothing like the element of surprise to get your point across!

Making My Christmas Cards

School is over for the year!! I'm a week behind on blogging because I was busy finishing up the last tests and projects that were due the final week of school, which was last week. I am now on Christmas break until mid-January. Yay!!

My present art project is my Christmas cards. Since I didn't send Christmas cards out last year, so I am using what I was going to use last Christmas. My Christmas card design this year came from a sculpture project. I photographed & made copies of the soap sculpture and bird's nest that I made last year in one of my BSU art classes and gave it a Christmas theme. I decided to revise them by adding some specialty paper that will give it a bit more punch. Above is a photo of the final version.