HOME!!!

Yesterday Evan and I became home owners. Today we are cleaning and painting and having the carpets cleaned so that we can move in tomorrow!!!! HHHHUUUURRRAAAAYYYYY!!!!!! :)

We got the house I posted about earlier.

Fairytales and Art

So- inspired by one of my favorite artists James Christensen (whose daughter is a fellow teacher and I just idolize her because she's amazing), I've decided that I want to paint a "Fairytale Series"... we'll see how far this actually gets but I decided to keep you all updated on the process. The first step was to collect 'scraps'.

Scraps: a collection of images, fabrics, color schemes and composition examples that an artist will combine in order to create a work of art.

And on my search for images I found these:

I'm sorry but I almost laughed out loud (which would have been awkward as my students were all taking a test)... Now I'm sure we all had wigs for Halloween costumes but I'm also sure that none of us looked this silly. Lets dress kids as kids and adults as adults shall we?

Anyway.... artists are usually A.D.D. (I'm not, it's just my work for liking to do lots of things) and can't just do one part of a project at a time, so I took a break from scrap searching and I started to demolish one of my paintings by sanding it. I hated the painting, didn't feel inclined to EVER finish it and the supports are expensive.

Supports: what a painter or artist works on, the surface of a painting, drawing, etc. Canvas, Masonite Board, Paper, etc.

So- anyway. It was a reproduction of this painting.


I brought it out and started to sand and MY STUDENTS FLIPPED! It was so funny! They were saying things like "Oh my gosh! She's sanding over the face!" "What are you doing?!" "Why are you doing that Mrs. Johnson?"

I just laughed and said it was awful and I didn't like it and that I didn't want to have to buy another canvas because they're expensive... ok so it wasn't canvas- it was framed masonite board covered with linen, rabbitskin glue and homemade gesso- Leonardo Da Vinci style... all very expensive stuff.... but they wouldn't have know what the heck I was talking about so for all intensive purposes it was a canvas... I did explain it further to my students who really seemed interested bnut anyway.... They tried to argue with me saying that it was a good painting and that I shouldn't ruin it. FUNNY.

So, the process is going very slow. I started to sand it down because I wanted to try painting in Acrylics (polymer based paint)... geesh, I feel like Elle Woods "Isn't it the first cardinal rule of perm maintenance that you are forbidded to wet your hair for at least 24 hours after getting a perm at the risk of deactivating the ammonium thioglycolate?"... anywho, you can't paint acrylics on top of an oil painting because oil paintings never really dry, the paint is constantly moving on a molecular level....but then sanding was too much work, so instead of painting over the whole thing with acrylic gesso I decided to bag that idea and coat it with a Titanium White layer of oil paint... this layer provides an even base for painters. The problem with that idea is that in order to create an opaque, not transparent, layer you must do several layers of paint that has been thinnned with liquin... (liquin is what thins out oil paint and allows it to dry more quickly)

So that's where I'm at. I've collected most of my scraps and as I wait for my second layer of paint to dry I'm going to do several sketches of color experiments... trying different color combinations out to see what would look the best. I'm sure this is all very interesting to you :) thought it'd be fun for you to see the artist process :)

PS- no word on the house yet - In the words of my amazing husband...."FREAKIN A"

House, Marriage, and Life in general

Wow! What a wedding! The weather was just great, McDonald's after the wedding was delicious, I finished my cake AND the reception was gorgeous with good food! I even got Evan to dance with me in front of lots of people!!!!!! BEST EVER! 'We danced to Grow Old Along with Me' by Peter Breinholt ( I chose that song because we went to an almost private concert and got to meet him). I will be posting a link to my wedding photos for all y'all to see as soon as I get them edited (I got an awesome deal on the photography because I wanted to edit my own photos). The honeymoon was so much fun too! We had THE BEST hotel ever, ate at chiquey miquey restaurants, had a full day at the spa and we went snowmobiling!

House- We are still getting it, it's just taking longer to get all of the paperwork done... HOPEFULLY within the next week we will be all moved in!!!!! :)


Job- I am looking for a really good ceramics teacher to come work with me at Westlake... or my job is open at Lehi I believe...but they might keep Doug (who is currently working as the third art teacher) on... but for sure, brand new school, a dream for facilities, and it's not that much further than Lehi! Come work with me :) Apply through Alpine School District and if you want interview or professional portfolio help I am more than willing to help out. I'm trying to get Evan to apply for the computer techie of the school- HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?! See the photo of the school below? See the two antenna looking wings? The WHOLE wing on the left is MINE! Cool huh? That's the fine arts wing!



Anyway- There's a quickie of my life, right now I'm oober busy grading final portfolios and such so I gotta run! Ciao!