Destruction by Oil

A little while ago I caught a glimpse of this art work as I was walking through the University.  It caught my eye, and so I took a closer look.  I think it is a representation of how big corporations of the oil industry are destroying the earth.  I tried to find out who the artist is in order to get the interpretation, but have not heard back as of yet.  Here are some photos I took and if you look closely you can see some inscription of what is happening..

Glass Artifacts with Wendy

On the weekend, Sunday November 16, we brought Faith and Josiah to see a local artist.  Wendy is a professional glass maker.  She makes all sorts of artifacts out of glass.  She does it by re-heating glass, molding it and cooling it.  She will add beads to the heated glass for color and fire the glass in a Kiln.  She also makes things by heating the glass and blowing through a tube to form her artifact.  Below are just a few of the pictures I took of their experience.

The kids made two different glass artifacts.  The first one was a Christmas tree.  They took a piece of glass shaped somewhat like a triangle and put dots of glue on the glass.  They then placed colored glass balls on the glue.  They then glued a brown piece of glass that was shaped like a rectangle and glued it to the base of the triangle for the trunk.

The second artifact was a square piece of glass that they applied glue to.  they then took very thin, multicolored pieces of glass or they could chose different colors of glitter to apply to the glass.  Faith and  Josiah both chose glitter, Josiah the multicolored glitter and Faith chose the color teal. 

Wendy then kept their artifacts while the glue dried and will fire them in the Kiln.  Once they have been fired, the kids will get them back.  Which should be today.

Breaking The Shell

I have become bored with my guitar skills and singing.  I am not by any means very good, but I do strive to be better.  I have improved a great deal over the years and am at a point where it is time to have someone teach me some skills.  This course has be good, because I have learned how to more efficiently record myself and my daughter.  I have then used these recordings to play back my songs.  This has allowed me to critique my voice, transitions in my voice, pitch, tone, volume, and cracks.  It has also allowed me to do the same with my guitar playing.  I can hear any misses of notes, patterns or unclear chords.  I have shared a video below of a song that requires many changes in voice that I am not used to.  I typically chose songs that are simple to sing.  This one was a challenge for me, and while it is not perfected, or to the point of which I am truly comfortable sharing it, I share it now for the sake of this course and the expectations.  Please enjoy and feel free to comment with any advice on how to improve.

Thank-you for listening.

DAY AT THE ART GALLERY - September

Front of houses




 

 I brought the kids to the art gallery a few weeks ago.  We have a family membership and they have family art time on Sunday afternoons.  I have been meaning to take them so many times but we finally made it.  We were given a piece of a 2x4 to paint our house.  I had Josiah, Faith and Levi with me and so all four of use painted a house.    The green on the outside is Levi's, next one is pink and is Faith's, orange with window belongs to Josiah, and the green with the three windows is mine.  We each painted the front and back of the house. 


    

Back of houses



Knight in Shining Armour

My daughter Faith asked her uncle Cameron to draw a picture of the two of them in a heart.  Faith drew the hearts and herself and her uncle was supposed to draw a picture of himself.  In the picture, Faith is looking up at her Uncle with a princess crown.  Uncle Cameron originally drew a picture of himself with no shirt on and a very muscular person.  Faith got upset with him and said he needed to wear a suit.  This is how she sees him, such a gentleman.  Well, Uncle Cameron then drew a closet with superhero suits in it, that is the brown spot in the background.  Each suit has the "S" symbol like Superman.  Faith was still upset and showed me the picture to tell me about her experience.  I then explained to her that she could draw or color over top of his picture to give him a suit. 

Faith drew the suit, but still wasn't happy with it, so she ripped it in half and threw it in the garbage.  When she told me this, I responded with "well that's too bad, I really liked that picture."  Well now she really broke down and cried, because she just ruined a picture that I like.  So Faith went to bed crying.  Her mom picked the picture out of the garbage and taped it back together for her.  When she saw it this morning, she gave me such a huge smile and said how much she loves her mom.  She then said I could take a picture of the picture for her Uncle Cameron and then I could keep the picture for my treasure box.

Caroline Anne

I was at College Heights Elementary School for my practicum this semester.  In this school, each morning they will play music over the PA system.  The music isn't loud, it is soft, a technique used to get the students to pay attention and begin to settle in.  During the morning announcements, they would always give a little talk about who the artist was and say something about the song that was played.  I really  enjoyed this part of the day because it helped me to further revisit the days when I would listen to classical music.  I never paid attention to who I would listen to, I just enjoy  it as I find it soothing.  I really enjoyed beginning each day listening to this music.

Each week the school would pick a composer for the week and one of the composers we listened to was Caroline Anne.  Caroline Anne's music is inspired largely by the Bronte's life and writing.  For inspiration for her music, Caroline would visit Howarth Parsonage where the Bronte's grew up

Caroline comes from a musical family, both parents graduated from  Birmingham Conservatoire.  Her grandfather was a composer.  Caroline began learning piano at age 4.  Caroline was asked to write the musical score for a theatre production of "The Ash Girl", by Timberlake Wertenbaker at De Aston College in Lincolnshire.

Caroline graduated form music college in Leeds and won the Classical Pianist of the Year Award.  She uses her piano talents to play recitals across Lincolnshire, raising money for church funds and children's' charities. 

 

 

 

Moose In Hiding

I have this print in my living room.  I love this print.  It reminds me of a wall picture that was in the basement of an old friend when I was in grades 4 -12.  The photo on her wall was birch trees in the fall with an old road through the middle.  This painting reminds me of hunting season.  This time of year for me is so relaxing, peaceful, filled with anticipation and excitement as I sit and wait for an animal to show itself that I have been tracking and observing all summer.  The colors of fall are so soothing and I find myself sitting for long periods of time just watching and admiring the environment.

In this painting, I really enjoy the  way the light breaks the canopy of the trees and glows in streaks across the trail. I also like to imagine that the brown spot in the bottom right corner is a moose laying in hiding, attempting to rest from a long night of escaping predators.  I often lay on the couch imagining different scenarios, and watching this moose is my favorite scenario to imagine.

Jealous

I have to redeem myself for butchering Sarah McLachlan's Angel.  So, here is one by David Crowder called, Jealous For Me.  I learned this one in the spring and Faith learned it with me.  It is one of Faith's favorite songs to sing with me.  I don't claim to be any good, but this is more or less to display the musical talent in the house.  Often Amy and I will disappear after supper, I to play my guitar or lay on the couch and Amy to either play the piano or lay on the couch.  All the while Faith, Josiah and Levi will clean the kitchen.  I think it is better than the last video I uploaded, and I have decided I probably won't be singing it any time soon.  So here it is....

In the Arms of an Angel - My Night with Sarah

On May 29, 2014 I hurt my back at work.  June 12, 2014 was my anniversary with Amy for 10 years of marriage.  Due to my injury, I was unable to do anything and so I bought tickets to go see Sarah McLachlan live, here in Prince George.  I love to listen to her music because it is peaceful and relaxing.  One of my favorite tunes of hers is Angel.  I will do another blog post on who Sarah McLachlan is later, this post is for the evening I spent with her.  Because this post is for school, I will speak to some of the artistic aspects of the concert, which in all honesty, I became upset only for a moment during the concert because I thought "OH! I better pay attention to the lights and other background effects for my blog."  I quickly changed my mind and got back to soaking up the sound of Sarah.  I feel like I can call her by first name now that I have seen her live in concert.  Amy said that she feels now she enjoys Sarah's music more now that she has heard her in concert.

So briefly, I thought it was real cool how they used the light show to go with the feel and beat of the music.  For example, slow music - slow lights, faster music faster lights.  She also brought the music up in tempo and volume and at the peak of it, their was a video of fireworks on the backdrop.
Speaking of the backdrop, it was neat how the backdrop would show pieces of art work or photos of nature and sometimes video of Sarah performing with some of the band.  It was really cool how they would over lap her upper body with her hands while she played the piano.  Although I could see the sound guys, I wasn't able to see how they put these effects on the back drop.  It must have been done by someone else. 

Sarah had a competition on her website for people to share how they "Shine On" (the name of her newest album) and the winners got to sit on stage in Sarah's "living room".  It was really sweet to see a grandma up there, she must have been in her 70's or older.

The range of Sarah's voice is amazing.  You can't really get a feel for broad her range is by listening to a CD, however, seeing her in concert using her whole body to reach those high notes and nail the lower notes really opened my eyes to how amazing her voice really is with the broad range.   I also found it interesting that a professional singer/artist would be so obvious with using her body to help her hit difficult notes.

The band members were vary skilled in their instruments, even using different variations of them.  Each one performing small solos through out the night.  They would too use their body to show the emotion of the song that they were playing.

Watching those professionals tonite and seeing how passionate they were about every song that they performed, made me think of them when they were kids and made me wonder who encouraged them and gave them the opportunity to rise to the level of success that they have achieved. 
Wow I could write so much more.

 

I will leave you with this, Angel is one of my all time favorites of Sarah's and so I tried to sing it this morning.  I have recorded myself playing it on the guitar as well as I videoed Sarah singing it live.  You can put your vote in and let me know how I did, just keep in mind I only practiced the song twice before recording.  Thanks for reading and listening.

 

 

Rocking with pots

Josiah was putting pots on the piano bench and I was about to tell him very sternly to put them away when I saw two wooden spoons in his hand.  So I was running all over the house trying to find my phone hoping to video tape this band that just formed in my living room. Luckily I managed to find it in time to grab some of the action.  This is really hard sometimes. All I wanted today was some piece and quiet, but the kids wanted to play music.  While the sound of the pots banging was deafening to my ears and both Amy and I wanted them to stop, I had to say, this is what we wanted.  We want musical kids, we want them to explore with sound, so sometimes we just have to let them play, especially when it is spontaneous like this.  So get ready for a new beat......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7jQH5hzs_o&list=UUOqEgbT-IFNCtLa_WLGUwyg

Acoustic Versus Digital Piano

I have been curious about teaching music in elementary school and so have been trying to research it by asking current teachers.  What I discovered is that, as an elementary teacher (Primary or Intermediate) it does not matter what you enjoy teaching, you may end up teaching music to your students because you may end up in a school without a music specialist.  If you so happen to land a job in a school with a music specialist, then they will likely teach music to your students, teach band, and/or choir or anything having to do with music. 

I then wanted to see if BC music teachers had a website, a place to go for ideas and inspiration.  I found The British Columbia Registered Music Teachers' Association.  On this website I found some articles that were written, one of which discusses a topic that I was in discussion with some of my peers.  I really like the way this article is written, primarily because it is pro acoustic and provides me with more ammunition if I have to ever have this conversation again.  The following link will take you to this article.  I hope you enjoy it and would like to hear your opinion on acoustic or digital.

Acoustic Versus Digitial Piano

The Whistler

Often times I will come out of my daze and find myself whistling or humming a tune.  Such was the case this morning.  I was riding the bus up here and I was humming this song I listened to last night.  I can only remember a couple lines so it was over and over.  Then I thought, I need to change it up, and so the whistling began.  I love to whistle.  I  think that when you hear someone whistling or singing, it reveals their mood and a little more about them then s/he may realize.  As I began to whistle I was walking with  people from the bus and I don't like to interrupt their peace so I kept it quiet.  As I walked through the university I noticed how my sound carried and it became much more....what is the word?  But it seemed to come more alive then the dull quietness.  So I opened up and let my whistle roar!  Coming from yesterday's music class with Grade 5/6 yesterday and learning about music notes, I thought I would write the notes for the tune that I was whistling.  Now I haven't shown pitch or actual notes, but maybe that will be for another time.  So, here it is below, try to clap along.

Oh!

and it is a rough draft, I do have some scribbles here.  I thought about doing a good copy but decided to share the experience and thought process as much as I can on written paper.

Misunderstood

 "What did we use to color these self portraits?"  This is a chalk pastel self portrait and I want to share it because it is me, misread.  Often people look at me or hear me speak and they will form a perception of me that is incorrect.  I have created this by not following all the guidelines.  First of all the head was suppose to be a circle, the shoulders an "L" shape and I believe the line in the middle of my head was supposed to be dark and finally the colors in the circle were supposed to be only four and in each quadrant of the circle.  So here is why I defied instruction......

I initially drew a circle but then flipped my paper and drew the shape you see.  This shows my face as harder and perhaps scarier.  As I drew this shape I went over it a couple more times to darken and thicken the line because I am often told that when people initially meet me, they can be intimidated by my appearance.  On the outside I display a hard shell and for many years I have tried different techniques to soften my features, but I don't believe they have helped as I continue to receive comments, "You know when I first met you......."

I wanted to draw my shoulders sloped because  I feel that I am not really a "square" and plain person.  So I pictured myself with more rounded shoulders to better represent me.  I don't know why we were supposed to draw the line in the middle, but I wanted to make sure it was not a place where the eye goes, so I decided to make it lighter but to still be there. 

I wanted to color the bottom two quadrants by going with a  darker color first and getting lighter as a representation of the outer shell that I have.  Then the colors closer in represent the lightness, humbleness, honesty, integrity that I believe to be a better representation of me.  I left the bottom a little darker than the top of my head because people tend to focus on the face not the top of the head and for this reason I made the top of my head brighter.

I chose red as the center because then people would see it as my heart and the colors surrounding my heart are those that are friendly, accepting, stand for openness and acceptance.  The final three colors of the background, blue - red - yellow represent the colors of Superman (Truth, Justice and the American way).  Kidding aside, I heard that to sell your home color the door yellow because it is a welcoming and friendly color that brings peace.  The blue represents "likeability" and the red represents my desire for adventure and my spontaneity.

So that's me...often misunderstood on the outside but quite understanding and colourful on the inside : )

Why?

When provided options for an individual assignment for my 406 Arts class, the first two to excite me was the blog or scrapbook.  Neither of these really getting me going, it's the challenge.  My wife really enjoys scrapbooking and is fantastic with it, so I thought maybe we both could do it together.  She could work on hers and I could work on mine.  Then I remembered how time consuming and expensive it is to scrapbook and really, it is a lot of work.  Why not Blog?  It means again I have to sit and write, but about my experiences with this class and the arts through out this semester.  This should be challenging for me, yet easy enough.  Our family enjoys a lot of the arts, and I sure could stand to learn more of the painting and drawing side of things.  So let us see what I learn this semester.

New Adventure

 

Kete - Uruuru - Matua

 

In my Aboriginal Studies class at UNBC, two of my peers presented on New Zealand's Maori iwi (tribes).  They were talking about the Maori Three Baskets of Knowledge and gave us a quick assignment to do.  I don't remember how my basket was selected, but I received the Kete-Uruuru-Matua basket.  This basket represents peace, goodness, and love and includes a portrait of the family.  I was suppose to draw my representation of this. 
Every time I am asked to do art such as drawing I cringe, just looking at my picture I am sure you can tell why.  Just the day prior, I saw someone else's art work of an orange, and she told me it was grade one artwork.  My comment to her was "Well I must be drawing at a pre-school level then." 
In my mind I envisioned a dove (of course for love), and two different colored hands holding this dove and then the family standing behind the arms and dove. 
I drew the picture this way because the dove represents love, the hands holding the dove represent goodness and caring, while the different colored hands represents my family and it's diverse make-up.  We have Norwegian background and in the family we have Mexican, Aboriginal, and Japanese cultures that have joined my sisters family.  When I drew the family portrait, I wanted to connect the arms to the family because this would show the unification, support and love in our family.
So enough embarrassment and here is my personal challenge.  I am going to get a learn to draw book and teach myself how to draw through out this arts course.  Near the end of the course I will re-draw this portrait in the same amount of time and post it here so that we can see if I have improved at all.  Through out my lessons, I will log any drawings that I feel I should post and share my thoughts around them. 
Feel free to pass along any words of encouragement as I learn over the next couple months.

A little about me and my arts history

I was fortunate to learn ukulele and recorder as regular schooling.  I use to slouch in my chair and play the recorder for my friends on test day while they pretended to play.  We also had choir and band, and concert band, I don't remember the difference between the two bands now.  I was involved in all of these in elementary and junior high school.  I even did poetry readings.

In high school I joined the high school band and jazz band.  I played the baritone as my primary instrument as well as the alto saxophone.  In band I could play every instrument except flute and drums.  I could not get my lips right for the flute and lacked coordination for percussion. I tried out for the Alberta band with my baritone and made it but never played with them - financial reasons.  I was in Ft. McMurray and they wanted members to travel to Red Deer and beyond. 

As a youth I took piano lessons for two years and guitar for one year.  I quit guitar when my teacher asked me to sing to her.  I picked up guitar again 10 years ago and continue to play.

My wife and I started a community wide worship band when we lived in Saskatchewan, I played guitar and vocals while my wife played piano and vocals.  She plays piano, has an amazing voice, and can play guitar.  My oldest Josiah and daughter Faith both take piano lessons.  Josiah is going into his 2nd year with a teacher.  He taught himself the first book and so we couldn't refuse him to go in to lessons.  Faith loves to sing and dance.  Everything with her has to be musical right from the when she was in the womb.  She use to slam her utensils on the table and then we realised she was making music.  As she got older we could hear different rhythms.  She says she wants to be a singer and drum player for the worship team when she grows up.  Faith also has done two years of ballet.   

Art:  I took drawing lessons for a week in grade seven, other than that drawing, drama and other such art areas, I am not very gifted at, but I do appreciate to see it. 

Dance:  I was in Jazz club in junior high but chickened out when the big school performance came.  I took 2 step lessons for 4 months with friends, then I took East Coast Swing lessons with my wife for 4 months.  While in my first degree I took a dance class where we learned the basic steps for dances such as two step, polka, jive, swing, fox trot and the waltz.  I enjoy dancing and would love it if there were a place to go where people could experiment with different music and dance.