Family Photo

So here are the family photos we took a few weeks ago. My motives were slightly selfish: our last four family photos were  all taken not too long after we had a new family member; this time I wanted to take one while I still looked good ! Also, I wanted one that showed the scenery where we live.  Last time we went to the Black Hills-which were beautiful, but not what we are surrounded with everyday, and I wanted to remember it how it really looks.
I'm always more impressed with professional photographers after we take our family pictures; it is nearly impossible to get everyone looking good at the same time, let alone planning cool backgrounds, or special themes. I had been thinking for a few weeks that we could all wear superhero shirts, so at least it would look somewhat planned. Josh had the option of wearing a bright red shirt or his Batman one; you can see which he chose.
So when there was an evening that seemed bright and warm enough, we scurried to change and get outside. Of course, with the time that it took, conditions had already changed when we got to our chosen spot. For most of these photos, the sun was behind some haze and was causing weird effects to my pictures, the most notable being that Joseph's face was washed out weird on a bunch of these.
This first group was supposed to be what I wanted for the wall. Honestly, I only like them because my hair looks awesome. Other than that, there are tons of things that bother me: the spacing of everyone, Joseph's washed out face, etc. Those are things I could've noticed if I was still at the camera, but couldn't see till after the fact. If I chose one of these, I suppose it would be the bottom right because of our spacing (even though my hair doesn't look as cool) but Joseph is just way too washed out!If only we had taken a few steps to our right, it probably would've fixed it.

1.

click to see this larger!

Next, I suggested Joseph look at me instead of the camera. I really like how he and I look in these. (Well, except for the middle one where we look pretty silly. ) But the kids....yeah, what the heck? I think I had told them to put their hands on their hips like super heros, and Elora was trying to stick her chest out or something. And since I was looking at Joseph, I didn't notice all the times they weren't looking at the camera. Dang it. I like Elora in the top picture, but everyone else probably looks best in the third one.

2.






































We did try to do one fun shot; Joseph had the idea that we could have Eli flying in our arms! I like the idea, but we're stull pretty washed out and the older kids aren't exactly cooperating.

3.






































Finally, we decided to try a sitting pose. At this point, the sun finally came out from behind the hazy clouds, and the light looked more like it was supposed to! We took those pictures of the kids right after this too. These are definitely the best photos of the lot, technically. Well. Except there wasn't actually one where everyone was looking at the camera. There were a bunch were Jonah was looking down, or everyone else was messing around. Oh and a lot where it was very obvious Josh had to use the bathroom.
So I found the photo where everyone was looking up except Jonah. Then, I found the two where you could see Jonah's face, and put them together with the first one, so there were versions with both faces so I could decide between them. I still hate the idea of swaping faces in photoshop, but in this case, it was the best option to make the best-lit photo work. It's way too much trouble to try and go out again. Hmm....but now that the grass is all green, maybe we should?
I like Jonah's face best in the bottom one, and Joseph and my arms best in the top one. What do you think?


 4.

escape artist

We were taking some family pictures the other day (I'll post them later) and decided to take a few of just the kids together. Nothing too complicated, just the four of them standing in a line to show how big they are. Of course, one little person got tired of just standing there.
Observe:

Little rascal. But now I can't decide whether I'd rather have one of them all standing like they're supposed to (image 1 or 2), or one where Eli is escaping (image 3,4,or5)...because he's just so cute and mischievious. Which would you pick to hang?

tidbits

Here are a few little tidbits from my life lately.

1. Patches.

I always fix my kids pants when they get holes in them, unless they're in the back side, in which case they go in the future-levi-blanket pile. If it's summer time, the pants get turned into shorts, if it's still the school year, I put patches on them or something, because I'm not going to buy new pants in the middle of the year...unless none of them fit anymore. (That happened to Josh this last fall!)
Last year, I put big contrasting patches on the knees of all Elora's pants; they were cute for a while, but eventually even the patches were starting to get holes. If I lived anwhere else, I might've been embarassed. Or maybe I wouldn't be, I don't know.
This year, I tried something different. I had seen several patching ideas on pinterest that I loved, and wanted to try. I bought some felt in preparation for Josh's first knee hole, but Elora beat him to it. Because the hole appeared in February, I had the brilliant idea of making a heart, and doing decorative stitiching arount it, combining two ideas I had seen. (I did this style on a pair of my own pants on a small tear at the knee, using blue turquoise thread..I like it, but I have no idea what other people think about it.)
Underneath the felt is levi material, so it's durable. This photo is after it's been worn for a few months and the heart shape is looking more ragged; also the other knee got torn later on, and I wanted it to look different than the first. The thread is actually pink, but the camera made it look more white.  I would've loved jeans like this when I was a kid, and I hope Elora likes it as much as I do.



















Later, I got to make Josh's pants for which I'd planned. I saw this like a year ago, and I've seen other friends try the idea, but I doubted anyone around here would've seen this idea before. It's a similar thing to Elora's pants, but you make a little monster guy out of the rip! Josh loved it, and was showing all his teachers and friends.




















Unfortunately, he forgot my admonition not to crawl or slide around on his knees, and it was already tearing out when he came home, along with the other knee. He begged me to fix it, because he still really liked it so.....it didn't look quite as nice, but I "fixed" it. Ha. At least he'll still wear them.



















2.Puzzles.

 I spend a lot of time fixing things that Eli breaks- it's just the nature of having a toddler I suppose. Books are his most common target (grr), but recently he's added to his repertoir by destrying more and more movie covers. I figured he thinks I'm bored and might like a few puzzles to put together; I got to do these all the same week:



 



















We used to have a door that locked over the movie cupboard, but the door got broken a while back. Someday we'll replace it, but for now, this is what happens!


3. Creating.

When Elora was home during the day, it was easy to get her started on creative projects. If I wanted to keep her busy I could just say, "Hey, why don't you go draw me a pretty picture!" And on holidays and season changes I could always count on her to help me make flowers, snowflakes,pumpkins, or anything else we needed to decorate our house. The boys have been a lot harder to motivate in the creative department. Josh doesn't like to do anything artistic, though he's become a little more confident now that he's done a few things in kindergarten.
Jonah is slightly more interested in making things than Josh, but he won't just do it by himself like Elora; he only wants to draw if I'll sit and watch him the whole time. One thing he does ask to do on occasion is play with the playdoh.
A few weeks ago, he was doing really good making things on his own, and he called me over to see his most recent creation, a little man! I was very impressed, especially since he hasn't really started making figurative scribbles in his drawings yet. Good job, Jonah!




































4. weather

Sometimes in a rural area, the weather is the most exciting thing going on. This April it started to finally warm up, there were hints of green everywhere, and even some of our lilies were starting to push through the soil. Then, we had a snow storm. Of course. As I've explained before, the snow doesn't usually fall in a uniform blanket on the ground where we live. Generally, there are heavy winds along with the snow, causing it to pile several feet high in one spot, while just a few feet away the ground will be bare.
This was a picture I took out our kitchen window, as Elora demonstrated the depth of the drift by our house. Hey, she's wearing her heart pants:

























 During the storm, we took a short video of Joseph taking the garbage out too, if you're interested in seeing that.

http://youtu.be/aypp30leNLA

Isn't our family life so exciting?

experimental creativity

I've had this post set up forever, but it's just been sitting here waiting for me to publish. It's always been true that the art posts on this blog garner the least amount of comments, and when I know it's not a piece that's as appealing to the masses- like say, a realistic child portrait might be- then I'm even more hesitant to put it out there.

But anyway, here are a few things I"ve been working on lately. First, this is a fun drawing I did of Elora. I was trying to make it look more impressionistic and loose than it ended up being, but it's hard to change the style you've always had! I drew it in graphite pencil first, then did some marker details, and the rest is colored pencil. The marker and pencil colors actually go better together than they seem in this drawing; the marker in the photo translated to smoother darker colors than the pencil, as usual. I think there is a little more color in the original too.

The thing I like least about this drawing is how the glasses look kind of wonky; I didn't stick to the underdrawing very well when I was trying to be all spur-of-the-moment. My favorite thing is the bright, sunny feel of the drawing, especially the sky. This is about 11x14" in size.

 

 

 

 

This next picture was completed over several different days, as I didn't have a concrete idea of what I wanted when I started. At first, I did the background watercolors when I was just painting for fun with Jonah. Later I added the tree, also water color. Slowly I added leaves in marker and pen, then I decided I wanted to add words. I just added a few things in writing, when the idea came to me that I wanted to do some kind of tribute to my dad, who recently passed away.

For the words in the drawing, I used lyrics from some songs, as well as phrases from some articles my dad had written for treasure magazines. I deliberately chose phrases that could be interpereted multiple ways, especially in regard to passing from one life to another, and to the value of a life.

I tried a transfer method I found online, where you print the words onto wax paper, then rub them onto the surface where you want them. It worked on parts, and not so much on others, where it smudged a bit.

My favorite parts of this piece are the actual words and the idea of it, my least favorite are the parts where it was supposed to transfer but I had to go over it with my own writing, which didn't look as cool. Also, at the last minute, I tried to add some musical notes from a relevant song along the edges of the picture. I tried a different transfer method which didn't work well at all, and caused the paper to get more wrinkled than it was. Oh well, live and learn!

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the branches, which have words along some of them.

 

 

This is a close-up of the ground and some of the words there.

 

Finally, here are a few fun sketches I did recently. This first was from a different photo of that day the boys were catching dust; I drew it while I was watching Conference this last month, using pen and..spit. Hey, it works.

 

 

This other one was a few weeks ago at church. We were waiting after church for daddy to get done, and the kids all started playing around drawing on the chalkboard, so I decided to draw them. I wish this was on unlined paper, because I really like it!