From My Sketchbook: The Portrait Project

Call me crazy, but I've decided to draw a portrait of every person that I know. It may be nearly impossible, but I love drawing portraits so I figured that this would be a good way to get better at drawing them. I've started with a self-portrait and will do family members next then go on from there. To keep myself from giving up before I even start, I'm not thinking too far ahead; I'm just taking this one portrait at a time. For privacy reasons, I'll only be posting portraits on here that I get permission from the person in question to do so (and since I'll probably be too shy to tell anyone that I've drawn a portrait of them, it'll most likely only be my family seen on here!)

Watching the Parade Go By

First comes the police cars, lights flashing, escorting several solemn faced veterans carrying flags. Everyone stands as they pass by; the kids know not to be looking for candy just yet. After them comes the fire trucks; making everyone jump each time they sound their horns. Then, when the large trucks full of waving firemen passes by, the real parade begins.

What is it about parades, anyway? They all follow the same patterns, with the same types of floats; and if you go to the same community parade for several years you probably know each float by heart. So what brings people to these things year after year? If you ask just about any kid, they’ll say it’s the candy (that would have been my reply just a few years ago.) Whatever is the case, I know that no matter how many parades I see, I look forward to them every year.

This year I’ve gotten the chance to go to two of them; the one at our old home, that I’ve gone to for as long as I can remember, and one at our new place (I don’t want to even talk about the amount of candy my little sister got from both of them!) After the parade here in our new home, a thought struck me; for all the years we’ve lived in our old community, I never knew a single person in the yearly parade; but after living in our new home for less than a year now, I know a large number of people in this parade. 

Once, when I was a lot younger, I was in a parade. It was for my church’s VBS and I found the whole thing kind of boring. I wasn’t interested in looking out at other people, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much, and I was tired of waving. Plus, one of my best friends was on the opposite side of the float with a large, paper Mache volcano between us (the theme for that year’s VBS was “Lava-Lava Island.") So now when I see a little girl with a drooping smile, I completely understand. I prefer to stay on the spectator’s side of the street.

Note: all the above pictures are from the most recent parade at our new home

This Is Home

I know, this post is just a little bit late (almost a whole year late!), but life’s been pretty busy since the move. Yup, that’s right; My family has moved! Due to an employment ending and another one springing up; my family has followed God’s calling to come down from the suburbs of the cities to the farming country of Minnesota. We haven’t done something drastic like moving to California or anything like that; we‘re still in the same state. My dad’s brother-in-law and nephew had been building a senior living home and wondered if my parents would come and be the care takers of the place. With my dad’s job ending, the offer couldn’t have come at a better time. So here we are, only a few months away from it being a year now and I’m finally making a post about it.

Our house is on the edge of a small town with a small population. The main street is only a few blocks away and there’s only about two or three open businesses on it; the grocery store having closed down a year before we moved here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining; I think this has been and still is the greatest adventure of my life! As a writer, I find the whole atmosphere of small town life to be inspiring; and when I look out over the endless farmland all around, seeing where the deep blue sky meets the freshly plowed earth, I feel as if anything is possible.

 

 

Do I miss the cities? Not very much. I love the cities, but I also love the country; so I’m happy wherever I am. One thing about the cities I do miss a little is the architecture. The buildings with glass reflecting the color of the sky, the new world of metal blending with the old world of stone; they’re artworks that tower above my head. I admit, I really don’t know much about architecture, and when it comes to drawing it I’m hopeless without a picture reference. There’s just something about being in the downtown area of the cities that makes me happy. If you asked me where I want to live when I‘m older, the instant reply would be New York City; but after a moment of thinking I would add that if I didn’t move anywhere else and stayed right here for the rest of my life, I would be perfectly happy. This is home now.