Sculpture

I was excited to finish all of my sculpture projects from Fall semester. The class seemed to fly by so that I felt like I did all of the projects in the time span of about a week. It got a little crazy but I'm pretty happy with the outcomes and I feel more confident in all of the art forms.

So this is what my stone looked like at the beginning. It was rough and big, weighing about 35 pounds. During and outside of class I would go and sit and chisel away at my stone while listening to pandora. It was pretty cool. I am even more impressed now with awesome marble sculptures by Michelangelo because let me tell you...it ain't easy.

safety first!

Here's how it turned out after it had been sanded, smoothed and polished. I wish I had had a little more time to work on it because I feel like it might not be completely finished, but thus is the life of a busy student. It looks different at all different angles, which is kind of cool.

The stone itself had some really pretty colors in it.

This is how my steel project turned out. Not going to lie, I was really nervous for this one because the requirements were welding and forging. If you're not familiar with either method, I'll just say that they both involve extremely hot temperatures and danger...especially welding. Once I got going with the welder though it wasn't too bad. I'm really happy how it turned out! It looks totally different from all angles, which is awesome. I was influenced by some of my work I had done for my printmaking class and I wanted to try to use some of the ideas I was using before and creating it in 3-D. 

I LOVE how my bronze turned out. It is such an interesting process to cast a bronze as well. I loved learning about the process and getting to actually do it. 

First of all, I made a wax figure of the object that I wanted to be cast. Then I attached it to multiple sprews of wax to a cup covered in wax. Then we dipped it in a slurry and sand 9 times with 6 hours in between each dipping. After that, we put them in a kiln that melted away all of the wax and poured 2,000 degree liquid bronze into the casts to fill in where the wax was. After cooling for a day, we chipped off the cast and there was the bronze statue. We had to cut and grind off the sprews and then I put a liver of sulfur patina on it to give it the rich dark brown color. 

Now Max has been immortalized. Pretty cool.

Ceramics

I finally took pictures of all of my ceramic pieces that I made this past semester. I had ceramics for the first block so it was from the beginning of September until mid October. 

The first day of class we made spoons out of porcelain. They were fired at a cone 10, which means that they are food safe so I could actually use them. They aren't super practical though, I was going for more aesthetics and a progression from a simple baby spoon to a ladle.

Man Made Project: We had to recreate an object that was man made. I decided to try to make something that I love to make and have made in real life out of clay to see how the process would be different. I made a pie. 

I made each individual apple and connected them and laced the crust on top.

It even opens up so I can put things inside. Unfortunately it is not food safe, but it'll be cool to just have around.

Organic Project: We had to make a sculpture that felt organic, so this is how mine turned out.

I sprayed the glaze on with an airbrush, which was a cool new technique to learn.

Basic Shapes Project: I had to create a bunch of hollow pillow and tube shapes and then connect them in an aesthetically pleasing way. I like how it turned out looking like bones.

Final Project: I had to incorporate things I had done before and things that I liked from other people's sculptures. I like the delicate folds from another girl's sculpture so I used that idea and I carved deep into them to give it texture. It has lots of pretty detail when you see it up close. 

This class proved to me yet again how much I love ceramics.

Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving was such a blast! I loved getting to see my family because I hadn't seen some of them since May. My mom and Emily arrived first. It was great to have the three sisters reunited again because I missed my Emsicle!

Father and Matthew arrived later and we celebrated by me skipping my last class before break and going to sushi. Here are the boys eating shrimp with their heads still on.

We ate delicious food throughout the week including this brown sugar and pecan brie cheese cooked inside of bread. Can't go wrong.

We found out that Greg, Emily and I are all the perfect sizes to make a Livingston Totem pole. Score!

On Thanksgiving morning some of us ran a 5K. It was my first one ever. Let me tell you it was a little rough mainly because the first half of it was literally UP A CANYON! It took double the time to go up the canyon than it did to go down. I was flying down that thing. I was pleased to receive a blueberry bagel upon its completion. We had a lovely dinner with lots of family at Merry's house that evening. I love thanksgiving and feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family and to have so many awesome opportunities in my life.

We got to meet a bronze artist one day. It was way cool to see such large scale sculptures.

Later that day we had family pictures taken. 

I LOVE MY SISTERS!

And I love my family!!!!

One night we went to see the Temple lights with lots of my mom's family. The lights were beautiful as always.

That night we got our Livingston family matching Christmas pajamas. They were a definite success!

We ended the week with Music and the Spoken Word at the Tabernacle. It was great.

I loved getting to spend time with family at Thanksgiving time because that is one of the things that I am truly most grateful for. 

Temple Trip

This past Saturday I had the lovely opportunity to participate in a Ward Temple Trip that I had helped to plan. It was wonderful. We went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, which is absolutely gorgeous inside. I got to participate in baptisms for the dead, which was great. I love going to the temple. Then afterward we had salad, chili and rolls at the Bishop's house. It was a wonerful event.

We had an awesome turnout. It was fun getting to go to a different temple with my fellow ward members.

Dressing Up

Tis the season to dress up...a lot! Over the past week I have dressed up a lot with my roomies to celebrate the Halloween season. First off, was a 90's dance party that our friend was hosting for her birthday. I think the socks pull it all together.

On Monday we dressed up for our ward talent show in our fun costumes that Courtney's mom sent to us. Thanks Sister Doolittle! They were a crowd pleaser. We performed a song with our Relief Society and it turned out awesome. It's on facebook if you want to see it. 

Then on Tuesday night we hosted a Relief Society Halloween party and of course we had to play the donut on a string game. 

Here are some of the party attendees:

Then on actual Halloween we dressed up as old men. It was pretty hilarious because we all looked so gross with our super pale faces and flour in our hair. Kelsi had made up an "old man dance" that we performed later that night in the parking lot. Here we are in mid old man stride.

The funniest part was that we were going out to dinner to celebrate Meesh finishing her boards exam for Dental Hygiene school (Way to go Meesh!!!) so we went to PF Changs dressed as old men. I hope no old men were offended in us dressing up as them for halloween. Hopefully they thought of it as more of an honor.

Then we went to a Halloween party with our FHE brothers. We challenged them to dress up as old men as well, but they said that they looked too weird so they switched to other things. The ironic thing to me is that we obviously looked weirder as old men than they would have because we are girls to begin with. But it made it that much funnier.

Hope you had a happy Halloween holiday! 

Now I can't wait until Thanksgiving and Christmas!!!!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to you from me and all of my pumpkin friends!

Blast from the past!

 My roommates and I hosted a decades dance party last weekend and it was a blast from the past! We invited people from our ward and our good friends to come over and dance the night away to Kelsi's awesome oldies music. Of course we dressed up and encouraged others to do the same.

Here we are pre-dance doing some great dance moves. Meesh dressed up from the 80's, I was 50's and Kelsi and Court dressed up from the 60's/70's. 

I love these girlies so much!

Pre-dance photo shoot:

Me and my rebellious child:

Some of my favorite attendees included Jessie, Roxy and Alissa.

It was such a fun night and we had a really great turn out. I'm already wanting to have another one because dancing + dressing up = a guaranteed good time!