Six Year Old Portrait

  If you hadn't heard the news, Elora is six years old this month! It's crazy how fast she's growing up, learning, and becoming her own person. She loves school and is at the top of her class in everything; she even gets to go to the first grade for her reading group! She loves to draw and make crafts when she's home, and she's always trying to teach her little brothers everything she knows.
  Along with her birthday, this time of year also means it's time to replace her portrait on the wall, and Elora is happy to be my little model. Unfortunately, as she gets older it actually has been harder to get good pictures, just because she tries too hard to pose, and can't remember how to smile for real when the camera is there.
  This year, we had to wait for a week or two before there was finally a day that wasn't cold, overcast, or too windy. When she got home from school, I had her quickly change into her new skirt from her birthday, and we hurried out to get some pictures before it got too dark...in the fall that 'perfect time of day' doesn't really last very long. To  make things more challenging, I was also carrying the baby in a front carrier, Josh was there to keep distracting Elora, and the camera battery was running low. So it wasn't too much of a surprise that we had a difficult time getting a few good pictures to choose from!
  So as an overview, I have an 8x10 and a 5x7 frame on the wall I want to change out. In at least one of these pictures, I want her skirt to be showing, since that's why she wore it. I don't want it to be exactly like the photo from last year (the group at the end of the post), even though anywhere around here is going to have that "yellow grass" decor in the background.
  All of my favorite pictures this time seem to have her looking away from the camera, but I feel that at least one of the portraits should show her face/smile, since it is supposed to document what she looks like at six years.
   Here are the photos we have to choose from:





This first group contains a few of the best smiles, if I want a smiling one.  I like the composition of the top left photo, but her smile is better in the right top photo. However, her shirt is crumpled up weird in both, and there is glare on her glasses in the right one with the better smile. This was another factor that affected our photos: every time she was smiling nicely, I'd have to stop and have her tilt her head differently so the light wasn't on her glasses, and it caused us to lose the spontaneity of the moment.

We took a lot of shots with her sitting down, so the skirt could be in the photo. Here is the second group:




I think the top left photo is best here, though Joseph likes the one where she's behind the grass and looking serious. I wish she'd have been smiling better in the top right photo, because I think it looks neat how you can see the grass going on forever in the distance!

We did several shots by the poles around the pow wow grounds. Here is group three:




The one on the top right is one of my top pics for the wall; I love the composition, and even though she's not smiling big, it still looks nice. The only thing I don't like about it is that it might be a little dark, but it's not a big deal. Joseph's favorite is also in this group; he says he likes the bottom left photo. I almost deleted that one initially because she's being so weird, but he says that one reminds him most of her personality, as she acts like that when he sees her at school all the time! So now I'm considering it. The bottom right is okay, I just think it's too zoomed in on her face. And I like the soft light in the top left, but the angle is just weird. I had to turn my camera that way, or it was reading her as black against the light grass.
We did a few standing shots, but Elora was having a harder time acting natural for these:

Another of my favorite shots is in this group. I love the bottom right where she is laughing.... but she's not facing the camera, so I don't know if I want it for my big picture. It is pretty cute though. What do you think?  I wish she'd have smiled in the one where she's fixing her hair on the top left. Grrr.

 Here are the final few pictures:

I really love these ones too. In fact, this top one might be my favorite, because she looks very natural, pretty, and so grown up! I like both the color and bw, though I'm leaning toward the color version. But again, she's not looking at the camera, so I don't know if it should be the big wall photo. Maybe the smaller one? I like the second photo here too, but again not a very big smile. I love the bw version of it though!

So what would you choose? Again, these are my two favorites:

but she's not looking up in either, so I think I need to maybe pick one of them (or neither?), and then have another one where she is looking at the camera.  I also rather like this one:

And this was Joseph's favorite:

I'd love your input!

trees with leaves, in marker

In the last little while, I've had some fun experimenting more with my art markers, trying to better master the medium. First, I did this one, based on some of the photos we took by the stream in Spearfish. I loved how the background turned out; there's something to be said for working from real-life references rather than just out of my head! The trees here look completely different than the ones in my first big marker picture I did this last winter. Which I love, but is not realistic at all.



Having something to look at helped me make better decisions on how to create the colors and the light on the trees. The only part I would have liked to re-do is maybe the water. I would know how to blend the colors together more seamlessly if I were using pencils or paint, while I'm still trying to figure out the best process with the markers. The kids here aren't supposed to look real, they're just cartoon representations. I funished this shortly before the baby was born.

More recently, I wanted to do some kind of fall drawing, in anticipation of our drive up the canyon (which  didn't yeild that many fall leaves, unfortunately.) This drawing wasn't very well planned out. I found various elements- like the different types of trees- in a National Parks coffee table book I have. I did a quick pencil sketch before I started with the color, but didn't spend a ton of time on it.



While I love various elements in this drawing, I don't think the composition as a whole turned out very good. All the small details make the viewer's eye jump around to much, and you don't know where to look first. I wasn't sure what the best balance was between the marker and the details in black pen, and I may have done too much detail overall.
While the sum total of the picture doesn't add up to a good layout, I do like several smaller compositions within the drawing. For instance, these crops would work well on their own:

 




And I do love that it's our first "family drawing" with the baby included. Hi, Eli!

Fall and Family Photos

For Columbus Day this year, we were lucky enough to visit Spearfish Canyon to view the leaves and to take some family pictures! (We need a new one because our most recent one depicts Jonah only about 6 weeks old). For those of you who live near beautiful canyons and fall leaves, say in Cedar City, Logan, or Washington....you don't realize how lucky you are!

Reading on Facebook about everyone else going out on leaf-viewing jaunts was really getting me jealous. I was so glad that we had this place within a 2-3 hour drive, so we could at least see some foliage once before winter. Sadly, we missed the peak of the fall leaves, but we were still happy to be there. We mostly drove around, but we did find a few spots to stop. There was a lodge where we found picnic tables to eat our lunch, and where we took our first pictures.

 I was really annoyed that we got there at the worst time of day to take pictures- between 11AM and 2PM, but despite all our efforts we couldn't really get there any other time, so we tried to make the best of it. The sun was too bright, and it looks warm, but really it was pretty cold! Most of the time the temperature hovered around 55F, with a breeze that made it even colder. This was another factor that made our picture-taking adventure a little hard, as we all had coats and the baby had a blanket that we had to take off for the pictures, then quickly put back on before everyone froze.

The pictures we took of our family in this location are probably the best in regard to our facial expressions and layout. I know this in my mind, but somehow they are not what I wanted...maybe because of the fine trimmed lawn instead of the forest floor beneath our feet? Also, the super bright light washed out the leaves and grass in the foreground too much for my liking. Still...all the people look good! We got tons of useable shots here, but these are the two best:

A lot of the mountain was forested with only pinetrees, and many of the quakies had already shed their golden leaves, which I would have loved for a background. We also forgot our baby carrier so we couldn't go on any extensive hikes in search of better spots, but we did find one trail that we ventured down a bit. I would have liked to go further, but the designated baby holder (Joseph) didn't think that was a good idea.

There was a short trail where you could view a pretty waterfall, and this is where most of the tourists were walking around. We found a side trail that led on a much longer trek to another parking lot, and it had fewer users, so we walked down that way to find a place to take more pictures. 

The very first attempt was horrible, as the sun was too much on our faces and washing us out. Plus, for this and all subsequent photos, I forgot to have Joseph take his glasses off! They're transition lenses, so it wasn't something we thought about. Oh yeah, and Jonah still has is coat..basically, there was way too much wrong with these:

When I realized how bright the light was, I moved us just off the trail in the same spot , just facing the other way. This location is exactly what I wanted, in terms of the leaves covering the ground all around us, and the variation in the way we're standing. I even like the camera flare in the top right corner. Except...how did Josh get back there? And yes, this is the best expression he had out of all of them. Plus, hello crying baby, and Elora's weird expression. I was very sad that we didn't look that great, because really, I would love this place hanging on my wall. :(

I could tell the kids were getting bored with pictures, and daddy was getting tired of constantly removing the baby's blanket and hat then putting them back on. So we walked just a short way down the trail for one more group of shots. I really like this location too, and the fact that we're not all just standing there. I wish tere was more fall color evident in the shot, and I don't like the bright light shining on the trail on the righthand side. But all the kids look pretty good, right? In fact, the only thing I don't like about the people is Joseph's dark glasses again.

So none of these were exactly what I wanted. I would have loved to stay longer and wait for the light to get more pleasant, or even go exploring more, but I don't think the rest of the fam would have been on board with that. The baby needed to eat, the toddler needed a nap, and so did the daddy. Not to mention that after grocery shopping (which we always have to do when we're near a city) and dinner, we wouldn't get home until ten that night even at this point, when it was around 2PM.

As it is, I'm having a hard time deciding between these. My mom likes this last one the best. I like our faces the best in one of the first ones, the location in the one with the lens flare, and the way we're sititng in this last one. I have to say though, Jonah did an awesome job of smiling big in every picture!

So, which would you choose? 

photo confession

Confession: This is my favorite photo of all my kids. But this photo doesn't exist. 

I was having the hardest time getting them all to smile in unison. They all really did have have these expressions as they met their new little brother, and they really were so excited to sit with him. But sometimes they were blurry,

 

or looking away,

or their eyes were halfway closed.

 

 

 And I had two pictures which were so close in the posing, I thought maybe this once, it wouldn't be a big deal....so I put the two pictures together.

Because even though that specific moment may not have really happened, it still captures the whole experience of joy when my kids were all together one afternoon after their brother was born. And I love it.