Man Vrs Nature... Painter Style!

The other day in my painting we began the class with a critique of our still life paintings. When it came time for my painting I timidly explained I had painted the scene out the window of the pretty mountains and trees as my focal point. 

Then my teacher asked the question. My teacher asked why I didn't paint people, cars, signs and all the lamp posts that should have been littering my painting. 

My reply was simple, "I don't like people"

When I had said this, I had meant it as, "I don't like to paint people or man made stuff!" not as I hate people.... I think...  I do love landscapes and the beauty of nature. Well with my quick and witty reply we all kind of chuckled because we realized that none of us appreciate man made objects interfering with our art!That led us to add symbolism and double meanings to my painting like crazy! It made me feel like a real artist (chuckle)

I would like to note that I didn't consciously intend to have these meanings in my painting, but I'm starting to think subconsciously maybe I did! I do feel, that man is mucking up the wild and natural beautiful scenes around us. I'm sure glad I live in Montana that is still home to the free rolling plains and wide open sky you can see touch horizon to horizon.

Back to school! My piece was also called "creepy but in a good way"... "It seems almost to perfect, in a weird sublime way. The trees are whimsical, the tree on the left received the comment of trying to push its way into the painting. The painting was also compared to a film noir. In film noir's the women would look so beautiful and extravagant, but the lighting would not dance upon their eyes which would be completely black. This comparison was compared to that of the windows on the building. Windows usually allow you to look into something but not these all you get to see is a black abyss. Also by taking the people and excess of human objects out it personified control and emptiness. But then it shows the beauty in a mockery.

Today I showed my painting to my foundations 3D teacher from last year. She picked up on the eeriness but the perfect beauty right away! She said the mountains has a looming presence over the calm empty grass that was painted simplistic in contrast to the complexity of the mountains. She also made the comment of the emptiness suggesting presence. It was great to get her comments on it! 

My painting teacher suggested I should think about starting a body of work. I think that sounds like a very good plan on how to express my frustration in a calm manner! that I guess I didn't even know I had until now... Gotta love art!

And The Award Goes To....

So the other day my awesome Gammie(Grandma) accepted an award for being Docent of the year at the Yellowstone Art Museum (its the only art museum in Montana!!! all the others are centers or galleries) It was a very exciting and looooong day! My mom and I spent around eight hours driving that day. How we didn't kill each other I do not know.... Especially because my idea of driving is not exactly her idea of safe driving... hehe I am my fathers daughter!

So we made it to Billings alive! And on the way there I made art! Last year my Gammie and Mike-Mike(Grandpa) took me to France for a graduation gift! It was amazing, and has helped me a lot in my art classes!!! So I did a sketch of the Notre Dame with pen and pastel chalk. 

Here are some pictures of my amazing Gammie getting her award! She totally deserves it! She not only texts me all the time to let me know when they are getting french impressionist paintings into the museum, but has always supported my creativity and artsy fartsy side! When I was maybe around five or six she got posters for my brother and I. He got mighty ducks, and I got Degas's Ballerina in Red! I still cherish it! You can tell she really loves being a docent, she is always bragging about the museum and all the cool stuff she learns. She makes me want to be a docent!!! They could not have picked anyone better, although I am a tad bit biased... 

Happy Birthday To Me!

Happy Birthday to me! Say what??????????
This is one interesting story to say the least.

For the weekend I drove to Billings, MT to visit my grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousins, annnnnnnd to watch my High School Speech team compete at State! It was an awesome weekend hanging out with my grandma, shopping, and loading up on coffee :)

I very surprisingly made it to the small town of Worden for the first two rounds saturday at 8:30. YUCK. There is a reason why college kids sleep all day, we are not meant to get up early and for that fact I don't think anybody is meant to! Its not fun to get up at the crack of dawn, guess thats why they invented coffee!

I got to watch one of the girl's speeches and then watched a hum duo (humorous duet) skit! They were  soooooo funny! It was fun to see the girls at state they obviously had to work hard to get there! Speech and Drama is really awesome you get to know amazing people! From Speech and Drama I know Miss Alexis Wineman, who was just crowned Miss America's Choice! I also know a girl who is going to be on American Idol.  I know tons of other people who will probably be super successful and have already showcased the amazing potential that they have!

Then today was my birthday.... but not really....

I went out to lunch with some of my relatives at the Olive Garden (which is the best restaurant!!!). Their food is soooooooooooo goooooood. It was at the end of our meal that the table next to us had a birthday gig, so they got a cake and sang happy birthday it was super cute. And the Cake was too! It looked sooooo yummy! And so my Aunt's lightbulb just about exploded when she turned around from looking at the very tempting cake and very seriously said, "lets get that!". Well it was a great idea except it was none of our birthday's. Would that stop her? Sheesh of course not! And so she decided it was my birthday. As she ordered the cake we were all kinda looking at each other ready to start laughing. I couldn't almost hold it in! And of course when the waitress brought it they all sang happy birthday. Cool does this mean I'm already 20!? I had a cake that makes it official right???

It was super good

But its not my birthday....

Oh well, who cares!

LET THEM EAT CAKE! 

Speech & Drama and the Adventures of Hogwarts

Cat but no hat

I hope you feel intimidated by the picture of this cute kitty, as he stares out at you from your computer screen. Kitty knows all.

Except Speech & Drama. Kitty doesn't know about that, so I guess that means I better inform you of how the meet went in Manhattan! 

The day started out bright and early. yuk. I had forgotten how early we used to get up for meets. ew. We sprang from our beds and sped off to the meet! The girls had super hard competition, but they did very well.

Memorized Public Address
Speech from a high-school graduation speech

Expository Speech on the band Queen

Expository Speech on Street Art

Memorized Public Address
Speech from JFK's inaugural speech

After the meet we all crashed from exhaustion, but then energized our poor bodies with coffee and the excitement of a Harry Potter Marvelous Movie Marathon! Well we only watched the last 3 but that is still a lot of hours of English accents!

My coach and her accomplices very funnily put this on my Facebook.... there will come a day when revenge will be mine! -did I mention in the post they hoped I would make it into slytherin...

The time I got to spend with the speech team, and my great and wonderful mischievous friends made it a really great weekend. It was great to support these kids, they work hard and I am very proud of them and my coach, did I mention she is super-woman!?

Did I also mention I am the favorite?

*We have a tradition on our team that the coach picks a favorite, then all of team-mates fight over who the favorite really is.

Im sure theres a spell to make me the favorite forever.... 

Oie Not Much More Needs to be Said

Wow what a day! Work was crazy!

I was a hand model and a graphic designer! We had a student photographer come in to take pictures for a new division, and I got to tag along to demand my opinion and command with authority.... hahah not exactly, but almost! Then after an hour in the outdoors and freedom of the sunshine I once again returned to the dungeon of my closet office. I kinda feel like poor Harry Potter all cooped up. And so It was an intense day but hope came! My friend who is also a graphic design freshman returned! So part of the work load got dumped on her!!!! YAY!

I tried to pdf a brochure for the thousandth time and it printed all funky, which resulted in me just about having a heart attack!!! but I re-pdf-ed it, and all was fine! There was peace throughout the land once again! AKA I finally got to finish eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

Turns out you can use plastic bags as plates.... even for multiple days....being cheep is very creative....so is being an art student....I like dots...I don't think I have anything else to say...lame...

Until now! I finally made my way to Three Forks! After kinda loosing my way in the dark by taking a wrong turn my GPS finally found the way after I turned it on and off about five times!

Anyway.... I finally made it to my friends house to get-together with my ol' speech team from high school! It was great to see the kids and my old coach! (she's pretty awesome!) Her sister (who's house we were staying at) even made a  birthday cake for the twins on our team!

Twins! :) Happy Birthday!

Janna's amazing chocolate cake!

Meow

Meow Meow

The adventures continue tomorrow at the speech meet!

Merry Christmas Eve

WOW ok so I have been super busy and I have not gotten around to blogging in FOREVER! But its finally Christmas Eve so now I have some time!

I finally made it home on Saturday after my forever long car drive! But it was awesome cause I listened to the same play list over and over and over and over and over again! It was pretty epic! Good jams + loud stereo+ me, myself and I= AWESOME car ride!

So I get home with the expectation of my family joyously greeting me! cause seriously they haven't seen their favorite daughter/sister in like forever, but alas I must of hit my head or something! I was lucky enough to get a "hey" from my youngest sibling! sheesh talk about feeling the love! Good thing I plan on living in France someday!

But there are some things to be thankful for for Christmas....

1. JOSH GROBAN!!! (and not only his Christmas music, literally just him!)
2. Christmas trees!
3. My awesome friends! 
4. food LOTS of food
5. sleep
6. some more sleep
7. baking
8. snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9. some family tehe ;)
10. free time to snuggle with a good book!
11. sweaters!

So what r some things I don't like about Christmas?

1. Brett (my little brother asked to be on my other list so that automatically boots him to this one)
2. putting up the Christmas tree
3. not being aloud to sleep in past 8..... arg
4. not having the time to read :(
5. eating too much food
6. the cold brrrr
7. some family 
8. not being in France!!!!!
9. Dr. Oz (he is just super annoying) 

But it is nice to be for a little bit I guess we all have to deal with the crazy family during the holidays! 

So to update the past couple of weeks.....

For the De-stress fest I had designed the poster, which my boss loved! It ended up on the main college website, which was a big deal my boss informed me! For the event I also designed the T-shirts we gave away! 500 T-shirts were printed to give away!

A co-worker and I at the De-Stress Fest with Champ our mascot. 

I snuck a T-shirt for my brother! 

And so I was done with School the first day of finals but I stayed for another week to work but that allowed me time to hang out with my friends in Bozeman! I kept busy with two jobs so I didn't have anytime to get in trouble!  haha :) I barely had anytime to do Christmas shopping! 

And So Happy Holidays from the middle of nowhere up in Montana!

Why Monday?

Yuck Monday, why do Mondays stink so much? Should we be happy that we are starting another week? Maybe they should call it happy day, or give out free coffee, something??? Or maybe not have tests at 8am, then maybe Monday would be alright! 

At least the dinning hall had raspberry pancakes that made it a little better! And they got new bagel showy thingy (like my technical terms). But the dinning hall coffee is still 60% water so Mondays still stink. PERIOD.

I had a test this morning ew,  so a couple of things that you should make sure you have when taking a test is...

1.Patience, for when the Professor didn’t print off enough tests so your test doesn’t start till 10 minuets late.

2. A Great Professor, for when the test is late the teacher gives an extra 2 points to everyone as a sorry!!!

3.  Hope, because you really feel like your going to fail. 

4.  Coffee, because the dinning hall doesn’t have the real stuff. 

5.A Bubble, I wish I had that! there’s nothing like your neighbors giving you the brain stimulating aroma of stinkin pot in the morning.

 Oh the joy of college.

On a high note(hehe i made a funny!) I finished my 'box' project so I will post a picture tomarrow! 

Oh and this past weekend was a blast! I went on a hike with some friends who live in the area and we went to castle rock? something like that? but it was 5 miles and a really really long hike up hill! Ok hill is an understatement that thing is a mountain! 

from the top

the trail

Pretty Montana