A family year in review!

Slideshow made in photobucket!

Christmas Past!

How quickly the day comes and goes! In the end, it is all about the memories. Yes, there were days when I wished it had already passed. Naughty or nice? That was the question of the hour. But in the end it always seems to be "nice" because Santa understands that boys will be boys and deep inside they are good!



And the memories of family gatherings are to be cherished for a lifetime!



Here's to another Christmas Past!

Chalk it Up!

May your future be bright!

Spreading Christmas Joy!

Last year on December 30th I wrote a post about saving for Christmas this year.



The idea was to fill this Christmas popcorn tin with our spare change and what ever we collected would be our Christmas money. Well, when we counted the change a few weeks ago we discovered that we had $50. Not bad but not as good as we had hoped. Turns out, when you use your debit card more often than cash it's hard to accumulate coins. Anyway, the kids and I were trying to decide what to do with the money. First, I thought I would split the money between my two sons so that they could buy Christmas presents for each other. Then my nine year old suggested that we give it to charity. That was a wonderful idea and truly embodied the spirit of Christmas!

Today we went over to Kmart, where a Salvation Army bell ringer was stationed, and the kids joyfully emptied all of the coins into the tin.



We hope our coins can help a family this Christmas.

The kids felt so good about giving the money that they can't wait to do it again next year! When we got back into the car my older son opened the change purse in my wallet and dumped all the change into the Christmas tin. They are hoping to double their total next year!

Merry Christmas!!
Have fun spreading joy!

Is it winter already?

I can't believe how fast this year has gone! I was flipping through the pages of my 2010 calender and unlike past years, I had very little written in it. Usually I jot down appointments, birthdays, meetings etc... But this year I kept a running list on my large gold framed chalkboard that I have displayed in my living room, on a floor standing easel. Everyday I look at my chalkboard and see what I can erase from the list. It keeps me focused and on task; however, there is no lasting record of the tasks of the year. :(
This year summer seemed to run right into fall and winter because the kids swam from June til November.

Thankfully the weather has been feeling wintery for the past few weeks! It helps to get us in the Christmas spirit!

Last weekend we took the kids to do some wintery things. Like...

sleigh riding?

And...

Ice skating!

Did you ever see messier ice? It was more like snow skating. My little guy had sooo much fun! He looked like a colt learning to stand. But after numerous falls he finally started to get the hang of it. Now he loves skating!

He wanted to give his teachers a gift for Christmas and thought it would be nice to give them each a framed chalkboard and chalk ink! Makes sense!

I hope they use it in their classrooms to write things like star student of the day!:)

Life flashing before your eyes

I love getting emails from Photojojo. If you love taking pictures with your digital camera (who doesn't) you will love getting newsletters in your email from Photojojo. It's one of the few weekly newsletters that I have subscribed to that I actually open and enjoy!
This week they introduced this fun site Pummelvision.com. You authorize them to access your flickr or facebook account to extract your photos and they create a fun little video. I didn't have many pictures in my flickr account so this is a short video. It is fun to see your pictures put to music(pictures that I haven't looked at in a long time). The transition is very quick because it is meant to show a lot of pictures and give you that "life flashing before your eyes feel" Pretty cool!

Turning a Photo into a cartoon

I spent some time using my new digital art skills by creating a cartoon from a photo of my son, in adobe illustrator. This took way to long for me to do. I really need to work on my speed.


Here's my cartoon version of my son:



And here's his mug on a mug :



HUM...This could be a Christmas present:)

How to stay young!

Always keep learning! Take a class every now and then. Try something you've never done before. It's not about how tight your skin is, it's about how you view the world. When you're young everything is new. The world is more exciting and you are less jaded. When you are learning something new you are recapturing that youthful energy. The bonus of learning something new when you are a little older is that you bring some experience that allows you to build on past knowledge. They say youth is wasted on the young. Well not anymore!

I have mentioned before, I started taking Digital Media classes at my local College. I am fortuneate enough to live very close to a school with an excellent Digital Media Program.

Yesterday I completed my third and fourth classes, Vector Graphics I(Adobe Illustrator) and Intro to Digital Media.

I now am proficient in four programs, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Maya 3-D modelling and animation, and InDesign. In addition to a good education, I have made some wonderful new friends, and learned from talented, dedicated and supportive teachers!

It has been a year of growth!

A few weeks ago my school had a really fun event for the Digital Media Art program. It was call "Freaks and Geek." There were gaming contest, graphic art challenges, a juried art show and awards for artwork. It was a wonderful evening! I brought the kids and they even had fun! Two of my art pieces were chosen for the show! And I received an award for one of them!





This is the piece that I received the award for:


I plan on taking more classes in the Spring. I'm not sure which ones yet, but I'm sure it will be fun!

It's amazing, no matter how old you are, you just keep learning and growing. It keeps you young!:)

Adobe Illustrator Still life

It's been over a week since my last post! Wow time is flying! I'm finishing up my fall classes and wrapping up some other things around here. I guess everybody will be doing a lot of wrapping these days:)
I wanted to share my final project for my vector graphics class. The assignment was to create a still life and render it using the different techniques that we learned in class. I used mostly gradient mesh.

Here is the photo that I took as a reference for my still life.



And here is my rendering in Adobe Illustrator



Here is what it looks like in outline form


And here is a close up of the detail in the stem in Outline:



And in Preview view


It feels good to finish a project. Althought, I always feel like I can work on it more, sometimes you just have to say done! and move on!

Have a great weekend!