Watercolor

Over Spring Break I got up my courage and tried out watercolors for the first time. I bought myself a 7 dollar set of paints from Walmart and a 4 dollar set of brushes that came with a plastic pallet. So this stuff is pretty high quality. I had a lot of fun, but I would love to get some feedback on how to improve. So what do you think? Here are a couple of my attempts...





And here is a watercolor that Cevin's little cousin Brock did. He's 4, and has impressive skills, don't you think?

Noodle Doodle and Dragons

My friend Jimi did a noodle doodle of me and Callie...

I am pretty excited about this. Jimi did two noodle doodles before this one, and I was pretty convinced that they were both drawings of me. I don't think Jimi was as convinced, but then she did one that really was me! Awesome! Check out more of Jimi's art here: www.jimidoodle.blogspot.com

In other art news, my Artastic kids learned how to draw dragons today. They did an awesome job! For some reason all of the kids at the Boys and Girls club get really excited about drawing dragons, so we had a really good time today. Check it out...





This one is my dragon...

Monster Cowboys

Our latest assignment in my Inspirational Design was to design a parody of an old monster movie poster. We were each given our own poster and we had to change the name of the movie, replacing at least one word in the title. This was mine...


I decided that it might be funny to do "Destroy all Cowboys" and that it might be fun to come up with monster versions of old famous cowboy names to put on the bottom of the poster. Here are some sketches of cowboy zombies...

And this is the final poster. Honestly, I like the sketches above a little bit better...but I don't think it turned out too badly. I might have worked on it a little bit more to feel satisfied, but we were supposed to turn it in today for an online contest. So this is it, at least for now...

What do you think?

Club Tech

Today I took some kids from the Boys and Girls Club on a field trip to HU to shoot a stop motion film they've been working on the past couple of weeks. I've been running a program called Club Tech on Fridays the past few months. The kids have writing and designing a one minute film, and this week we are animating! Cevin helped me out today, and we both really enjoyed ourselves. The kids did such a good job. I am very proud. We are finishing up the film tomorrow and hopefully recording sound. Should be fun! I will be sure to post the final film here for you.

Cevin took some great photos of the kids at work...

Nesting dolls, comics and tents.

Here are a few things I am working on tonight...

In my design class we have been making 3D nesting dolls. Mine were supposed to be a Royal Walrus family. Here is the dad/king walrus sitting on a shelf at my house. It was actually an accident to make him shiny like that, but I thought it looked pretty cool so Cevin helped me composite it in a photo. He has a wife/queen and son/prince that I am still working on.


This is a comic that I did tonight, last minute as usual, for the school paper. Its funny because they are animals, am I right? Get it?? (I'm not very good at comics...)


And this is actually something I worked on last night, but it counts. The Boys and Girls club here is doing a tent drive for Haiti! (Check out www.ahomeinhaiti.org) It's so exciting. I hope the kids get really into it. Cadets, Juniors and Teens are the 3 age groups at the club and they are competing to see who can pay for the most tents. The group that wins gets a "super late night" at the club. Pretty cool, right?



So that's mostly everything that is going on with me at the moment. Cevin and I are still plodding along with our senior project. We've actually made some exciting progress lately, and I will try to put pics up soon. Also, I am working with some kids at the B&G club to make a little claymation film and we are shooting that this week, so I will let you know how that goes.

Oh! And I bought my very own website! Check out www.colleenthornbrugh.com! There's not much to see yet, but it's mine! Soon my blog will move over there...but don't you worry...I promise to keep you updated.

Very sincerely,
Colleen

Art Show

A couple of weeks ago I had an art show for kids from the Boys and Girls club. It was pretty awesome. We hung the art at a local coffee show called Four Cups. Its just down the street from the club and the kids all walked over for a little opening reception. The reception was so much fun. The kids all went around and pointed out their art. They were so proud, and I was too. I think it was one of the best nights of my life, honestly. Some friends from Huntington judged the show, and the kids who won are going to be entered into a regional show. The art hung at Four Cups for about a week, and now I am hanging it up in my art room at the club. Here is a photo of one of my Artastic kids proudly pointing at his work.


I have a lot more photos from the show that I hope to post sometime.

Earthquake

Horrible news came yesterday. An earthquake in Haiti. A huge one in Port-au-Prince that basically leveled the whole city. Port-au-Prince is a couple hours south of Ft. Liberte, where I've been on several mission trips. No one I know was harmed or killed...but the devastation that the people there are going through is more than I can wrap my mind around. How can you deal with that much destruction amidst that much poverty? Why did this happen? It makes my head spin. I feel like the biggest creep, sitting here comfortably at my computer. I want to get down there and deal with this with them. I feel so useless. I can't imagine what they must be feeling...




CNN report: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/13/haiti.earthquake/index.html

WAYS TO HELP...
A number of organizations are taking donations for relief funds. This site has a pretty good list of options for giving...
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/kindness/post/2010/01/how-to-help-victims-of-the-haiti-earthquake/1

You can also text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross relief efforts. Or text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5.

The organization that I work with in Haiti, The Friends of Ft. Liberte, is also putting together an Earthquake Relef Fund. You can donate through them here: http://haitifriends.tumblr.com/

That's all I've got for now. I'm heartbroken. I know most of you who read my blog probably already know all of this info, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway. Maybe it will help.

Pray constantly for these sweet people.