{crazyjen}

a painting

When I was in college I took a design class which involved a ton of paintings. I can't remember where they all went to. I'm not even sure I got them all back from the class but my favorite one is this:

Our assignment was to create our desktop, it didn't matter where, it didn't have to have a wood background, just a desktop, whatever we had been inspired by we could paint. Any objects we wanted but we had to have a picture of something (the desert), we had to fill the canvas, we had to have the objects touching the borders or look like they are off the page, we had to have shadows and we had to have an object that was floating (the dice). Other than that we had free reign.

This painting was drawn by hand with a graphite pencil then painted with acrylics. I watered the acrylics down so you get more of an opaque watercolor than a saturated acrylic.

Disclaimer: I'm not much of a painter, in fact I don't do it much at all, I prefer and am way better at drawing so I'm no friggin' Monet, Van Gogh, Klimt, Frida Kahlo...so if you're expecting that you should probably exit the blog now. :)

Here are some detailed shots of my painting:

The scissors on top of the pencil. The first thing I drew on the page. The metal part was hard because it wasn't really shiny but it had reflections on it.

My favorite and most realistic looking item on the whole page. The frosty coloring page. You can't tell whether or not the coloring is actual crayon or not, even my teacher did a double-take.

It was the middle of winter so I was inspired by Christmas and coloring (for fun and relaxation) and sending out handmade Christmas cards. That santa is a stamp that I drew by hand. Well, the whole picture I drew by hand then painted.

The crayon box, so much fun. It looks dirty and used just the way it really looked in person. Very difficult to get it angled correctly and the shadows appropriate.

A red crayon, harder than it looks but my other favorite painted piece.

a full-house, a reflection of my love of cards and living with a full house of estrogen (7 other girls). The easiest and took me the least amount of time.

the candy cane, something I was sucking on while working on drawing this.

Can anybody guess what the background is supposed to be? Leave a comment, I'm curious if anybody knows what it is.

Oh and one more thing. My least and most hated part, the picture of the desert. Ughh...I'm not sure why I chose that, probably something along the lines of balancing out the mass of christmas and winter related items.

p.s. I did get an A on it. That was nice.

The Stomach Flu and an Adventure

So right now I am sitting at the computer because I stayed home from work due to the fact that I puked my guts on from 5am to 10 am every hour on the hour. Yeah, lovely, beautiful, something you wanted to know on this blog. Anyway, I stayed hom 'cause I refuse to go to work when I am puking. Yeah, I probably could handle it but no I refuse. Work is not life and death. I'm not a doctor and even then I wouldn't go.

So, I am feeling a bit better so I thought I'd check my email and write a post while sucking down the Gatorade I bought an hour ago. Yep, I decided I'd grab my puke pot and head to Medford to get some Gatorade. I'm dehydrated and need fluids baby and it's a handy way to fluid-up.

Okay, so, now that I'm past that garbage here's what I wanted to post about. The ballet Swan Lake on Friday at the Fitzgerald with Mitchelley.

We found our way to the Fitz fine. No map necessary although we had to make a loop once because we thought we passed the place but we really didn't go far enough. Anywho, the show started at 7 p.m. and they had a children's ballet group perform Elfin. It was okay. I wasn't thrilled but it was alright. I can't say it was bad but just okay.

So the ballet started and Swan Lake is 4 acts long which is a lot. usually they are only 2-3. They did the entire ballet. It was so long. It was awesome but really long. The principal dancer was amazing. She was. She spun in circles en pointe and moved from the back of the stage to the front doing it without stopping. That was awesome! I loved the story behind Swan Lake so it was pretty cool.

Other observations: The principal male dancer had some serious muscles. It looked like he was chiseled from granite or something. Michelle and I can never understand how they can handle those tight pants. It looks like they have a giant wedgie.

Um...far be it from me to criticize as I will never be able to do ballet. Never. I mean, I've got strong legs but I'm too top heavy. :) I'm not graceful enough either. I'm no swan, more like an albatross. :) But that's okay. So there was one thing that bugged me. When the girls would their dancing in groups they were always out of sync and not lined up like they should be. You know? It annoyed me because I was distracted by it. That's the only thing I'm going to say I didn't like.

So...Michelle and I had to leave at 10 p.m. because she was tired and we needed to get home. How sad. I didn't get to see the end of it, but that's okay, I'll get another chance.

We leave downtown St.Paul and attempt to get onto I35 via Wabasha and we found it was blocked off, so we decide to go back to Kellog and try and get on there. We get back there and you know what? That was blocked off too. Okay. Next plan...go down Grand and try to get on there, it's south of the Xcel Center. Nope, that was blocked off too.

So my first thought was sh*t, we are trapped like rats on a sinking ship. We can't get out of St.Paul. Okay, no that wasn't what I really thought but it sounded funny at the time. I was trying to get Michelle to laugh because she just wanted to get home and was getting upset that we couldn't.

So, next plan. Get on 94, go to Mpls? or keep travelling south and try to get on a different exit. Okay, we pick Plan B. (Can I just stop and say that all this time we had no map. Yeah, no map. So we are going on instinct and prior visits to St.Paul. We are the travelling champions, well, reserve as Dad is the total champ but you get the idea.)

So we decide to try and find the exit we took when we went to the Wild Game, which was somewhere on the Southwest side of St.Paul. We tried that and once again were thwarted 'cause there was even more construction.

Okay, next step, we get to Snelling and decide to bite the bullet and get on 94 and go to Mpls, which we did. Unfortunately we were slowed down to about 15 mph because there was a huge accident on the other side. yeah, a car had flipped over, went up the embankment and rammed into the sound-reduction wall. It was crazy. Anyway, so we finally get on 35w and we get slowed down after crosstown because 35 is down to one lane. We actually stopped at one point. Lovely.

So in all that blather it took us 2 hours to get home instead of the usual 1 hour. :)

After looking at a map though we could have taken Snelling south to 5 then hit 494 but I didn't know how far south we were so we elected the 94 to Mpls route.

Exciting Friday

So here's an update:

Today is a gorgeous 70-degree day. It's beautiful and a little breezy, just the way I like it. Michelle and I are going to the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul to see Swan Lake performed by Ballet Minnesota. Should be exciting. I can't wait. I love ballet and I haven't gotten to see one in over a year. How sad, I know. We decided to eat at Boca Chica a Mexican Restaurant in St.Paul. Carlotta, co-worker, said it's the best, so we'll try it.

So yeah, that's the news from the crazyjen newsdesk. I hope you have a lovely and productive day and remember, stay positive (that's what my Aunt says).

Throwing a pot

Me centernig the pot. You have to get it centered correctly or you'll never throw an even pot. It'll be lopsided or the walls will be thicker on one side.

Road Trip - Polaroid-style

I took a trip to Wisconsin this weekend and snapped some shots of the scenic route along the way. No that doesn't mean I got lost. I never get lost. Seriously, I don't. I always figure out where I'm going, occassionally I take a wrong turn or something but I figure it out right away. I'm not bragging just stating a fact. That's my dad in me. Boys eat your heart out. I always say my sister and I should go on that Amazing race show. We'd kick some serious butt. I mean Michelle not Kim. Kimmie has problems with directions. :) (hee hee haa haa Kimmie!)

Anyway, that's beside the point.

Here are some of my favorite pages that I did. I used a 7 gypsies album. I cut my pictures down to a 3x3 size and mounted them like a polaroid image. I think it looks cool. It only took me a couple hours to do. It isn't that exciting but I had fun doing it.

minnesota to wisconsin.

 

this is me int he rear view mirror

DQ...need I say more? I didn't stop though. I was in a hurry.

A picture of my car's shadow. So, by looking at this picture can you tell which direction I was going?

i just like the paper i used, the letter stickers from american crafts and the journalling pieces in the corners from making memories.

Okay, here's the album so you can see all of them. Road Trip - Polaroid Style

I was in a scrapbooking mood

So here are a bunch of layouts I did tonight and on Monday night.

This first one I did for Emily's Art Journal Challenge called Life and I used a Pencil Lines Sketch.

Here's the sketch.

Here's a better shot of the journalling.

Here's a close up of the picture. You can't tell but the picture is on pop dots to try and make it pop out of the page.

Truth:

Here's a better view of the journalling

Here's the link to my other Art Journal Album layouts.

So then there is Elise's weekly challenge. I love the challenges she gives. The words always seem to give me really good ideas or I think to journal something that I normally don't. Isn't that what it's all about?

Operation 14: Looking Forward

Here's the title detail

Here's a detail of the bottom right corner. I used a Heidi Swapp flower rub-on then a Making Memories postage sticker that points left.

Operation 13: Spring

Yeah, it's kind of crazy but I was excited for spring so I used a lot of color and flowers and a bit of craziness because I have the winter blues or whatever it's called.

Spring, bring it on baby.

here's the journalling. I know it's a bit difficult to read but i like to write on top of pictures sometimes and this was the perfect one.

Here's a link to my Random in 2008 book

Mary Ellen Matthews

So I was tooling around on the internet and I came across a post about the pictures that flash before SNL comes on. You know they show pictures of the guests? Well I always like them and think they are very cool. Well this post linked to this Mary Ellen Matthews, the photographer. So here's a couple of my favorite images. {Bon Jovi, Britany Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Lindsay Lohan, Natalie Portman}

 

Pottery Class

I finished my 8 week pottery class a couple weeks ago. I just picked up a couple of my finisehd pieces tonight.

The class was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I signed up for another one that starts in a couple of weeks. I can't wait. Now that I sort of have the hang of it I hope to get more done this time. :) The classes are at the Owatonna Arts Center and are taught by Joan.

Here is a couple pictures of the classrom, some unfinished pottery and some finished pottery.

The wheels and the shelves where we keep our drying clay pieces.

The shelves on the walls containing most of our tools.

The wall by the sink with our clay tools. I called this picture "Pottery Graffiti"

An unfinished piece that was drying and needed to have the finishing touches put on it before the first firing in the kiln.

My pieces in color. The top is a cylinder with stars on all sides colore din blue. The next is a bowl then a large cylinder and a plate.

The cylinder on the side resting on the plate. I used a green for the inside and a teal for the outside color.

My cylinder. I love how the teal dripped down the sides. I think it's pretty wicked.

My bowl and plate.

And my favorite piece. The bowl. I love how the coloring turned out. It's small and cute. I love it.

My Favorites Album

Some pictures of the Favorites album I started.

Cover

dedication page

details

Keira Knightley - my fav. actress

page 1

page 2

Matt Damon

Viggo Mortensen

The Closer

My favorite tv show. Hands down.

Here is a link to my Favorites album from 10.1.06 in case you're interested in what my favorites were at that point or at least what was at the forefront of my mind.

Elise's Challenges

Elise's paper adventure challenges for the last couple of weeks were:

Operation 10: Got Talent, list a talent you believe to possess. Toughy, really but as I'm infatuated with Photography I chose that. I love to do it and believe I take good pictures. I do have a lot to learn but I'm on my way.

I used some different papers here: Wild Asparagus is the black patterned and blue strip on the left. Elsie's Line for the camera strip and some American Crafts white spongey letter stickers. I used Luxe circle rub-ons as well.

Operation 9: Take it or Leave It

I wrote down a piece of advice that a very good friend of mine once told me and it's so true. Read the Layout to find out.

Pat was my senior by about 30 years when I worked at the Law Firm during College. We would go on bike rides and go to the movies together. She was a great friend and mentor. I miss her so much. She was a delightful boss and a wonderful friend.

Operation 6: Color

I took a couple pictures of some stuff in my room that were colorful.

Here's the detail.

Top left to right and down: Red fake animal skin bag I got from Bath and Body Works one Christmas. My green summer co-ed softball team shirt. My orange xyron sticker maker. A beautiful picture of Tampa Florida I took last year. A small yellow legal pad full of stuff I need to get done. A purple ornament on my fake tree.

The journalling. I love the letter stickers on the right. Aren't they fun and cool? I need to buy some more I think. :)

Here is the whole album of all the layouts so far. PaperChallenge