Bridget Riley Op Artist

This page talks a lot about Bridget Riley and shows some of her paintings.

This page shows awesome paintings by Bridget Riley.

This page has really cool paintings by Bridget Riley.

By Emily Georgeson

Weeping Willow

The first casualty of our remodeling project was the crabapple tree in the front yard. It wasn’t until the week before it had to come down that I realized how nice it was to have shade in the front yard.

Last fall we spent a learned a lot about trees for science. We had a lot of fun identifying trees in our neighborhood. I really learned to love trees and have been really wanting to get a new tree in our front yard. It has been over 2 years since we started our remodeling project and we have had to spend a lot of time finishing up our landscaping. We now have a sprinkler system and grass in the front yard, not very good grass, but grass none the less. The next step was to get a new tree.

When Grandpa Mackley died in April my Mom’s school offered to either send flowers to the funeral, or give her a gift certificate so she could plant something in his honor. My Mom said she wanted to plant a tree at our house, where Grandma could see it, and when we asked Grandma Mackley what kind of a tree she would like she chose a weeping willow. She said Grandpa would have liked a weeping willow. The kids and I were very excited, we also like weeping willows.

My Dad arranged for the tree to be delivered and planted for us. I’m so glad, because I wouldn’t have known the best way to plant a tree.

I’m looking forward to comparing the pictures of the tree and kids now to ones that we will take in the future.

Sewing is Sew Sew FUN!

A few months ago I received an email announcing that Karalee was offering sewing classes this summer and I signed my daughters up right away. I knew that Rebecca would be interested because her “TALENT” at the Stake Talent show the last 2 years has involved sewing.

Rebecca made and nighttime ensemble for her American Girl doll Sariah. The ensemble includes PJ’s, a blanket, an mattress, and a pillow. Also pictured is Emily’s doll, Emily.

Rebecca models the dress that she made for the talent show in 2009. She received many compliments and wistful comments that they wished more girls learned how to sew today.

Emily was excited to take a sewing class also. Being the jealous Mom that I am I decided to ask if I could participate in the class also. I explained that I already knew how to sew but would like to get some help on zippers and hems. I was excited to be invited to join my girls in taking their sewing class. I’m sew glad that I did too.

Rebecca, Emily and I showed up for class the first day loaded down with 3 sewing machines, patterns, fabric, and iron and lots of enthusiasm. I got some great tips on how to put a zipper in and even got to practice on some scrap fabric Karalee told us that most of the work of the sewing project is in the cutting out, but that most of the problems can be eliminated if you make sure you cut your pattern out accurately. I am humbled to say that learned a lot about the importance of not trying to take “shortcuts” in my cutting that often have resulted in problems later on. After two hours of listening to Karalee explain to us how to rip fabric to make sure it is straight, how important it is to cut the pattern accurately, and the necessity of ironing as you go along ( although, we didn’t iron our pattern pieces) both girls had their skirts cut out.

Our second day of class we got down to the business of sewing. The girls got to practice going straight, doing zig zags, finishing edges, and finally they got to sew the side seams in their skirts. I was glad that there was just the three of us in the class because we got a lot of individual attention, and I knew enough to be able to help out my girls part of the time.

As we were sewing we also discussed our family tree and determined that we were both related to Wilford Woodruff through his wife Sarah Brown. I also was able to begin to explain why I wanted to be part of the sewing class. I explained it as being part of our HOPE CHEST JOURNEY. The Hope Chest Journey was conceptualized from history by Donna Goff and is about preparing daughters to become wives and mother’s. I love how Donna says this,

“All the while she was preparing her hope chest, the women in her life were preparing her, chatting as they worked, passing along a large body of knowledge and skill, incidentally, from one generation to the next, and building bonds of community support, kinship, and sisterhood. These young girls learned about relationships, parenting, family life, recipes, home nursing, and so much more, through listening to and participating in conversations with the women in their lives. Many of the women in this community were informally helping the young girl to prepare to become the queen of her future home.”

I hadn’t even told me girls about the Hope Chest Journey, they got their introduction to it as they listened to me explain it to Karalee.

We have however, already begun our journey, we just didn’t have a name for it. In 2004 I invited my Grandmother to teach my kids to sew. We began with making cute little stuffed animals out of felt and plastic canvas designs. At this time Emily was 5, Rebecca was 6.5, and Isaac was 3.5. They loved having Great Grandma Glasgow come over every Tuesday morning for sewing lessons. Believe it or not, but they all sat quietly at the table and sewed for almost 2 hours each week.

The kids all chose to give Bonnie and Tyler an animal for their wedding present.

The following summer we looked forward to sewing with Grandma again. This year we progressed onto embroidery, and Rebecca (as the eldest(7.5) started on an embroidered pillowcase. Grandma was making one, and Rebecca was making a a matching one. Unfortunately, this perfect example of a hope chest item remains unfinished, because Grandma passed away that November. We have fond memories of our times sewing with Grandma, and my only regret is that I didn’t document the stories that she told us those 2 summers as we sewed together.

And now back to our sewing class. It took us several extra hours on Thursday to finish up the girls skirts, but Karalee hung in their with us and we finally got them done. The girls outdid themselves. I was worried that after 2 hours they would have had enough of sewing each day, but they hung in their and were still happy and energetic and the end of a four hour session. I should have remembered how good they did all those years ago with Grandma and I wouldn’t have worried. Karalee said she was impressed with how happy and fun to work with the girls were. They also enjoyed working with her and telling her all about their American Girl dolls ( who came to class as well).

As I was quietly working on my own projects I was thinking about all the different lessons that could be learned from sewing, like how the little things do matter, how to be patient, to do it right, or do it again, so that in the end you have a product that you are happy with and enjoy wearing, the importance of modesty and beauty, the joy of wearing something that you chose and made yourself. The girls asked me if sewing was cheaper than buying clothes and and we had a discussion about cost and “fair trade” items, but I didn’t even factor in all the other little lessons, traditions, and love that sewing stitches right into the clothing that we wear.

This is just another step on our Hope Chest Journey, and hopefully only the first of many sewing classes that we take from Karalee, because I know I learned a lot, and I hope that my girls did also, and it wasn’t all about stitching.

Quilt Art

My Mom has been coming over every week this summer prepared to use my kids as guinea pigs as she prepares art lessons for her 3rd grade class next fall. My Mom will be teaching a reading extension program that incorporates art projects that will go along with the story that they are reading. This last project was krazy quilt art made with Crayola Overwriter Markers (lesson plan can be found here on the Crayola Website.)

Here are the finished quilt art projects.




I think it would be fun to make one using a smaller color scheme, like just cool colors.

Happy 4th

Declaration Of Independance

Picture by Trumball

Fireworks by SchoolHouse Rock

Pavement Picasso

Julian Beever - Sidewalk Chalk Artist

Julian's Official Website

Independance Day by Julian Beever

Meeting Madame Butterfly

Anamorphosis

- Anamorphosis is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image. (wikipedia)





Time Lapse Video of Water Ride by Julian Beever

Artist Lee Jones has a history of street painting as well of samples of her sidewalk designs.


Chalk it Up has some great tips for creating your chalk masterpiece worthy of a street festival and Chris Dunmire offers 7 Sidewalk Chalk Art Tips for Creatively Inhibited Adults that is worth reading, and 10 Steps to JOYful Sidewalk Chalk Art.

Pollock Art Day

Jackson Pollock was known as Jack the Dripper and creating action paintings as a new art form in the abstract inpressionism art movement. You can find some examples of his artwork here.

We created our own action paintings, outside, under the trees, in swimsuits, on posterboard, and then on each other (at least the boys).







Try out this Jackson Pollock online art creator - click the mouse to change colors.