Painting Post

Slowly knitting through my sweater, well, actually I'm almost done with one side but, once again, school strikes terror in the heart of all my crafting.

In the mean time, I've been taking a painting course and it's been very challenging, but nice to have an allotted time in my schedule dedicated to art. I took oil painting lessons for quite a while when I was younger, probably from ages 10 - 13, somewhere in there and painted landscapes. I got sick of them and that's what my teacher specialized in, so at some point there came a very long stint without painting - I mean, until now!

I thought I'd share what I've made thus far! You can click on each to see them much larger:

This was in the first week, and it's my first time painting from observed forms, versus photographs.

And then this one is currently what I am working on, so it's still WIP (work in progress.) It's based on the idea of the word 'place' and mine is focused on a dream of a place once can just disappear into. The sky is still a bit funny, it got left behind for a while.

It's nice to get some stuff in the blog again and take a breather :)

-Nancy

Back to School

Today will be the first day back to school for Winter term. I pretty much spent this break sleeping, counting patterns, being sick, and going to the gym.

I'll be taking more web development classes, painting, and a couple non-credit courses: KNITTING AND SWING DANCING!

I'm pretty excited for the painting and two aforementioned classes, but I hope I don't get lagged down by some of the web development courses, well, one in particular, Javascript.

I've been doing quite a bit of cardio lately, so I decided to make my phone useful and grab an app for working on running 10k. If that goes well I've got some half marathon training on my list. I've never been a runner, but I figure doesn't it just take training like anything else?

The only sewing I did over the break was sewing some patches on gi's (worn for Jiu Jitsu, looks similar to the karate gi for an idea of what I mean) for a friend's kids.

Art Final

So, this is my last piece for my drawing class. I got really into gesture drawings, which was the last thing we were introduced to so I made my final to do with figures. I have mixed feelings about it so I took a picture of it hoping it might give me some separation from the piece.

Almost done with school!

MIA Already!

It's been a long week away from my new blogging world! And, wow, five followers already, thanks you guys, I look forward to reading your posts!

Soon, my scattered posts should be a thing of the past. My own computer broke down earlier in the year and I've been without one since. Well, I got a new one! It's supposed to be here sometime mid to late next week and I'll be able to get rolling on posting and keeping my Etsy store more regularly updated. I'm very excited!

I'm starting to get into the swing of things with school. I'm taking web development classes mostly. I used to create a lot of web sites in my spare time and so it's nice to get back to it. Plus I'm taking a drawing class for me. I'm not very good with drawing, but I've got hopes to get better at it.

Onto projects:

Remember how I was having trouble with the purl stitch? Well, I decided to go a little more modern with my approach and watched some YouTube videos.

I haven't checked out any of the other videos - and there are plenty - but this helped me make my first stockinette stitch!

I dropped a few stitches but I'm pretty proud of it!

And, in case you thought I forgot about the Hollywood Pattern skirt, I was about done and then got the notion that I should probably take the time to line it. So here's a little picture of the progress on that too (by the way, soon I will get better at this blogger layout with the pictures and all! Haha)

And I know I haven't mentioned anything about combat sports yet. Today I went to the Oregon Open to root on my friend, and fellow gym mate, Jenny. This was her first BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) tournament and the competition was really tough. She's only been at it a short while and the Beginner's bracket was 18 months or less. I think she got a lot of nerves out of the way and it was good to experience competition. I haven't competed yet because I'm a bit of a wuss about it so far. I just always want to be really prepared. Here's a photo of Jenny at the beginning of her very first match!

I have to go get my cardio in before the gym closes so I'll leave you with that. Bye guys!