Beautiful Snow and Dogs...

As annoying as snow is sometimes, it's nice to take time and appreciate how beautiful it is.

Last Thursday night I came home late. It was snowing hard so my drive was extra long. And then I pulled into Narnia.... so I had to take a picture.

Funny doggie pose...

I don't ever get great pictures of my favorite dog, Mocha, because she is always too close to me. Mocha is mine. I love her and she loves me. She loves to walk right next to me so I can talk to her. And this is why she is my favorite (obviously it is not because she is the cutest).

"Bah, Ram, Ewe...."

Mocha and Jarrett taking in the view.....Like I said, snow is beautiful.

Mattie comes into the scene....

Mattie still running...

still running

...running this way... Mocha and Jarrett still taking in the view...

...running...

Sill on the move

coming back this way...

Hi...

and she is off again

Did I mention Mattie is a Border Collie and she has an extreme amount of energy despite her old a?

It's about mid-way into the semester..... so my room is rather messy with books.

I make piles though so you can walk.

Spring Break is next week... (!)

On Paris, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Feigning brilliancy

On my way to and from school I have been listening to David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (the description: the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work). Listening to this only enhances my desire to visit Paris for a long while. I thought perhaps I could visit this summer, but alas it is not to be this summer. But someday, Lord willing, I will follow in the legacy of American artists traveling to Paris to cultivate their artistic abilities (like Samuel F. B. Morse).

I stop often, on my way home to take pictures in various places.

Dubuque across the Mississippi

I know railroad tracts are rather cliche, but I still love them.

Mattie. I think she's becoming more blind every day and I love her the more.

Although I will not be traveling to Europe this summer, I feel like the Lord will have me do something unusual this summer; a chance-in-a-lifetime. But I don’t know what that is....

Helen Keller once said and it expresses my one desires, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."  

I like to go to coffee shops. I burry myself in my philosophy and Art History readings feign brilliancy. All the while, however, I really am just spying on everyone. I "listen" to my iPod (sometimes truly) but did I mention my iPod's name is Sherlock? 

Through the lens of my camera: my life as an Art Student...

Here are some Photos from the first part of February...

A few places I go between classes sometimes I love the river...

"But now, O LORD, you are our Father;

we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand."

~Isaiah 64:8

My Philosophy notes....

I was taking notes and then this creepy drawing happened....

Painting... I always begin thinking I will have an organized painting palette, paper towels, brushes palette knives and paint tubes. Dream on. It never happens that way. I feel the same way about my actual painting.

I always think I will go for photo-realism but always ends up expressive.... Ah well I think it boils down to I'm not nearly patient as I ought to be....

I am doing a project with some other people, taking a photo a day and posting it here.

It has made me slow down and see the beauty in every thing....

My Sheep Thoughts of the Day...

Sheep are stupid. They like to wander wherever they please. They go places not considering the ramifications. They will blindly follow: one another, their shepherd(dess) or even dogs. And when they are in the company of dogs they even settle for eating dog food (disturbing though it may be) instead of the beautiful grass. They persistently return to places (or company or food) they ought not to. Ever wonder why we are often pictured as sheep in the Bible? (now you know =)

Sheep are not all bad, however. I love my sheep. Often because of their stupidity and need for me.  

Who couldn't love them when they all appear over the hill to see what I am doing ("Oh she's taking pictures again").

When herding sheep you have to forget about how you would herd cattle. Sheep are much more unpredictable. And they think they know better where they ought to be. Often, after numerous failed attempts at getting them to go somewhere (I am not exactly skilled at this), I look at them in frustration and shout, "You are so stupid! Do you know that? Fine stay out here and freeze!" My love for them is obviously imperfect. I am not a very good shepherdess. I am always reminded though, that the Lord is the Good Shepherd and his love is perfect.

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them form all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness…. I will seek the lost and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak…” ~Ezekiel 34: 11, 12 and 16a

 Can't you picture it? I will paint you a my imagined painting: A day of clouds... I guess I see the below landscape of our backyard with the biggest darkest clouds. Thick darkness envelops the landscape. The storm is coming and the sheep are scattered most are lost. There seems to be little hope in such an image. But Lo! just over the hidden ridge comes the shepherd. A weak lamb slung across his shoulders. Behind him tread the once scattered and lost sheep.

One day I want to paint the very image I have in my head for these verses....
I think for one of my vet paintings though, I will use the "and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak…” part. I love that....
Any way those were my sheep thoughts of the day...

Painting...

          The question often comes, “what year are you?”  As in the previous two years of college, I do not have definite answer this year. My answer always starts with, “Somewhere in between…” As I now am in my second to last semester of classes, I am certain that sometime soon, I will be able to state with confidence, “I am a senior.” With that claim, a scary yet exciting realization hits me, as I am an art major I will soon have an art show. I have been thinking about this show since I was a freshmen (or something in between), but it was always in the distance. I had vague hazy thoughts about it.

At first, without doubt I knew my senior show would be distinctly “Christian.” I thought I would take Bible verses and illustrate them. Not so much narratives but more like psalms. I was fascinated by light and the beautiful imagery the Bible “paints” in words. I wanted to portray this in paintings. One such passage was Luke 1:78 and 79 “Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” My mind was filled with fantastical imagery and was thrill but at the same time I doubted my ability to make it brilliant. The more I thought about it I realized if I continued with that idea, most likely I would produce a mediocre and forgettable show filled with crappy “Christian” art (and no will never here me say that word out loud but I could not think of a more suitable word for my purpose). Remembering a book I read in high school, entitled It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God, I reread it during a break in school. Here is a quote from the second chapter,

“C. S. Lewis once said that the Christian writer should have blood in his veins, not ink. What he meant was that if an artist sets out to make a Christian statement in an art object, the chances are it will not be art, but contrived pronouncement. Rather, the believer, like anyone else, should first be passionate about his chosen medium, work in it, and let any “message” emerge almost as a by-product.”

Oh what freedom there is in Christ! I set off on a new track of thoughts. It was not as though light no longer fascinates me, but I embraced Hans Rookemakker’s idea, “we do not need to be superficially driven to paint ‘Christian’ images” (58). What I had thought was a wide spectrum of ideas widened even further. What am I passionate about? What do I love? Those questions hardly narrowed my choice because I love so much. Images floated through my head of things I wanted to paint: ships, animals, barns, windmills (the new type), people… I know I want people in my paintings. I love faces. One time while picking green beans in the heat of this summer, I was singing (a country song no doubt about the country and its people) and absentmindedly thinking about senior show possibilities. I knew without a doubt I wanted to capture the wonderful country atmosphere through the people in some way, shape or form.

            So, anyway to make a long story short(er) I will say I have chosen to capture large animal veterinarians in painting. I am still working on the details of what I want to say about them. But I am very excited about this new adventure the Lord has put me on.

Here's my first painting I have worked on...

This is the next image I am working on...