Paint Everywhere

Our days are so busy that I find myself fitting art into every free moment. Here, Jerry got in the car and discovered me painting. I wish that I could buy more time to do it all. Happily, graduation is just around the corner. After that, things will be a little less stressful.

Terracotta Warriors

Today, Jerry and I rode the metro into Washington, DC.

Jerry had written on his hand, so that he would remember to bring the tickets. We were going to the new Terracotta Warrior exhibit that is being held at the National Geographic building.

After standing in line for a while, we made our way through the amazing exhibit.

The recorded ture explained how the soldierers had been found:

In China, some people were digging for a well in a field. Instead of finding water, they ended up unearthing the tomb of an ancient emperor. This tomb was filled with hundreds of terracotta soldiers, horses, and other figures.

After seeing the Terracotta Exhibit, we visited some of the other museums in the area.

Looking at all these things is very inspiring. I can't wait to get back to my studio and start working on art.

Lantern

As snow fell softly around me, I captured this image of icicles forming on a lantern at my College.

1920's Coal Car

I recently finished a 1920's coal car for Camp Coal Creations.

When you look at this sculpture, you can see how important the little details are to me. I studied lots of pictures to plan the shape of the car. As I carved, I tried to create the various textures of wood, metal, and mud that you may have seen on a real coal car. As a finishing touch, I pressed real stick pins into the metal supports to give the impression of nails. I felt that the only thing that could look like real coal was coal, so I found small pieces of coal in the fish section of the local pet mart and glued them to the inside of the car.

A mold will be made from this sculpture. Then, lots of coal cars will be formed from the mold.

Camp Coal Creations celebrates our area's coal heritage by forming their sculptures using resin that has coal dust in it. When this sculpture comes out of the final mold, it will look like it has been carved out of solid coal.

In the 1920's, the real coal cars would have been filled with coal from the mines. Then, they would travel on train tracks to various destinations. Coal from our area, may have ended up in places all over the world.

Camp Coal Creations

We recently visited Jean Battlo at Camp Coal Creations.

Here, Jean showed us how a dremel tool is used to clean sculptures after they have been taken out of a mold. She even let us try our hand at the process.

Jean also showed as around their newly renovated workspace and gallery.

Be my Vallentine

Here, you can see progress on one of my most recent paintings.

I went mini with this one: it is 8 by 10.

Guinea Pig

Around Christmas time, we realized that there was something wrong with Patty.

She seemed very tired.

We visited the Vet.

The vet said, "I'm afraid it's cancer."

The vet said she could remove the cancer with surgery.

The surgery was successful.

After a couple of weeks, Patty was playing and eating again as if nothing had happened.

I know that Patty would like to say, "From the bottom of my little, guinea pig heart, thank you very much, Vet:)"