Zions A Creative Response

I finally got shots of some paintings I did for the traveling exhibition entitled Zions A Creative Response. One of the paintings is this one, entitled Patriarchs. It is a 16x20 oil on linen. The title, just so you all are aware, came from the land formation we happened to be passing at that time, but has an interesting play on meaning.

Make up for procrastination

I just thought you all should know, that over the past two days I have done four Bargue copies :) ... and started a new season of Lost. But hey! I got some progress made. I'll take some pictures and show you my latest, but that can wait until tomorrow, or Friday after my test. (dang it) oh and P.S. I got the parents hooked too, so it's no longer Dakota and I. :)

My most recent guilty pleasure

so I don't really have the time to even like something like this, but Jennifer and Jeremy have got me a tad bit enthralled with the TV series LOST. I have always said that I wouldn't do something like that, and I actually think it is highly pathetic. Here I sit, watching the exploits of a bunch of strangers lives with rapt fascination, and neglect the things in my own life that I would regularly do, since discovering the series I have yet to do a Bargue copy, how sick is that!? so I am limiting myself to one episode a day... unless it had a hook ending. :)

Just keep swimming

well, even though I said I wouldn't post unless I had something pivotal in my life and demanded pictures to be shown--I decided I should make a post telling you all that I am alive and still swimming. It's a dog paddle but my head is above water--I am sorely wanting a break to sharpen the saw and get hyped up for next semester. Final projects are a killer... but in all, I'm alive and well. Mom is doing good, dad has a sinus infection and an earache at the same time-- poor guy. But we are all doing well... hope everyone out there can keep swimming too.

me

Twilight

So quite officially, I went and saw the movie with Jennifer, and I liked it. Yeah, it was corny, sappy, and kind of lame--but way better than the book. Even though I didn't give the book a chance... which I am rectifying. I decided I would read the series but even more than that, I decided I should start writing again. If this got published, I'm sure Timothy has a fighting chance in the world. I love creating stories and reveling in other's creations. Anyway, If you haven't gone, I would suggest going because it is pretty good, at least worth seeing once... or twice :)

My Niece Ava Belle

Well everyone, and especially Jami and Brandi YOU ARE AUNTS AND I AM AN UNCLE, wierd huh? so this is her, Jer and Michelle's baby. What a doll. I hope to get a few paintings out of this one.

the nurse is measuring her and checking everything. The doctor gave her an A+, even though she is slightly tongue tied. :)
Proud new parents.


mom even gaver her a bow.

In Loving Memory

Yesterday was one of the hardest days I've had in a long time. Alot of you know, but my wonderful friend Jo has passed away. At only four years old, he had a good life ahead of him--but sometimes we just don't understand God's plan. He and Lady were in the round pen together--my two favorite horses--while dad cleaned out the corals. They got fighting like horses do, but lady is such a dominant mare, she wasn't going to give in. She laid him a hard kick that snapped his back right leg. The vet came over right away and said there was nothing we could do to save him... we just had to put him down. I love that boy, and I'll miss him. I just thought you all should know.

Escalante Plein Air Competition

WOW! it was such a fun weekend, and far too much of an experience to tell in just one post. We went up on wednesday, and painted all day wednesday, and thursday-submitted our work to the show and silent auction at 7:00pm on thursday (I had just finished one of my paintings at 6:30). And then the rest of the weekend was also spent painting, affilliating with artists, attending demos, and just having so much fun. The two paintings I submitted to the show sold, and I am waiting for my check so I can get some more brushes. (one of which died on me on the trip... so sad) Anyway, the painting above was done at calf creek on friday, a day late, so I couldn't submit it... But way fun trip. this one is 11X14 oil on linen and I'm thinking I'll call it " Solitary" but jeremy want's me to call it "deamon cat" in spanish. can you see the deamon cat by the way? while I was painting the cliff face, I could see these abstract shapes that formed a face, then the painting was so easy. I could simply look at it as a portrait.

Sargent

Yesterday I went on a trip with the illustration department and had a chance to vi set the BYU art museum with Ben and some others. Dixon had told me that there was an original John Singer Sargent there and I was stoked. I asked Ben about it and he confirmed the good news, and was excited for me, as it would be the first time I had seen a Sargent original. When we got there is wasn't in it's usual place, and I was getting nervous. Ben asked the museum people and walked me to it-- and there it was. I was dumbfounded, I couldn't talk, I couldn't swallow, I couldn't breathe. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my life. It was a portrait on the old Mrs. Edward Goetz, painted three months prior to her death. Sargent captured her soul in paint and left it there for me to see. Such a beautiful woman, with life and death glinting in her aged eyes. Sargent has the most god given ability to imbued his paintings with life energy. It was beyond any likeness I could wish to capture, even past the "exactness" that I strive for. It was life. He painted that portrait so incredibly, that I could almost feel her breath on my face. It was without a doubt, one of the most spiritual experiences of my life, and has changed my art forever more. It is no more shallow and weak--at least I hope not. I am bent on creating life, not brushstrokes representative of something. Paint that immortalizes my subject for all time. I would like to thank Sargent for painting it for me, it was a personal lesson from the greatest portrait master of all time.


http://jssgallery.org/Paintings/Mrs_Edward_Goetz.htm (not at all what is is like in real life.)

Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold

her hardest hue to hold

her early leaf's a flower

but only so an hour

so leaf subsides to leaf

so eden sank to grief

dawn goes down to day

nothing gold can stay

When I saw this mom standing in the garden I though of this poem. I had to memorize it in the fifth grade. Now when I think about it, it's really a depressing but uplifting poem that encompasess my artist's statement. Hold on to the small moments life gives you. Because in the end, that's all you have. "live in the moment, bloom where you're planted." Its all the same. the "Nothing gold can stay" part is sucky... but true I guess.