What modern Feminism sounds like to me...

We want you to value individual autonomy above all else — except when we want you to reject certain choices you might make in favor of solidarity with other women.

We want you to see women as victims of everyone and everything — even though feminism is supposed to be empowering.

We want you to express your true nature as women — except we’d prefer you throw the men and children in your lives under the bus.

http://nypost.com/2014/08/04/scenes-from-the-feminist-implosion/

Laws

"Laws and rules may seem to limit rather than free us; but it is only because of the law of gravity that we can walk. Only by adhering to the laws of physics can we compose beautiful music and send up spaceships. Obedience is liberating, not confining." 

- Bruce C. Hafen

Potential

My first illustration with Copic markers, copied from Fairyopolis.

Sometimes I feel like I've been unusually blessed with very visible talents. Then, in the next heartbeat, I feel so unrefined, like I'm the jack of all trades, master of none. I often ponder on the parable of the talents that Christ taught in the New Testament and how that applies to me. What am I doing with the talents I've been given? Am I improving upon them? When the time comes for accounting, will it look more like I've been holding back what I've been given in fear of what would happen if I let it out? Or in fear that I won't be able to multiply what I've been given?

During my senior year of high school, the yearbook committee requested favorite quotes from seniors to put in the yearbook. The one I submitted went something like this: One's greatest adversary is one's own potential. Sometimes I still feel that way. I feel like I have this enormous potential taunting me, but I don't know how to realize it.

From the cover of Little Quack's New Friend

Well, there's been a convergence of events and circumstances that have brought me back to contemplating the development of my potential. First, I don't have career-oriented responsibilities outside of homemaking. I am unemployed. This is a blessing and a curse considering my stage in life. Second, as of last year's resolutions, I've felt the need to re-visit old dreams, which include using and developing my talents. Third, as a birthday gift I asked for and received some professional Copic markers to start what will become a collection. Fourth, the author who I've done several book covers for (Jacob Gowans) has a series that has been picked up by a publisher (hooray!). The series--was called The Storyteller's Tale, now called A Tale of Light and Shadow--only had one book so far, and I did the cover for it (I never posted it on this site, oddly). Now that it's been picked up by Shadow Mountain, of course he's getting all the professional courtesy and attention that he deserves, including an official cover artist. My socks were knocked off when I learned that his cover artist would be Brandon Dorman. I felt so happy for him, and so awkwardly inadequate, too.

I have to say, I have admired Brandon Dorman's illustrations since I read the Fablehaven series years ago. He did the art on the cover and interior chapter headings. I've even rented some of Brandon Dorman's children's books from the library because I enjoy his illustration so much. He is really a fabulous illustrator, so whimsical, clever in his angles and composition, amazingly sensitive and expressive in his color choices.... He does stunning work.

Olaf from Frozen using Copic markers.

Which led me to this realization: I covet his talent. I'm reading the Old Testament right now in my scripture studies so when that thought came to me I immediately retorted with the thou-shalt-not's in the ten commandments. But this is different. Paul said "But covet earnestly the best gifts" (1 Cor. 12:31) in an effort to lead the saints toward perfection. I can develop what I have been given by seeking for the passion and inspiration I need to fill this potential that I sense within me. The Lord blesses with spiritual gifts if we ask for them.

Just a couple days ago I was reading about Bezaleel, the artisan who was personally selected by the Lord to create the most sacred of artifacts for the tabernacle. Of him, Moses said, "And he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship." (Exodus 35:31) Not only that, but he was blessed to be able to teach others of his knowledge. What an honor! What a glorious set of talents to have! What would it be like to be personally selected by the Lord and filled with his spirit and knowledge to create things of beauty to glorify Him? I can only imagine.

Little Bear imagining himself playing with a mermaid. Originally by Maurice Sendak.

I was contemplating all these thoughts in my prayers the other night and a thought came to me. "Now is the time to polish yourself." I will take that to heart. I'm not sure what that entails right now, but I'm going to work on it.

So far, I have been making a consistent effort to sketch more. I have become so used to doing digital vector art and working on a time crunch, more concerned about efficiency than quality or development, since that is what my former job required of me. I have gotten out of the habit and comfort of sketching by hand. To get back into it, I'm copying characters from my children's stories. I ultimately want to become comfortable with my new markers, be able to think creatively without requiring a visual prop as a resource, and develop my own illustration style.

Ana from Frozen using Copic markers.

I'm not only polishing myself with my artistic talents, I also have plans for my musical ones. I've been playing the piano almost every day lately, and feel more comfortable there than I ever have. I'm also developing different angles of my vocal performance, one of which I get to perform on Saturday at the local theater! Yay! Adventures await me, I can feel it.

The desire to create

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty...

You may think you don’t have talents, but that is a false assumption, for we all have talents and gifts, every one of us. The bounds of creativity extend far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen, or the keys of a piano. Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.

~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Pot Holders

It was a homemade kind of Christmas this year.

I made a couple more, but had given them away before I took the pictures.

Cookie Plates for Christmas

My Husband and I like the tradition of making cookie plates to pass to friends and neighbors for Christmas. It's something we did growing up and have fond memories of. This year, I think we hit a great balance of flavors.

The husband has perfected his chocolate chip cookie recipe and I love my molasses cookies. Those have always been our staples. This year we also included caramels (plain and salted with chocolate [those were a big hit]), and the new, exciting attempt at candied orange peels, dipped in chocolate, no less. I googled a handful of recipes so I thought I could wing it, but this recipe needs more perfecting. I think I cooked the orange peels a little too hot and long, so they were a little hard.

But MMMmmmm they were tasty.

Take action.

...the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

– William H Murray

Psion Alpha

Jacob Gowans invited me back to do the cover for his fourth book in the Psion series: Psion Alpha. There is a part in the novel about a psychopathic serial killer who paints a government logo on the wall in his victim's blood. The government logo is a flaming skull. I know, it sounds more like a horror story than a juvenile science fiction book, but it is not a horror. It is a fabulous juvenile fiction series that gets better with each book.

Well, Jacob really wanted the flaming skull in drippy blood on the cover of the 4th book. I can't say I've ever designed anything to look like dripping blood, not to mention a flaming skull, but I was interested in trying. After designing a flaming skull logo that we liked, I posted some paper on my wall and watered down my red acrylic paint and had a go with my hands trying for an authentic look. This is one of three attempts:



It was much too neat. I decided I couldn't sketch the skull logo out in pencil first (which I did above), I had to make it much bigger, I had to use poster board (my paper wrinkled too much), I had to have a bowl full of paint, use my whole hand, and I had to do it fast.



On the third attempt, I got it! Pretty gory...

We didn't want the cover to be too gruesome, so we tried changing the color. Here is how it turned out:



I think it turned out adequately creepy, but not too gory. Just right.

I really like the flaming skull logo we came up with. I made it into a governmental patch for the back cover.



I'm sure glad we don't live in a post-apocalyptic government that has such an intimidating logo for their elite squad of soldiers.

Michelle

The main reason I borrowed the awesome lens was because I was asked by a friend to take her senior pictures. It was fun! Here's a taste.

It took me the first half of the photo shoot to finally figure out the right settings on my camera... sadly. So these last ones were actually the first ones I took, but the quality and exposure aren't quite right. I think they still look ok, though. Just not in large sizes.

Lens magic

I'm borrowing a lens this weekend. It's a pretty sweet lens. With a large aperture. I'm excited to play with it.

It's making me excited to review all the manual settings on my camera.

I'm going to have to really practice focusing. I've already taken a lot with the focus just off. Like the focus is on the hair, or an ear. It's easier to focus when I'm really close.

I want to get better at portraits. These three are my favorite photos so far.

The Little Engine That Could... just barely

My little man had a birthday! You could probably guess his favorite book by the title of this blog, so I felt inspired to make him a train cake for his birthday. I figured it would be easy and fun.

Hello there, little cake train. I sculpted the cake from a 9 x 13 cake pan, a loaf pan and 3 cupcakes. That part was fun. I covered the cake with a crumb coat of buttercream frosting and put it in the fridge over night. At that point I hadn't decided if I was going to try fondant for the decorating or not. I was feeling pretty good so far.

Well, it's always good to challenge yourself, right? So the next day I decided to make the fondant. This is only my second attempt at fondant (my first was years ago, without children). The fondant was much easier to work with this time, but man, it sure takes a long time to make a cake look good. I always imagine my cakes much better than they actually turn out.

Once the fondant was in place, I realized I was running out of time. I hurriedly piped on the yellow and chocolate frosting, placed the candy, made the cake pops (this was probably pushing my time limit), then hurriedly made the toys. They're pretty ridiculous! The toy soldier looks like he's wearing a huge Russian ushanka, and my poor monkey fell apart two or three times. I just kept squishing him back together until he became a distorted Picasso-esque version of his original self.

It's hard work to make cute cakes quickly with little children nipping at your heels and stealing the decorations! The cake was delicious, though, and my little man was thrilled. That's all that mattered.

Tomato Finale

I know you're all wondering how my tomatoes fared through the season, so I thought I'd share.

This was the result of one day of picking in August.

I picked maybe 2-3 times a week and I had about three picking days of this sort of abundance. In fact, I still have about a blue bucket full of tomatoes in my garden right now that need picking, but it will probably be my last harvest.

What did I do with all those tomatoes? I gave a lot away, I ate a lot, and I canned well over 40 jars of stuff.

One cool benefit of living in a really old house is that there are built in storage racks in the basement specifically for mason jars. Of course, this is only considered 'cool' when I actually can stuff...

Procrastination, thy name is dragon.

Isn't it funny how I never feel like doodling until there's actual work projects to be done? (The babe colored in the red tongue. She did pretty well for a 4 year-old!)

C.S. Lewis = inspiration

I was recently asked to pick a book and lead discussion for a book club and I picked C.S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce." The leader of the book club knew of my Aslan painting and asked if I would talk about the way C.S. Lewis inspired my artwork, too.

Aslan, lost in the toy room behind piles of puzzles.

Lately, I've been trying to rediscover some of my old dreams, and this inspiration points to one of my dream projects that I'd like to re-discover.  I painted the above painting, and all the below sketches (except one) around eight years ago. When I was painting Aslan, I dreamed of painting a whole series of religious symbolism in the Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan, obviously, is the Christ.

The second painting would be the Crucifixion, but I think I would title it "Breaking the bonds of death." I planned on having a detailed stone table with a crack down the middle. In the background would be a dramatic sunrise framed by the silhouettes of arching branches.

I remember after sketching this being really disappointed at the precarious look and frailty of the stone table. Breaking the bonds of death is a big deal, a miracle, not something that could happen casually because of poor construction. I compare the stone table to the rent in the temple veil after Christ died on the cross. They say the temple veil was a hand's width thick. I've also heard three inches and four inches. I don't have any authoritative sources for that information, but that's what I imagine when I think of a rent veil. It was a completely impossible, miraculous miracle that the veil was ripped. I wanted the stone table to feel that way, too.

So I did research on historical and fictional sacrificial tables/altars and languages. I eventually felt like the one in the middle of the right page below gave the feel I was looking for, inspired by a sacrificial table from Luxor, Egypt, engraved with a language that I made up.

The third painting would be the Resurrection. When Aslan goes to the White Queen's court filled with creatures she has turned to stone, he breathes on them and brings them back to life, one by one. I envisioned a massive courtyard completely filled with dynamic creatures. The left half of the image would be vibrant with color and motion, Lucy dancing with Mr. Tumnus in unbridled joy, characters embracing each other again after untold amounts of time being separated by the immobility of stone. The right half of the image would be dark, dreary and gray, creatures frozen in stone, bodies in various positions. The legs of the giant would have color growing up from the feet, slowly working up the legs while Susan watched in amazement. The center of the image would be Aslan, calmly, patiently working his way through the courtyard. His regal calm is in contrast to the chaotic joy around him.

I'm kind of embarrassed by this sketch. I had clearly been sketching a lot of lions around this time, because Aslan seemed easy and well proportioned. My horses are atrocious. I have a unicorn, a pegasus, a centaur, and a generic horse rear in this that all need a tremendous amount of realistic horse character. I had another page where I wrote a list of all the creatures listed in the courtyard from the book, and on that page I had a few sketches that were similarly embarrassing (I didn't take a photo of that page).

Coming back to this 8 years later, it's obvious that this painting is the one that will take the most work, preparation, creativity, planning, etc. So, a couple weeks ago I rented a "how to draw horses" book from the library. I always disliked those kinds of books, but I needed to start somewhere. Here are some of my sketches from the past couple weeks.

The first three paintings came from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, but the rest of my ideas for religious symbolism come from other books in the series. In The Magician's Nephew, we hear the story of the creation of Narnia. One scene in the book struck me as a particularly stunning image representing Adam and Eve struggling over the forbidden fruit, which in this case is a bell that they are not supposed to ring. This painting would be called Forbidden Fruit. The sketch is only vaguely suggestive, and might not make sense unless you've read the book.

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;

Strike the bell and bide the danger,

Or wonder, till it drives you mad,

What would have followed if you had.

One of the things that is so fascinating to me about this "Eden" as it would be, is the static nature of the world the two main characters were on. There were hundreds of people who were completely static figures. The room was filled with magic, but nothing could change... until the bell was hit. Our understanding of Eden is similar in that everything in the Garden remained the same until the first transgression.

I also had ideas for Repentence (Eustace as the Dragon in Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and several other gospel topics that escape me now. I'm kind of fired up about it again, but I don't know how realistic it is that I'll be able to work on this series. I'll see what I can do and keep you updated.

It's a Jungle Out There!

So, my one goal for a garden this year was to be successful growing tomatoes. Um. It worked. I have never seen such rampant tomato plants as the ones in my back yard right now.

They are literally as tall as me, and I am not a short person. The impromptu fence above is 4 feet tall, if that gives you something to measure by. These pictures were taken about a month ago, so they are even BIGGER now! So big that some of them have tipped over, cages and all, but are still growing. I potentially will have hundreds of tomatoes this year. Here's an overview of some of the plants in my garden

Tomato, cucumber, pepper, peas

My tomatoes are rocking. My cucumbers are doing so-so. I've already reaped about a half dozen of them, but several of them grow partially and then rot on the vine.  I don't get it. My peppers are much bigger now than the above picture. I'm really excited for them! My peas, which I have since uprooted since they were being overtaken by tomatoes and were out of season, were a delightful spring treat. The kids and I ate them all raw. It was a spring backyard daily task--go outside, pick peas and eat them right there. I also have lots of basil, which I don't have a picture of.

sunflower, raspberries, morning glory, carrots

Sunflowers have been fun. They are huge! Our biggest one is probably 10 feet tall. I'm hopping to harvest the seeds. Raspberries have been a surprise! I didn't expect to get as many berries as we've been getting this first year! Although, it's still not enough to last past the kids daily backyard visit, much like the peas. I love morning glories. They are beautiful. I was hesitant to plant them because they can be invasive, but I'd rather have morning glory vine than poison ivy, which is what used to be in the back yard. My root garden, the carrots and the onions, are not doing terribly well. I guess we'll have to wait until the end of the season to really see how they are doing...

This is the garden in the other corner of my yard, also with a jungle of tomatoes. Yup. I'm going to have a lot of tomatoes. In this bed, the tomatoes are taking over all the flowers around them. I have Marigolds, Forget-me-nots, Zinnias, Gladiolas (which haven't quite bloomed yet), and Dwarf Sunflowers (which I did not know were dwarf when I planted them in the back row).

Guess who?

Who's everyone's favorite feline with foot fashion sense?

Why Puss in Boots, of course!

I made this Puss in Boots marionette for Shrek the Musical at the local community theater. I had been wanting to make a Cat puppet for the Babe for about a year now, and this was a good incentive. I don't like how the eyes turned out, so I may change them. I also want to experiment with adding stripes with different dyes or markers. The kids love playing with it regardless.

I made him a marionette for the play, but I prefer hand puppets, so he is a hand puppet, too! I just clipped his mouth shut on the inside. I'll probably snip the strings and keep him as a hand puppet.

He sure is a fun puppet.

Motto

"Because I love the Father, I want the minds of men to be lifted when they look at me.
Because I am His daughter, I want my devotion to Him to be what they see."

-lyrics from "Virtue" by Jenny Phillips

Garden: Version 2013

I am attempting a garden once again. This time I've planted more seeds than ever before, but I don't yet have a place in my rented yard to put them. Hopefully that will be remedied within a couple weeks with a garden box.

I'm excited for my tomatoes. If all else fails, I want my tomatoes to work. I also have peppers, peas, basil, cucumbers, sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds and I plan on planting onions and other flowers as soon as the weather is right outside.

My 3 year-old is really excited about the plants. I let her pick out one of the planting kits for her to take responsibility of. She picked more sunflowers and planted a handful of the seeds in one pot. I think it's time to repot them.

Now if only we could get the weather to cooperate. Winter, go away! We want the sun!

Homemade whole wheat tortillas

Lately, I've been falling into a lazy rut when it comes to food. I've been feeding the kids lots of processed crackers, candy (thank you winter full of holidays), sweets and just generally things that aren't particularly good for me or them. I've been feeling the listlessness in my body.

On top of that, my little 3 year-old pretty consistently complains of a tummy ache. I think it might just be constipation, but I'm not helping it much with what I've been indulging in. It doesn't help that she's a super picky eater.

So I am re-inspired to take upon the quest of several years ago when I started making my own bread. I've fallen in and out of making my own bread in the past year, but I'm back on the bandwagon, and I'm taking it a step further. For the next two weeks I have decided to cut out all white flour and processed sugar. Whew. It's not going to be easy. I'm being helped by a blog called 100 days of real food. They have recipes and tips. I'm also SO glad I have a (borrowed) wheat grinder. It makes everything taste better.

Yesterday I made whole wheat tortillas for the first time. They were delicious and the kids ate them. Success!

I got the recipe here and I will definitely be doing this more often. I even had some help.