A True Actress
Our oldest daughter continues to amaze us! She blew us away last spring performing in her high school’s production of West Side Story the role of Maria. This year, she played the part of a completely different personality…that of Amber von Tussle in the musical, Hairspray. We enjoyed watching her transform from her usual sweet, kind, brunette self into a cruel, mean, self-aggrandizing platinum blonde!
The entire cast was stocked with talent throughout! But our eyes were usually locked onto our daughter. Perhaps due to her magnetic stage presence. Or maybe because the platinum blonde wig she wore created a halo effect with the stage lighting. Or maybe, just maybe, it was ’cause she was our daughter.
And we couldn’t have been more proud.
And The Winners Are…
Not one…but THREE winners were chosen for this Grand Giveaway!! Wow. How FUN it was to “meet” so many of you from ALL OVER THE WORLD!! It was so exciting to see that I had blog friends from the UK, Brazil, Australia, Austria, Nova Scotia, the Netherlands and even Iceland!! How cool is that! And from other exotic places closer to home, such as Michigan, Alabama, California, Missouri, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Georgia, and Denver.
For a few of you I had to go “creepin’” on your blog to find out where you hailed from.;0 For others, I could not figure it out when there was no blog to visit. But thank you, thank you to ALL of you who took the time to comment and who are visiting me here on Drawn2Life in some form or fashion be it via EDM, or Facbook, or subscription in some way. Thank you. I so wish I could give ALL of you something. But alas, I asked my husband to pick just three names from the “hat” and here are the three names he pulled out:
The winner of my first Zine, Thoughts on Drawing & Life: CAROLINE from Australia!!!!!!
The winner of this set of Genevieve cards: BETSEY WILSON!!!!!!
The winner of the Genevieve print, Wonder in the Weeds: bapaints (BETTY ANN)!!!!!!!!
I am contacting each of you to obtain your snail-mail address so you can receive this little goody from me. Congratulations to you!
And THANK YOU to all of you for playing along!!
Who Are You & How Did You Get Here?
A GRAND GIVEAWAY & A QUESTION OR TWO!
So, I see these statistics on my WordPress stats page of increasing numbers of folks popping in to visit this little patch of blogland. But the statistics aren’t very helpful. It seems that some may simply visit the “Home Page”, the posting for the day; others may cruise around from post to post, and some may be brand new to my blog and are looking at the “About” and “Artist Statement” pages. The stats page tells me there are 107 “Followers”. The meaning of this is not real clear to me. My husband has reminded me there are any number of ways folks “check in” to a blog, and they don’t all require being a “Follower” as WordPress counts it. Here’s just a few I can think of:
Everyday Matters, both the Yahoo group and the Facebook group.
Facebook & Twitter
RSS Feed.
Subscribing to the blog to receive an email each time I post. This is a WordPress stat as “Follower”.
Google Reader. This is how I “check in” to all my favorite blogs…but I don’t think any of the blog “owners” even know that I am checking in via this vehicle. It doesn’t really land me on their actual site, unless I click to go to it. I can just read/view the day’s posting.
Ravelry & Etsy. Folks looking specifically for a pattern or an item to purchase may find me this way.
Pinterest. I’ve had several links of late coming in from this site.
Direct click. This might be someone like my mom, who has bookmarked my blog and just clicks on it to visit every so often.
Subject Searches. Folks finding my blog due to “googling” particular subjects that direct them to my blog. They may stay all of two seconds, or they might come back regularly…???
And there may be other ways I’m not aware of that folks come in for a visit. But when I see the WordPress daily stats climbing…I have to wonder: WHO ARE YOU & HOW DID YOU GET HERE?????
SO. For this Grand Giveaway, I have three things I’d like to give: a Zine, a pack of Genevieve cards, and a Genevieve Print. So, that means THREE people will win something!!! You won’t know WHAT you’re winning, but that might make it fun too! Here’s what I’d like you to do:
**Place a comment HERE ON MY BLOG ONLY! No matter where you come from, even if it’s Google Reader and you have to do the further “click” to land here on the actual blog, PLEASE comment as to How You Got Here! If it’s your first time visiting, please say how you found this blog. If you visit often, how do you get here? Facebook? EDM Yahoo? etc. It would really be fun for me to know who you are and how you get here:) Please feel free to participate if you live across the waters ANYWHERE!! I’d love to know about you as well and give you an opportunity to win a little something from me.
***Final Day to place a comment and thus enter your name for the GRAND GIVEAWAY: Sunday April 29th, 2012. And tell me in your comment which item you might like best to receive. I can’t promise it will work out, but I’ll do my best!! I’ll announce the winners on Monday, April 30th.
And a final THANK YOU to all who visit me here, whether you comment or not! I truly appreciate you stopping by my little blogarden.
P.S. If you’re trying to figure out the significance of the above drawing to this post…there isn’t one. 
I just had this image in my head. Something about Genevieve dreaming of paintings, of color, of blogosphere friends…???? I may be stretching it there. But sometimes you just gotta draw what’s sittin’ in your head even if you don’t have anything of magnitude to say about it!!
Here are the goodies for the giveaway:
1 person will receive:
another will get:
and another person will receive:
Drawing with Others
Another “baby step” to re-discovering my “job” or calling to draw my life and encourage others to do so as well, has been to join up with a drawing group again. Ideally, my desire is to start one here in my town of Kernersville. For many years, I drew with a group in the neighboring town of Winston-Salem, NC. I lived there then, oh some ten years or so ago and drew with a Saturday morning group that met at a local art space. This went on for a few years and then I joined a figure drawing group out in Clemmons for a couple of years, and then back to downtown Winston for another figure group.
I’ve always enjoyed getting together with others who love to draw. But my favorite are the less formal drawing groups where we sit around drawing one another, sometimes taking a turn to model for each other, sometimes, we’re all just drawing whomever we want. I have oodles of sketchbooks filled with people in various but familiar positions of drawing in a sketchbook. Love that!
But when Maddie was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, I had to drop out of all of that. The regular, weekly, commitment to drawing with a group became too sporadic as I was needed elsewhere. Now I’m feeling I could possibly make 3 out of 4 weeks of any month, maybe more! But Saturdays are just impossible with all the family/kid activities and happenings. And, as incredible as it sounds, the very week I had my Aha! moment with Teresa, I received an email letting me know of a new group beginning on Tuesday mornings at an independent bookstore in Winston called Barnhill’s Bookstore! So off I went and have now been able to go for three Tuesdays in a row!!! It is a delightful space with lots of light streaming in the windows, beautiful artwork all around, and a terrific spot for several people to sit and draw each other. IF ANY OF YOU WANT TO COME DRAW WITH US, PLEASE DO!!!! Here’s the link to Barnhill’s website, complete with directions, etc.
AND…I’m starting a group in Kernersville as well, to draw our beautiful downtown area. I told someone in the Winston group that they really should come over to K’ville to draw…that it’s like a little slice of France. They looked at me piercingly and said, What? Kernersville? K’Vegas? No way. I said, WAY! But I don’t think they will believe me until they come draw here. Such lovely little spots downtown and all around…I can’t wait to show you drawings of my town…I think you’ll love it!
Well, til Friday then, for the third lesson in our Drawing Your Life Mini Lessons. See ya then! You might also like to find a group of folks who draw together…you will grow in your love for drawing by leaps and bounds!!
Baby Step #10: A Zine of My Own
Oh my goodness, I am just tickled pink to offer this little booklet to you! It’s my first “zine” which I’m calling an Art Zine since it’s a compilation of my drawings, paintings, and writings, some of which is from my blogs, Drawn2Life and Drawn2Be! and some of which has never been seen on either blog.
I’ve titled this Zine: Thoughts on Drawing & Life. Here are some of the topics you will read about:
*Why do I draw?
*My favorite ways to draw.
*Why I draw the way I do.
*How drawing speaks to my everyday life.
*Things I learn from the act of drawing.
*A poem about Drawing.
And, of course, each topic is “illustrated” by sketches, drawings, and paintings by Jennifer Edwards (me:). All totalled, there are 20 images of these drawings, paintings, etc. with a couple of “excerpts” from other artwork.
The Zine has 20 pages, printed professionally on Premium paper. The Zine measures 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″.
If you’d like one, you can order it through my Etsy shop, and I’ll send it to you in a 3-ring page protector. This ensures against any water damage AND will allow you to add my future Zines to your collection in a mini-3-ring-binder. I will then place it in a cardboard mailer to ensure further protection from bending.
I’m also signing and numbering each Zine!
**AND..for the first 10 of you who order a Zine, I will include a Genevieve bookmark and a small piece of Origami, folded by me:)!
I really do hope you will enjoy this…they would also make a lovely gift to someone.
***To THOSE OF YOU WHO LIVE NEAR ME, please send me a message either in the comment here, or through Etsy, or just call me if you’d like to pick it up from me. No need to pay the shipping and handling costs if we see each other on a regular basis!!
****MY NEXT POST: Why I’m Drawn2Zine! Y’all come back now, ya here?
Baby Steps #3-8: Happy Day Birthday Boxes
Birthdays as a kid were always a celebration…as they are and have been in my own family. Sometimes we refer to our Birthday Month since the celebrating often gets sprinkled throughout the person’s birth-month. My idea for these Birthday Boxes was to offer something to be sent to loved ones in the mail…a celebration in a box in their mail box! I send it directly to them, with your message hand-written on the card enclosed. A cupcake that never disappears into one’s tummy; nor does it show up on one’s hips!!
Each cupcake is a different color combination…check out all six of ‘em here!
Un Grand Merci!
At the end of 2011 I was delighted to receive from WordPress, the year-end review of statistics and what-not about this blog, Drawn2Life. When I clicked on the link they sent, there were fireworks and all kinds of delightful and amazing stats that I had no idea this little blog had garnered.
If you’d like to see the fireworks too, click here. (This will take you to another blog post of mine, and you can click the link there for the report.)
But the most amazing stat, was the list of top commenters. WOW. Alex Tan logged in 88 comments last year! Timaree posted 62, Raena and Nancy 52, with Sandra close behind at 49. WWWOOOWWW!!! What a gift these folks are. And I know for a fact these dear ones post comments all over our EDM friends’ blogs! They are so faithful to encourage us, to send a note of praise, or just their thoughts. They are amazing!! And I do not know how to thank them other than to say…Merci. Merci de mon coeur!!
As a gift to Alex, I have drawn his portrait here. And I’ll be sending him the original by mail. Thank you Alex, for all you do in our EDM community to 1) lead the way with your own wonderful drawings and 2) cheer us all on in our drawings and paintings! You are dear to us all!! If you have benefitted by Alex’s comments on your blog, why not send him a note via email or comment on his blog your thanks for his faithful viewing and commenting. His kind words have meant so much to me, and I know to many of you as well!!
And to ALL of you who took time out from your busy lives to send a few words…I am truly grateful!
Un grand merci a tout le monde!
A Wonder-Ful Evening
Hang onto your hats…fasten your seatbelts…be prepared to feast your eyes on some incredible artwork by the students of Redeemer School. Our music teacher’s wife took these photographs and wow! They are works of art in themselves…so…
The evening began quietly as parents and students attended a brief meeting.
Artfully delicious food awaited…
Windows and tables were bedecked with art…
And they began to come in…
Soon the place was packed…
They came to see their student’s artwork created from the beginning of our schoolyear…
They came to see collages…
And Zentangles…
And clay works…
And bowls made from cereal boxes…
And fish made from empty water bottles…
And so, so much more…
But the stars of the show were the students and their families…
The wonder on their faces…
The comraderie of fellow artists…
The musicians who played beautiful music in the background…
And the smiles of a shared love of art…
As their Art Teacher, I could not have asked for more.
Thank you students. Thank you Hazel. Thank you Linda. Thank you Janice and Pinkney and so many others who helped hang the show. And thank you to all the dads who helped break it down at the end of the evening. I hated to see it come down so soon…it was truly Wonder-fulllll!!!
Baby Step #2: Wonder!
A new print for my Etsy Shop! This one is titled, Wonder in the Weeds. You can read the posting that went along with it HERE. The watercolor painting was created eight months ago and since then I’ve been humbled to hear of how this little image has encouraged many of you. Life certainly has a way of feeling like the weeds are crowding out the beauty. But a little bit of searching, sometimes on our hands and knees, can reveal wonders untold even in the midst of the overgrown weeds.
The date of this little sketch of Genevieve in my writing journal is April 3rd of last year…Creatively speaking, I was feeling way overwhelmed with the overgrown weeds at the time. Life seemed to be choking out a lot of the ideas I was dying to get out, so many of them Genevieve related. I began to take some baby steps even then, which resulted in the opening of my Etsy Shop.
Each little baby step I take is like a little seed gently planted out in the world. These seeds take root and begin growing immediately, even if it is only in my heart, giving me cheer. But it is my hope that it will bring cheer to others as well. I’m learning a lot about this practice of taking Baby Steps…it really is good medicine! Thank you all so much for joining me and receiving these little steps as I go along.
Thought for the Day: Baby Steps Make Glad Heart
**P.S. If you’d like to be notified via Facebook of all things related to Genevieve and My Etsy Shoppe, then CLICK HERE and “like” this page. I have so many more “seeds” to be planted in the Shoppe…more cards and prints of Genevieve, Original Artwork by me, Happy Day Birthday Boxes, more knit & crochet patterns and so much more!
Baby Step #1: All Under One Roof
Though I’m not fully recovered from the Art Show (last year’s and the year-before-that), (at the school where I teach), Tuesday evening, or from teaching all day yesterday…I AM SO EXCITED to share with you a little step forward in some of the things I’ve been dreaming about for quite a while! My website, jenniferedwards.com, has been in renovation-mode for a while now. This is not due to the wonderful friend who creates my website, but due to my lack of direction, of which way to go, of how to use that site. Somewhere around the end of 2011, I had the idea to use jenniferedwards.com as a portal, from which you can jaunt to all the crazy places my creativity goes on the web!
Click Here to go the actual website! The above is just a screenshot from my ipad to give you an idea of how it looks. The screenshot crops it at the top and bottom, so you’re not seeing the whole page as you will when you visit jenniferedwards.com. I hope you have fun clicking around all the lollipop trees/flowers in my little web garden!
There are so many other things in the works…I’m about to pop to share! But I won’t until they are fully ready. It won’t be long, maybe a day or two, maybe next week, or both! And so many to roll out…it will literally be weeks and months of Baby Step posts here on Drawn2Life! So I do hope you will pop back by for a visit!
But before all that, I need a good nap! Whew! Putting on an Art Show for 150+ students, each displaying 6 pieces of 2-D and 3-D artwork, complete with reception and music, is quite an energy zapper! I’ll blog a little post to show you some pics from our wonderful evening! See you soon!
Honor Card Artwork!
I am honored to have a drawing of mine chosen for this year’s Honor Cards for a local mission called Out of the Garden Project. Led by Kristi and Don Milholin, this non-profit group seeks to ease the hunger of hundreds of North Carolina children in over 30 of Guilford County’s schools. I’m absolutely thrilled to have a tiny part in what they’re doing in my neighboring town.
More and more children are relying on the food they eat at school to be their main source. When they go home for the weekend, many families struggle to put food on the table. This problem is more widespread than you might think. Kristi and Don have been inspiring and leading others to band together and help provide for these families on the weekend. They receive food donations, organize it in a warehouse, pack “meals” into grocery bags, and deliver them to the schools who have applied for this assistance. You really should cruise around on their website to get a feel for what they’re doing!
And YOU can be a part of the solution as well! By making a donation of just $5 (or more), you can contribute to their ability to purchase more food and reach out to more and more children and their families. With each $5 (or more) donation, you will receive an Honor Card with the above piece of artwork printed on it and a lovely envelope to go with it.
This photograph shows you the front and back of this Honor Card, and the beautiful metallic envelope it comes with.
These would make excellent gifts to teachers, co-workers, colleagues and family members this Christmas. They are taking donations (via Pay Pal on their website) through early January. I will leave a button in the right-hand margin for you to click on anytime, to donate and receive an Honor Card. Remember, you can receive an Honor Card for every $5 if you wish….just be sure to email Don & Kristy how many you would like once you’ve placed your donation! If you only want to receive one Honor Card for a $25 donation (or 10 Honor Cards for a $75 donation, etc.), indicate that as well. They are happy to mail these to YOU!!
When you give this as a gift, you’re giving the gift of food to a child in need and the gift of art to a friend. What could be a better gift than that?
The Finale
Our last evening in Grand Rapids, we went out to eat with some lovely folks we had met there during our two week stay. And for dessert, we went to Jersey Junction for ice cream. Now this isn’t your usual ice cream spot. This place is owned by the family of the author of The Polar Express, a fabulous children’s book we read to and with our kids every Christmas. The line of people was out the door and almost to the street. The line continued for at least an hour after we got our ice cream and ate it contentedly on the front porch. A perfect evening, watching the people, watching the Polar Express train make its trek around the ceiling of the shop, and watching the long twilight sky fade to indigo.
I sketched this little drawing after I finished my Chocolate Monster cone. Draw Free is SO fun! Have I told you that? And guess what? Just today, I got an update for this little app which now provides more lovely colors than I could have asked for!! Which I DID ask for just a few days ago in my blog post reviewing Draw Free and Auryn Ink. Can you believe it? Wishes really do come true! Well, some of them.;-)
I Rave 4 Artrage!
So I got to thinkin’ as my husband and older two went off to watch the latest Harry Potter movie in 3-D…What am I waiting for? Artrage is only the price of a movie ticket (or less) at 6.99. (PLEASE see the NEWS below!!!!!!) And Maddie and I would have so much fun! And we did!
And we continue to! To say that a nine year old is much more able to figure out technology than her forty-something year old mom, is an understatement. But I’m happy to report to you that I did very well figuring things out as this is quite a user friendly app, very intuitive, (even for me), and even has a user guide that is very helpful AND accessible both on and offline! What is so amazing about Artrage is it’s loaded with every drawing/painting media you could possibly imagine! I will certainly not cover it all here in one post. I’ll just dive in with what I tried, a few fails, a few successes. It’s so fun!
So I tried to take a screen picture while I was painting something so you could see it in action. Just do a cartwheel as you look at the above image.;-) You have this wonderfully visual left-hand column for you to pick which art media you want to work with. It will collapse when you tap the corner image. You can then choose the “gears” icon to change the settings for your paint or brush or marker or pastel, or airbrush, etc. Oh, and BEFORE all this you choose the surface on which you want to paint!! Choose papers and canvases of ALL kinds, choose the grain, the texture, even the color of your support. Choose from an incredible palette of colors WITH EASE!! Much easier than Auryn Ink. WOW! Amazing.
There are two features that are absolutely brilliant! One is the ability to upload a photograph from your iPad photo gallery, and it will appear as a little photo pinned to your painting surface. You can see my photo in the first bear drawing. You can make it larger, smaller, twirl it around, place it anywhere you’d like while you work on your painting! then get rid of it when you’re finished.
The other feature I’m not a huge fan of, as far as tracing goes, but I do see some benefits for beginners, perhaps, as well as non-artists who just want to get the feel of drawing over top of a photo. This feature allows you to upload an image from your iPad photo gallery and it will appear very pale grey on your surface. This allows you to trace and paint over top of your image. I tried it here with this orchid, grew bored of it, abandoned the painting, but felt it might be helpful for you to see. I would definitely recommend you using YOUR OWN PHOTO if you use this feature. But why not learn to really draw? (I know some of you will take issue with me here, but it’s one of my convictions…do not trace…learn to DRAW!!)
BUT, here is a totally valid and helpful use for the tracing thing: I was at the art gallery on the Calvin College campus, and made a little sketch in Draw Free. I wanted to color it later, so I uploaded it into Artrage, then went on my merry way with color. Very cool, eh?
So you can see, way up there, I used pastel in the bear drawing (a favorite sculpture from the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park). The palette knife is the all-around blender and worked beautifully here with the pastels.
The watercolor orchid did not turn out as vibrant as I had wanted. It isn’t as “watercolor-like” as Auryn Ink. But you can still have fun with it.
The second painting from the top is an “oil” painting which I began in the wrong orientation and I haven’t been able to figure out how to switch it. Oh well.
And here’s another “oil” of my oldest daughter who is quite the photographer. She was having a heyday taking pics throughout the wonderful gardens and sculpture park.
I’m still working out a few kinks:
1. I do not think the top and bottom bars disappear at any time. This is frustrating, since it leaves your painting UNpainted in odd places at the top and bottom (you can see this on the above “oils”. So it left some UNpainted areas, or unfinished with blobs of paint left and not blended in (top painting).
2. I’m trying to remember to designate whether I want my paper/canvas oriented to be portrait or landscape FIRST! I kinda wish there was a way to change this mid-painting or even after you’re finished. Maybe there is a way and I just haven’t figured it out yet.
BUT my clever little nine year old suggested how I can remedy #1:
Simply make the painting surface a smidge smaller (by using your two fingers to zoom or diminish an image) and thereby keep the top and bottom bar off the page. Brilliant! It worked like a charm in the bear drawing!! Where would I be without her young mind?
So I know you’re just itching to have a go! Please do! And show us all at Everyday Matters what you come up with! The possibilities are truly ENDLESS with Artrage! Wonderful for drawing! Wonderful for painting! Fun to just play with or to create masterpieces!!! Speaking of masterpieces…you must, must, must check out the YouTube video of David Kassan creating a portrait in his studio, on an iPad, using Artrage, and a Nomad Brush (ooh, golly gee! I want one of those things!!)
You will be amazed!
*****NEWS!!! Someone from Ambient Design left me a comment yesterday…..
Nice detailed post. ArtRage for iPad is on sale for $0.99 during Comic-con thru July 27
EVEN MORE AMAZING!!!
Draw Free & Auryn Ink
You have seen, throughout our sojourn here in Grand Rapids, MIchigan, drawings (like the one above) made on my iPad with a free app called Draw Free. I have thoroughly enjoyed this app for the following reasons:
1. Very user friendly. I am notoriously techno-challenged, at best, and this app was simple and straight-forward enough for even me to get the hang of, almost immediately.
2. LOVE the variable line options both in color AND in thickness of the line.
3. Hardly any lag time between stroke-making and line appearing on the iPad. Other apps have a bit more lag time.
4. The simplicity of this app lends itself to quick, on site sketches, probably due to the fact you aren’t bogged down with tons of options as you will see in other art apps.
My one wish for this app would be a more extensive color wheel palette. I wouldn’t need EVERY color imaginable, like in Auryn Ink and Artrage (which I’ll be showing you tomorrow), but a few more options would be nice. I would love to have dark greens and blues, browns, etc.
But I was curious as to whether there were apps that would allow for more painting possibilities. I looked at YouTube videos of Sketchbook Pro and wasn’t terribly intrigued for some reason. I found Artrage pretty quickly on the worldwide web and YouTube, was totally drawn in, dying to try it, but put off getting it due to the 6.99 price tag. While that one sat on a back burner in my mind, I came across Auryn Ink. At 3.99 it seemed more reasonable, so I went for it. It wasn’t anything like Artrage, but had merits of it’s own.
Here’s what I like about Auryn Ink:
1. Simulates watercolor!!! Draw Free isn’t designed for watercolor, and Artrage doesn’t produce quite the watercolor results I get with Auryn Ink. I’ll show you how watercolor looks on Artrage in my next post.
2. Ability to adjust intensity of pigment, amount of water in strokes, a quick-dry button, a few brush options as well as options for paper texture, wonderful color options (although difficult to maneuver and adjust the color), and ability to adjust thickness of strokes as well. They thought of just about everything a watercolorist would need/want.
3. Oh, and even the option to spatter (by shaking the iPad!)
But here are the downsides:
1. I have difficulty getting a nice drawn line like I do in Draw Free. Yes, i can choose a very pointy brush, make the stroke width very tiny, but I get a kind of dotted line. This works pretty well for sketching out my design. But when I go to sign my name, it looks all pixelly. Poo!
2. I was left to figure this app out on my own! It does have a button to click for a User Guide, but I haven’t yet been able to access it. It is not accessible when you aren’t online, and even when I am online, it tells me it cannot connect. I’ve even tried typing in the URL given, but to no avail! They SO need a user friendly user guide so we can understand all the wonderful settings which I’m sure will expand my ability to appreciate all that Auryn Ink can do!
3. It may be because I’m so new to this app and because of a lack of technical support for it, but I kept thinking as I created these two paintings, “I could sure make these paintings in a lot less time than this!!” I’m not necessarily after speed with my iPad, but real-time painting with real materials is much easier in the sense that you can control variables such as water amount, brush use, etc without having to adjust the settings all the time! With that said, it really was FUN to create these juicy paintings on a tiny little computer…no water to carry, no paints to dry up on you, no paper buckling or drying up too fast on you.
With all this said, I will never exchange my watercolors, brushes, and sketchbooks for a simulation of it. I WILL however, keep this app and play with it from time to time. So will my kids! They love it!
I will definitely keep drawing with Draw Free…way fun, simple, easy, and I like the results. Of course, I will keep on drawing in my paper sketchbooks! But it’s so cool to whip out your iPad, make a little line drawing, and off you go.
You should try these apps too! Or maybe you want to wait until you read my thoughts on Artrage…the queen of art-creating apps for the iPad! It’s amazing…i mean really…they thought of everything! Tune in next time for what’s all the Rage!
P.S. The first drawing is of the melange of bicycles right outside our apartment here at Calvin College. The second drawing is Maddie creating a game to play. We played a lot of cards together these weeks and then she decided to create her own game…it’s pretty cool! The painting (Auryn Ink) of purple coneflowers is from our fabulous evening at the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. And the next watercolor (Auryn Ink), is of an orchid I saw there in the tropical garden space…more varieties of orchids than i had ever seen! And this final image is a photograph I took of a large rock that has been painted to say, “Goodbye Calvin”. The kids and I have tried to figure out why this rock is painted with these words?? The rock is situated at the top of the steps the lead from our apartments up to other parts of the campus. Or maybe, I should say, the rock is at the top of the steps that lead down to our apartments and thus out of the campus proper. At any rate, it is with a bit of sadness that we leave Calvin College tomorrow morning…it has been such a rewarding and rich journey.
In and Around Campus
Calvin College is lovely. The architecture, interiors and landscaping seem lovingly designed with an eye to shapes and colors. I’m really enjoying plunking down somewhere, anywhere, and finding so much to draw.
These are just a few. Flowers abound. Interior spaces are filled with unique furniture and colors. Even the walkway bridging the two halves of the campus is a thing of beauty. And all this with the backdrop of some gorgeous Michigan skies.
There’s more to come…keep stopping by. So glad you popped in today!
Aquatic Adventures
We are spending a good bit of our time in the amazing and totally awesome aquatic center on the campus here at Calvin College. The older two kids are taking diving lessons while the youngest is taking swimming lessons. Each of them wears a cheshire grin the entire time.
Maddie was signed up for her lesson prior to us getting here. The older two were captivated when they came to watch Maddie, by the diving lessons going on…”Mom, can we please?”. It’s been incredible to see how each of them has progressed in only a week…and they have another week to go! I just wish we had this kind of thing back in K’ville…I don’t know of any diving classes or opportunities there.
Not only are we here, at the Aquatic Center, for the daily lessons, but they also beg to come during the family swim times…EVERY DAY! I swim too…or knit…or draw on my iPad:)
Spartan Living
It is interesting to note, when you travel, what things you miss and how their absence affects you. You only pack the bare necessities, and you find you can get along fairly well without so many things we take for granted in our own homes. To be sure, even the pared down things we squeezed into the Mazda 5, would be considered wealth in many countries! But what I found myself saying to my oldest daughter yesterday, is that I MISS COLOR!
College dorm apartments have never had the reputation for being colorful spaces. Ours is no exception. All walls are off-white and all trim is wood-brown as well as the cabinets in kitchen and bathroom. Even the furniture is brown, with an aged teal colored fabric.
I find myself longing for the cheery yellows, soft blues and greens of my own home. Color makes such a difference to me…almost like it’s a vitamin, or a lens for seeing my world, or, well… I can’t really articulate what it is.
But what I DO find, in the absence of color, is that my eyes go searching for it. A hungry hunting for spots of color so my eyes can zoom in and feast, or… snack. A stroke here, a splash there…in the umbrella, the shoes, the red button on the coffee pot. The lime green backsplash is wonderful! It’s the most color in the whole place! I think it may have actually been avocado from the 70′s and faded to this pale lime (which I have exaggerated here in the drawing). And the towels in the bathroom, we bought so that our kids could tell which one was their’s. I chose for each of them their favorite color. The bathroom makes me smile.
My oldest daughter asked me what “spartan living” meant. After a long and lengthy discourse on the subject (which should actually have been described more SPARELY), I began to think that COLOR might be one of the things I cannot live without. Of course, tops on the list are my family and friends. But I think, perhaps side by side with food and water, would be color.
It takes travel, spending time somewhere other than your normal habitat, to realize this for the first time, or all over again, as is more likely the case.
On Arriving
In traveling, when you arrive, you’re really just beginning. We spent two days traveling from Kernersville, NC to Grand Rapids MI and when we got there, the same flurry of activity that got us into our car, had to happen all over again to get out of the car and into our on-campus apartments. That’s plural…since we had to move out of the first apartment within an hour or so of arriving…more flurry.
I am not a creature who loves change, much to my own disappointment. For a girl who dreams of adventures and travel, you’d think I would sail through hours and hours of driving in a car, hotel overnights, living in on-campus housing, etc. What I find myself needing are some of the same things my life “back home” consists of: daily walks, time to think and write out on a deck, nature, knitting, and drawing. Oh, and trips to Panera for good food and wi-fi!
These things help anchor me. One might say they are crutches, but I prefer to think of them as stabilizers…activities which ground me in something of who I am, no matter where I am, and provide a sense of security, else I just might fly apart into a million pieces. No one in my family wants that.
These little iPad drawings are such fun, as well as being grounding. When we got settled into our second apartment, got a few needed groceries (from a grocery store so mammoth it made Walmart seem tiny) we were treated to a picnic for all the families attending the Seminars at Calvin. The above two drawings are of the fountain area where we had barbecued chicken, salmon, cole slaw, and gooey brownies. A great way to celebrate arriving and launch a beginning…two weeks of study for my husband, two weeks of swimming and diving for my kids, two weeks of drawing and knitting for me. I hope you’ll keep popping in to see what the iPad cooks up for you:)
The above drawing is from the outside looking into our apartment…Randy’s feet are propped up while he reads, getting ready for the weeks ahead.
Off We Go!
Travel is an interesting thing…the challenge for me is in trimming down and simplifying what I take along on a journey. And when there are five of you, in a Mazda 5, well…you really have to ask yourself, “do I really need that?”
But once you’ve successfully managed to stuff everyone and everything into your vehicle, the tension goes away. Our trip up highway 77 was gorgeous! The mountains, the sunlight, the roadside flowers…a visual feast. Drawing on m y iPad was a bit tricky winding our way through the mountains and tunnels, but it was lovely.
My little drawr-ings do not come close to doing it justice, but then that wasn’t the reason for drawing them. I just want a visual key that twill unlock the images in my memory of a lovely day of travel.
Tonite we rest our heads in Columbus, OH before heading on to Grand Rapids, MI tomorrow. I’ll touch base with you soon updating you on this little trip with me, my family, and my RCiPad.
Cheerio!
An Experiment
I’m very excited about a little journey I’m going on…a trip, yes! But also a journey into reportage illustration in a way I’ve never explored before: using ONLY an iPad!
Do come along with me as I chronicle moments on our family trip through drawings I create on my iPad. You may think me crazy, but it’s gonna be cool! At least it is for me…a terribly technologically challenged girl who is falling in love with her early birthday present.
The above drawing was created with an app called Draw Free. It’s completely FREE! I’m also using an app called Blogsy to enable me to blog on wordpress, add images, links, etc. On the iPad. It is TOTALLY AWESOME!! It cost me just $4.99, and has virtually turned my iPad into a full functioning laptop.
Will I ever use pens, sketch pad, or bookmarks again? Absolutely! But for this upcoming trip, I thought it would be fun to discover what I could do with “just the iPad”.
The above drawing was made using my fingertip. This one here was made with a stylus made for the iPad and other devices like it. I LOVE this little pen-like stylus!
A Life Full
I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, though here in blogland it certainly seems so. Actually, the opposite has been true: falling INTO life, rich, varied, full…descriptors I prefer to use rather than that icky four-letter word, B. U. S. Y.
From April 1st until the 26th, I labeled, sorted, arranged, planned, and executed (along with lots of volunteers to help me) our Second Annual Spring Art Show at the school where I teach art. I had saved almost all of the students art created in class this school year and we had over 600 pieces to display, hang, sort, etc. Mind you, this is a “part-time” job, very part-time. But it requires an unbelievable amount of work to pull off an event like this. Though there were times I wondered if it was actually going to happen, it went off swimmingly…a great success in the enjoyment of parents, students, and faculty present for the evening. The only thing I truly regret is that the event fell in the same week as another HUGE event in our family.
The evening AFTER the Art Show, was opening night of Glenn High School’s West Side Story, in which my oldest daughter performed the role of Maria. For three nights I sat stunned and amazed at not only her talent, but that of all the students who had worked since January to bring this beautiful story to life. I had sewn a few of her costumes, not pictured here, BEFORE April 1st. I knew what a crazy month April would be for the school Art Show, so I planned ahead to have them made by the beginning of the month.
Then came PROM. This took place the very night AFTER West Side Story ended. In some ways I think it was a good thing to have something to focus on and have fun with following the play closing. It can be very difficult wading through the let-down of a huge show ending, all the work and beauty of it abruptly stops and one staggers to find the legs for normal life again.
In and amongst these huge events, I managed to weave in a little knitting, crocheting, and illustrating. Early April I began what I affectionately call my “Mindless Scarf”…I just needed to knit with pretty colors, not having to follow a pattern or worry about anything fitting.
There seems to be a lot of “life” going on in our neighborhood as babies are being born and due to be born. I wanted a little something to give to my neighbors as they receive these new little ones into their lives.
And, finally, but certainly not the last of all that’s been going on, I have been drawing Genevieve. Even though these drawings won’t be showing up on the blog anytime soon, I’ve been working on illustrations for a storybook. I still have no idea where to take this, a publisher? self-publish? But I enjoy working out the pictures to go along with the story. Illustration is quite a different matter from fine art. Perhaps I’ll blog about that sometime in the future.
May is proving to be very FULL as well: husband, sister, son, and mother-in-law’s birthdays, teaching Children’s Church, coordinating a banquet for the seniors graduating from high school in our church, and teaching a workshop on visual journaling through Associated Artist’s of Winston-Salem. There’s always a little nagging question in the back of my mind: Will I make it to the end of this month?
Well, I made it through April…I think I might just make it through May. ONE FULL MOMENT AT A TIME.
Bonjour!
Pop next door for a visit to my new blog introducing Genevieve and her world!
Would LOVE to see you there!
Come Draw With Me!
Celebrate Your Life!
A Visual Journaling Workshop
led by Jennifer Edwards
Thursday March 3, 2-4 PM
$12 members/ $15 non-members
Not a member? Join Now!
This workshop if for NON artists as well as artists.
A shout out to everybody:
I’m teaching a workshop titled “Celebrate Your Life!” at Associated Artists of Winston-Salem on March 3rd from 2-4 in the afternoon. This workshop is designed for artists and NON-artists alike who are interested in chronicling and celebrating their lives in a sketchbook. CLICK HERE for more info and to sign up! The cost is a mere $15 for non-members of AAWS or $12 for members. Nor do you have to bring tons of supplies…just your interest and a desire to play! I’ll give you loads of resources for inspiration, introduce you to a variety of ways to go about visually representing your life….from paper collage, to paints and wordplay, to sketching and drawing AND combining them all! From extremely simple to quite complex, the choice is yours as to how you “keep” your sketch journal. NO RULES…only IDEAS, IDEAS, IDEAS!
Come join me for a couple of hours Celebrating Your Life!
A Glorious Evening
In the midst of the hustle and bustle, I stopped a few times to take it all in:
parents enjoying their child’s artwork, students playing beautiful music on the keyboard, adults and kids chatting, laughing,
tasting delectable cupcakes and other treats, 5th grade students serving punch, all in all a beautiful evening.
It’s times like this, that one realizes the power of art to bring beauty and respite for our souls,
to “draw” people together, to revive, inspire, and bring joy.
This was certainly the case last Tuesday evening, April 27th, when Redeemer School had its first ever spring art show, called Art4Him, for the entire student body, Kindergarten through 8th grade.
Everything was wonderful, and I mean EVERYTHING, from the student program prior to the show, to the art these students have created throughout the year, to the sumptious treats at the reception, to the music our students provided, to the wonderful attendance by parents, students and faculty.
The thought crossed my mind…this is glory…we’re all partakers of it, and contributers to it.
I was thankful to be the art teacher at this school, and thankful to have played a small part in such a glorious evening.
**The above photos are used by permission of Redeemer School. I had so many other wonderful photos of the students and their families…but did not want to impose on anyone’s privacy, so I chose these carefully. You can still get a feel for the evening, I think.
