New Painting

So remember the painting that my parents wanted well I started a painting before Christmas thinking I'll paint them something new to distract them from this "Leaves" one they want. I even told myself "Sam DO NOT get attached to this painting, you ARE giving it to your parents!" Well have way through the work I knew I wasn't going to give it to them. I thought "CRAP, I just spent three hours on a gift for myself. Christmas is in four days what am I going to give them now!" Again I only used the palette knife to get the texture in this new work. I getting really into the texture and clearly I'm not affraid of color at the moment. So after finishing the blues and greens I thought maybe if I touch it with white maybe I'll wreck it and won't want to keep it anymore. NOPE! I loved it. It came to look like snow falling in a dark blue night and it matched the other painting so well, now following a seasons theme that I didn't mean to create that I knew I need to keep them together and couldn't give them to my parents. Needless to say they disowned me. But can you blame me?! They're beautiful right?


Now serious question what do I title them? (Che' you were always so much better at this than I was please help) Both remind me of impressionism like Van Gogh's work (no where as good as him but impressionistic all the same). A co-worker asked about the blue piece before I told her anything about it if it was "Starry Night". So that got me thinking that I should call the piece "Snowy Night" and the other "Autumn Impressions" from a letter that he wrote to his brother Theodore about one of his paintings. What do you think? Is that too cliche'? I wasn't thinking about Van Gogh's work when I painted these at all but he is one of my favorite artists. If I didn't title them that way I would just call them "Snow" and "Leaves". So please help me and let me know you opinion on the work and titles. Thanks all!!!

Great Art History Blog

Thanks to my friend Nik I've been reading this Art History Blog that I've really been enjoying now that I'm not in school anymore. I'm such an Art History junkie and these discussions are just the fix I've been craving. So if you're interested check it out, I really do recommend it.

Thanks again Nik for introducing me to Monica's Blog.

http://albertis-window.com/

My New Portfolio

Well needless to say I didn't run the half-marathon. . . between getting sick twice in a month and then my mom going to the hospital for a week I couldn't exercise and finish my training. I'll still exercise but I'm past the desire to run 13 miles. The farthest I've got to was 8 miles and even those I was getting sick of. So while I'm not as desciplined at exercising hopefully you will be proud and happy to hear that I have been using my time painting instead.

I haven't worked in color since Snow College so these first two were meant to be a study to play and practice using color but I ended up making something I'm really happy with what was created. The red is an abstract of a calla lillie and the blue is abstract lille, both have circles representing the water drops on the flowers.

This next one was painted with my palette knife only. I was getting so into the texture of my palette knife that I forgot to use my brushes. I really liked this because clean up was a lot easier. The painting is the impressions of the leaves as they fall or blow in the wind. The texture adds a lot to the work and I really liked what I created. My parents have liked this work so much that they decided they want them. I begged them not to take them as I never get to keep my own work, usually I gift them. But to them because they created me by proxi they believe they own the rights to anything I create. I told them they couldn't afford how much I was going to charge for these but Dad said he'd put that under "gave you life." :)

My co-workers have enjoyed my work as well. This last work is a commission from a co-worker who is decorating her new house and wanted an origional artwork to put up there. Her favorite color is purple and she painted her walls grey so I'm hoping she likes this work and that it will fit nicely in her home. I've never painted for money before or even ever sold an of my art so I'm not quite sure what is a fair price. I know you are suppose to take the cost of the material and the hours of time that you used to create the work into consideration but I'm not sure still. I was thinking around $80-$100. Do you think that's reasonable? I'm also not sure if I fully love the work. The colors are great but the shapes seem a little cliche'. What do you guys think? Do you like it?

My Heritage

Recently I read my patriarchal blessing for the first time in about three years. I don't read it because it doesn't give me the hope I yearn for about my future family that I desire so badly for. Forgive me I know that's not the point of this blessing, it's not a magic eight ball but sometimes I wish it was. As part of my repentance I've been changing my attitude and seeking the Lord's guidance with this tool as well as others. This time there were a few phrases that stuck out such as this one: "Remember your progenitors. Seek to learn of their lives and to understand the heritage which you have received from them and how you can bless their lives."

This is how well Heavenly Father knows me personally. For about a year and a half I've been trying to spend more time with my grandparents, cleaning their house twice a month and visiting with the ones in Salt Lake, and writing letters to my grandma down in Manti. I figure I've been blessed to have them all still alive these 27 years of my life and I should take advantage of the time I have with them. The more time I spend with them the more attached I get, which is both good and bad, 'cause when their time comes it's not going to be easy. They've blessed my life so much so the least I can do is reach out and get to know them better and try and help them where I can.

It was my Granie and Gramps Broadhead 's 80th birthday party and Jesi and I made them a quilt of our family tree on it. Starting with them on the bottom branching out to each of us kids and grandkids. Here some pictures of that.

Jesi really did all the sewing and it was her idea, I just drew the tree and wrote all the names of the family members 'cause I have cute handwriting. Jesi is really talented at sewing she's been making blankets and purses for friends and gifts.

Granie has made each of her grandkids quilts to be given to them for their wedding, so we thought it might be nice to make her a blanket. I think she really liked.

They do more than the normal Grandparent stuff. They've given my family the eternal foundation, love and support for us to build our lives upon. This is the heritage they've given me and for that I'm eternally gratiful.

Leprechaun 10K

I participated in the Lady of the Lourdes Catholic School 10K this St. Patrick's Day with my friends at work. It's a fun race that starts on the East side of the Capital Building, going up City Creek for 3 miles and then continuing down the next 3 miles ending in Memory Grove. Everyone dresses in green and St. Patrick's Day costumes. My Co-worker Pat Noteboom's sons go to that school and he's been volunteering to be in charge of the race for the past three years now so we not only participated by running in the race but we helped with the T-Shirts and getting the runner's packages together. We really do it to support Pat's family rather than the school itself but as Pat says it's good to put in some volunteer time with the Catholic Church just in case God turns out to be Catholic. I love his attitude about different faith's, to him we're all children of God, no matter what we believe . . . and I agree.

This is my friend Rebekah (she thought she was funny and closed her eyes), her little girl Teagan walked the one mile health walk with Rebekah and our friend Melissa. It took them an hour as Teagan explored the trail, picking flowers and petting the dogs there at the event with the other runners.

This is our friend Melissa, she dressed up as a Leprechaun Yetty. Head to toe in this homemade yarn suit that took her two months to crochet. She won the Best Costume Award!!!

My goal was to finish the 6.2 miles in an hour and a half, but as I started going up City Creek I found it difficult to jog at all up the .5% incline to the half way point. It took me an hour to do those first 3 miles and as I saw all the other runners start back down I thought for sure I was deadlast. This bothered me a little until I changed my attitude and started being proud of my placement. It wasn't until I started back down the canyon that I realized that I was actually in 2nd to last place, another girl was treking her way up too. The way down these last 3 miles was easier as I found I could jog again down the hill. It only took me half an hour to run those miles and I crossed the finish line at one hour and 31 min. My friends Melissa, Rebekah, Teagan and Pat were there to cheer me to the finish. Not bad for my first time running outside, in the cold weather, and with inclines this season. Besides like my friends say it is better to finish dead last than not finishing at all, and it is better to not finish at all than to not start in the first place. The point is that I'm still having fun exercising and getting more fit for the upcoming half marathon I'm running this July 31st in San Francisco. Wish me luck!

My First Christmas Tree

My sister and I saw this 6' pre-lit Christmas Tree from Target for $50 when we went shopping on Black Friday around 10am (we're not early risers even on big shopping days) and ended up paying $25 for it because of the sale. . . which was a great steal of a deal until we realized that I grabbed the multicolored lighted tree instead of the white lighted tree that I wanted. So you'll call me crazy but we decided to buy a string of white lights and spent 2 hours exchanging the colored bulbs we didn't want with the white bulbs, leaving only the red, green and yellow lights to match the red, gold and brown ornaments and ribbons that we got to decorate the tree with. My fingers started to hurt after the first hour and the white lights were a little smaller than the multicolored bulbs and so we had to tape those in . . . but you know how if one light goes out they all go out . . . needless to say this started to become a nightmare of a project. But once I got the lights the way I wanted them and finished decorating the tree with the red and gold ribbons, christmas balls and brown glittered stars I knew that this gorgeous tree was worth the pain and trouble. The artistic and homemaker side of me was in heaven and I'm really proud of my first christmas tree. So what do you think? Was it worth all that work?

Mission Memories

A friend came over tonight and some how we started talking about my mission. So naturally I rambled on about this story and that, only this time for some reasons I decided to show her all my pictures and videos. Making this short conversation about how I got kissed on the mission to a whole nights worth of story telling down memory lane. Here are some of the funny pictures that really only my family has seen.




My first winter and Christmas my mother sent me the traditional Christmas PJs only she must have been worried that I was freezing in the new england winter because she sent me these footy pajamas. I didn't think they made footy pjs for 21 year olds but I learn new things everyday.





Keeping my hair straight in New Jersey's humidity was a challenge, especially when it down right poured rain. This picture was taken one rainy PD at Target. I didn't want to get my hair wet making it curly so I improvised.
















Then there were the days that were so hot that my shoes literally melted into the tar road. That's New Jersey for you.



New Jersey is sometimes pretty ghetto, but I love it. Like this beautiful garden with it's plastic fork border. They also would take fake flowers from the store and plant them in the ground.


But overall I found New Jersey to be beautiful. I loved my mission and I treasure these memories with all my heart.