REACHING THE SUMMIT

Life is a series of summits...goals that we make for ourselves and strive to attain. They are small when we are young, but the confidence we gain from those small summits encourages us to larger goals and heights. You might say it is those beginning summits that make all the difference in our lives. Without those small hills the large ones can never be climbed.

Ben climbing his smaller summits of Boy Scout camp with his dad in Utah. He has since climbed larger summits... service in Iraq being only one of them!

Fun Game

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember--it can be funny, weird, awkward, random, etc.!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

THREE SISTERS

This was my first effort in getting giclee prints done off of one of my paintings. I wasn't really satisfied with the results, but I guess imitations are never really as good as the original.

This is a painting of myself and my sisters Diana and Billie as little girls.

M&M

This is a project from my class where we had to render an oil painting in an exact likeness to the photo...same size, etc... I was looking for the photo but I can't remember Celeste's password to get the files : (. I wanted to compare the two and let you guess which one was the painting... not that hard actually. : )

At the Park

The light and shadow shapes played over Jonathan in this photo taken at the park on the 4th of July in 2004. There is nothing more fun than to draw fun light and shadow on the picture of one of my grandchildren that I love!

PATTING PAPA'S CHEEK

The photo that this painting was taken from was so perfect....I'm just sad that I couldn't totally capture it! I'll keep working on this one.

Our little grandson Andrew's gesture of reaching back to pat his Papa on the cheek was so precious, just as precious as his sweet and gentle spirit.

LITTLE MAN

My children and grandchildren are the joy of my life! The

phrase "joy and rejoicing in your posterity" rings through my soul with every drawing or painting that I do of my family. My family has always brought me great joy.... even though my daughter claims I said otherwise once! Even though my grandchildren are so far away in different countries, painting gives me ties to them that make them feel closer to me.

ILLUSIONS OF LIGHT AND SHADOW

An exercise in 2-dimensional art. This was a fun challenge in developing form by using light and shadow to bring the objects on the page forward. Because of shortcomings with my camera, the light and details are not as good, but this drawing took me over 100 hours to complete.