Happy Easter!

Like any holiday, my family has traditions for Easter. (For some more traditions, look at my friend Maddie's blog!) Usually we celebrate the Saturday before Easter with all of the chocolate, the easter baskets, the egg hunts, etc. On Sunday (Easter) we might have one Easter Egg hunt with our extended family, but besides that we try to think about Jesus Christ and his Resurrection and Atonement. We go to church and just have a great day!

As tomorrow is Saturday, we are decorating some easter eggs! We normally try and get creative by: 

• Tying rubber bands to make white lines on the eggs
• Dipping the eggs in multiple colors
• Drawing with a white crayon on the egg. Then when you dip it in the dye you can see your drawing!

These are all super fun to do but this Easter, my family is trying something different. We are going to make a marbled effect by using whip cream and food coloring. (We were going to use shaving cream but that is TOXIC. So we are going to use whip cream instead so that we can eat the eggs later!) Here is a blog that helped me know what to do.

Here's what you'll need:

Hard Boiled Eggs

Whipping Cream

3 bowls (this depends on how many colors you want and how many eggs you have. We had eight)

Food Coloring

Tooth Pick (Or just something you can use to stir the whip cream)

Drying Rack (Or a plate, something you can set the eggs on to dry)

Okay, so first you take your whipped cream and drop some drops of food color into the cream. You don't want too many drops because it'll get too messy. 

The whipping cream with food coloring. We used (from
right to left) Red & Blue, Yellow & Red, and Green & Blue. 

Once you've gotten the drops, you'll want to stir the whipped cream. It might look a little scary but that's okay! You don't want to mix the coloring too much because then it will not be as marbled.

Stirring the Whipped Cream

When you've gotten your whip cream ready, grab your egg! You are going to roll it around in the whip cream. It doesn't need much whip cream on it, just enough to cover all of the egg. 

Rolling the egg around so it is completely covered! Notice
how we didn't mix the whipped cream too much and our egg still
has lot's of color!

When you have rolled it around in the whipped cream, DO NOT WIPE OFF THE WHIP CREAM!!! You want to leave it on the egg. For a really bold color, the blog that gave instructions said to let the cream sit on it for eight hours in the refrigerator. After eight hours are up, just wipe off the whip cream and, voila! You have your very own marbled egg! 

Here's my little brother making an egg with some yellow
and red whipping cream! Photo Credit: My Mom

Here'e our beautiful eggs!

My little brother, mom, and I with our finished eggs!
Photo Credit: My dad

Well, I hope you all have a great Easter, and that you get to go on an easter egg hunt!

See ya!

PS! On the blog where I found instructions it said to put vinegar on the eggs before you do anything else but of course I over looked that....so when we went to wipe off the whipped cream it just stuck on the egg. So, put some vinegar on the eggs before you roll them around in whip cream! Good Luck!

Legos and Painted Pianos

Legos. They can ether be super fun toys, or extremely painful booby traps for your feet. Or, in Nathan Sawaya's case, they are an art.

Today I realized that I was going to the Kimball Arts Center to see The Art of the Brick exhibit by Nathan Sawaya. For those of you how haven't seen any of Nathan Sawaya's art, you are missing out. So, to help you I took a bunch of pictures today of each piece so I'll enlighten you!

The Art of the Brick at the Kimball Art's
Center.

Writer 

Hundred Dollar Bill

Yellow

Pop-Up Book

Crayon

Title: Unknown 

Gray

Title: Unknown

Aren't they amazing!?! I think my favorites would be the crayons, the pop-up book, and the little kid with holding the world. What are yours?

With all of these pieces he really uses the color to give the impression that he wants. When his sculpture is sad or concerned he uses gray. If the sculpture deals with creativity or ideas he add some color to the gray. I really like how much detail he puts into everything! With his sculptures he really likes to work with the human figure. I was able to see an exhibit that was displayed a few years ago and his main focus was the human figure. He had some sculptures putting themselves together, and some were ripping themselves apart, it was really cool! With this exhibit, he is still using the figure in different pieces but he’s sculpting everyday objects too. He had crayons, money, a cat, and a bunch of other stuff! It is always so cool to see The Art of the Brick when it’s on display. If you are ever in Park City and they are displaying The Art of the Brick, go on and stop by!

Okay, now to tie music into this. As we were leaving, I saw a piano just sitting outside. It was kinda weird because 1) It was a Piano sitting outside in the cold and 2)It was painted and had a humming bird on it. So of course I go over and look at it. It’s just a piano that you could play if you wanted too. I immediately sat down and started playing. As I was playing, I saw that the white keys were painted blue on the sides! You could only see the blue if you pressed a note down and looked at the side of the white note next to the one you were holding down. The really cool thing is that there were dragonflies and lady bugs painted on some of the keys. IT WAS SO COOL!!! I have to say, today was the first time I played on a painted piano in the freezing weather. It was great!

  

A side view of the piano. Sorry I don't know the artist's name,
but the painting is amazing! 

Here's a better view of the Humming bird

Just me playing by the Kimball Arts Center

See ya!

Inspiration

Okay, we've all got something that inspires us, right? Awhile ago, I was talking to one of my dad's good friend and we started talking about what I was doing. He had asked me what I was up to right now and I told him pretty much a bit of everything. (It's true! I was doing track/workout club, percussion, school work, church stuff, and art.) My mom narrowed it down and we started talking about my Etch-A-Sketch and my other artwork. I told him how I wasn't too fond of painting just because I'm afraid of messing it up (I know, it's weird. I love paintings just I have a hard time with them...Yes I realize that my blog is called PAINT, pencils, and paper...It's a love and strongly despise relationship with paintings and I...). My dad's friend talked to me about how I should go ahead and paint something. I've wanted too for a while but I just haven't gotten around to it.

So with that great talk of how I'm going to paint, I'm actually going to show some paintings that have been done by amazing people. Some of them are famous and you should know them! If you don't know, then prepare to get enlightened.

Starry Night

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Starry Night is one of my favorites because I love the feeling that is portrayed in this painting. The brush strokes and the movement create a very mystical setting and it's visually pleasing. Because of the movement your eye never gets 'stuck' on one spot. I guess I just really like the composition of this piece.

Two Calla Lilies on Pink

Photo Credit: Learning to Live Creatively

This painting is by Georgia O'Keeffe. Her artwork style was Surrealism. She painted things larger than life, and things that might only be found in dreams. She really liked to paint flowers. She also liked painting skulls...floating in the sky...with flowers floating along side the skulls. I'm not sure why she did that but her paintings are truly amazing! I really do like her surrealistic work (Even if it does include floating animal skulls in the sky)










Mona Lisa

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

I really like Leonardo Da Vinci's work. It's. So. Perfect! I love how realistic his work is and how life-like everything is! I've always liked his work, he is one of my inspirations! His work is A fun fact for you, Da Vinci was left handed, just like me!

Photo Credit: Martina 

Photo Credit: Lizzy

This is a painting that my friend Martina did! I really like that you can still see her brush strokes. I really like the colors that she used because they are more natural and help give the painting a calming impression.



Lizzy did this painting, and she is amazing! I really liked this painting because of the detail that is put into the petals and the center of the flower. I love how she painted the petals as they really look, and she didn't try to make them look super symmetrical.








Okay well, there are a lot more amazing artists out there and great pieces of work but if I went on with all the pictures I would be babbling on and on so we'll stop now!

I hope you enjoyed these pieces, they are so amazing! Hopefully soon I will have some of my own paintings that I can post for all of you too see! Wish me luck!

See ya!

Etch-A-Sketch

I always think it good to try new mediums in art so you can see what you really like and what you're good at. Well, for Christmas, I got a new medium. I got an Etch-A-sketch! I wasn't too excited when I saw that I got it because as a child, I failed at it. We've all tried to use one of these, right? If you haven't, you better find one!

Etch-A-Sketch's are really fun, but hard to use! You have to use the little knobs to make your lines and if you turn the right knob, the line will go up or down. If you turn the left knob, the line with go side to side. If you want to get tricky, you could use both of the knobs at the same time and make a curve!

Photo Credit: Underneath the Turban (I added the right and left)

When I was little I had an Etch-A-Sketch and I would use it but, mostly I'd just scribble around. My drawings never turned out well, but then again no one else did that well ether. The drawings were awful, and so Etch-a-Sketch was just a fun thing to find and use for a while. But then I'd forget about it.

Okay back to last Christmas. I wasn't to excited but I played around with it just to use it. I enjoyed it and used it again the next day. Towards the end of the day it started to get easier. My drawings looked better! You could actually tell what I was trying to draw! My drawings kept getting better, and better and it was so cool! I'd always tried to create something visually interesting with an Etch-A-Sketch and I finally did! Here's a picture of a few of my drawings:

This was just a super quick sketch of Jack Frost from the Movie,
Rise of the Guardians. (Sorry that the picture isn't very good and the reflection is in the way.

Here's a drawing of a girl that I drew
a little while ago.

If you don't get it right the first time keep trying!

See ya!

Bandapalooza

What in the world is Bandapalooza? This is a time when all the grades from sixth grade to twelfth grade play together in a concert. One band doesn't play one song and then leave; One band plays a song and they keep adding bands to the first band and play songs. That means we have six different bands with kids of all ages and all different skill levels making music together. We also had another school, Weilmann, playing with us too. There was over three-hundred kids. THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE!!! Oh my goodness! It was so crazy! Lot's of people might think, Well that probably ended in a disaster, but we have two very talented directors. Mr. Taylor is our band director and Mr. Hughes is our percussion director. They do a fantastic job of keeping everyone in control and making sure that we have good concert behavior. They are super great, and it's so fun to be in their class!

Here's a picture of everyone on the stage.
Photo Credit: Kathy Thorn 

Our concert went well. We started with a song by the percussion Wind Ensemble. Then we added the Wind Ensemble and they played a song together with the percussionists. The Symphonic band was added on and they played next. They kept adding more bands to the mix until they got all the way down to the six grade band.

It was really cool because as a percussionist, we don't play every song. That means we get to help the younger percussionists if they need any help. I got to help some of the little six grade percussionists with their music. It was really fun to help him! I thought it was crazy to see the little students and remember that I started like that! When you look at it in that perspective it's cool to see how far you've come!

The band sounded good! There were mistakes, but that happens all the time. Lot's of 'difficulties' happened too. Mouth pieces were dropped, we dropped a Tom Tom, some one dropped their sticks; it was great. I really like Bandapalooza because the older kids get to mentor the younger ones and the younger kids get to be apart of something huge! It really is such a fun thing to be apart of! So if you're ever in Park City and Bandapalooza is going on, go and check it out! It is amazing! You will be blown away by how amazing it is!

Here's a picture of when we were bowing. There are lot's of
people on the wings, you just can't see them.
Photo Credit: Kathy Thorn

Here's a list of the bands that played:
Welliman
6th grade band
7th grade band
8th grade band
Symphonic
Wind Ensemble
Percussion Wind Ensemble

So to wrap up, Bandapalooza is great, and good job to all of you who preformed!

See ya later!

PS! My friend wanted me to post this boot. So, here's a boot for Micaela:


   ____________
  ___________o-
  ___________o-
  ___________o-
    __________o-
    __________o-
        ________o-
         ________o-
        _________o-
       ___________o-
      _____________o-     ____
    _______________________
    _______________________
     ----------------------------