“I shall become a master in this art...

only after a great deal of practice.” — Erich Fromm


For my first three art projects the focus was on line, shape, and form.  We study each topic for a week.  For my assignment I have to draw 40 thumbnail sketches relating to the topic.  Then I have to use one of the thumbnails and draw it out on a normal size paper using cray-pas.  This was very hard for me to get used to because the artwork is supposed to be abstract; I am not so good at thinking abstract.  Next, I have to draw one of my thumbnails on the computer, using Illustrator.  And I have to turn in a picture I took.  Here is what I have done so far:

My thumbnails for this week relating to form- symmetry, balance, near symmetry, and contrast.  The picture with the books is supposed to show symmetry.

Cray-pa drawing for Week 1- line

Week 2- shape

Week 3- form

We've got EACH OTHER and that's a lot

"Who has your back?


Faith is not meant to be lived out alone.  God has designed us to do life together.  The smallest group Jesus ever sent out on a mission was two- he never sent his followers out alone.  Why?  Because he knows that we do not function well alone.  We need companionship, we need encouragement, we need accountability.  


We need someone to watch our back.  


Where can you find a friend who will be there when you become too exhausted to fight the enemy?  It doesn't matter how you come together, you need someone in your life to watch your back.  Someone to hold you accountable.


That's straight from the Bible, not just some philosophical rhetoric.


"Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and PRAY for each other so that you can live together whole and healed." James 5: 16


"Friends love through all kinds of weather." Proverbs 17:17"


~taken from "Taming a Liger" by Jeff Dunn and Adam Palmer


I read this for devotions this morning and then tonight I spent some time with some great friends!  God works in mysterious ways!  I went to dinner with Megan, Jenna, Lette, Caroline, and Anna.  We had a dinner in the cafe and watched deer outside the window while we ate.  Next, we went on a walk around the neighborhood and listened to Caroline sing us Disney songs.  Currently we are watching "Anastasia!"  Up next is "A Cinderella Story" while we color!  

Word to the Wise

DO NOT ever ask those majoring in art to do math!  Bad idea all around.

Today at work I was supposed to hang up art pieces on the walls in the ArCC.  My teacher explained to me how everything needed to be equally spaced.  He then went on to give me a complicated mathematical formula for how to divide the space up.  As you can see in this first picture, I was able to do my math!

Now when I went to hang up the next five pieces I had someone helping me.  Lauren and I both did the math, hung up the pictures to no avail, redid the math, hung up the pictures wrong again, tried one last attempt at math and then gave up.  We asked our boss for help, after she witnessed our struggles, and she just told us to eyeball it.  She said, "Well, the pictures are about congestion and tension so the way you are hanging them up creates tension and congestion!"  There you have it- because we can't do math the pictures now create tension and congestion when viewed by the human eye.

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ~Eudora Welty

I decided that from now on I am going to be carrying my camera everywhere with me.  I was unhappy with the fact that I did not have very many pictures on this blog of my life.  I also heard that artists should always have a camera with them ;-)  These are a couple pictures from yesterday (if you click on the picture it will get bigger):

My friends and I went to the Physical Plant to look at the free stuff that they had.  Needless to say, we are very Dutch and so we took some of the stuff to use in our dorm rooms.

On my way back from the art building (ArCC) late last night, three deer walked right in front of me.  Then they stopped a little ways away so I walked up to them and took pictures!  Apparently the deer here are very tame- I wasn't even zooming in on this picture.

I Will Walk by Faith

even when I cannot see
Well because this broken road
Prepares your will for me


Would I believe you when you would say
Your hand will guide my every way
Will I receive the words You say
Every moment of every day 
~Jeremy Camp Walk By Faith


I have been feeling a little bit run down the past few days, because I can't get into the groove of doing homework. Homework and school seems so repetitive.  I go to class, get homework assignments, do the homework assignments, and then go to class and get more homework; this feels like a never ending cycle.  I have been putting off the homework by finding lots of other things to do.  Today I realized that I need to get serious about the whole homework business because, whether I like it or not, I will be in college for the next four years.  Then this morning I woke up and read this in my email, "As the semester gets into full swing, we all find ourselves feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and exhausted.  In today's chapel, Prof. Lous Sytsma will deliver a message entitled "Keep Walking,"  in which he uses Isaiah 40:28-31 to show us how God will provide us with rest, strength, support, and direction if we keep walking with him."  So, I went to chapel!


Prof. Sytsma shared Isaiah 40:31 with us, "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will walk and not be faint."  This was exactly what I needed to hear.  I need to press on towards the prize, in this case, college graduation. After I get through with the homework I will be done with college and hopefully have a full time job.  Scary.  As for now, I am making the resolve in whatever I do to, "Work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." Colossians 3:23


On a lighter note, I received two packages from my mom this week!  One was a whole lot of food and the other was a little white box.  The box contained a coloring crayon sharpener, among other things!  Jenna found out last night that the sharpener works amazingly well.  It was also nice to have snacks to eat again.  Thanks Mom! 

Around Campus...

And Whatever You Did For the Least of These

I went downtown Chicago today with the Sunday Snacks program at school.  This is a year round ministry to provide lunches to the homeless people living on the streets of Chicago!  Whom ever is available meets after lunch every Sunday and to pack up brown lunch bags with food.  On this particular day we packed up applesauce, chips, and a sandwich in the bags.  Then we put the lunches in a backpack along with water bottles.  We rode in vans to the heart of the city, the tall building looming over us the closer we got.  The leaders (older students who run the program) divided the kids into groups.  Each group goes down a different street in Chicago with lunches.  I was in a group with three other kids, and we had six lunches in our pack.  We walked down one street and handed out a lunch to each homeless person we met.  I was told that most of them are Christians!  The leaders know all the homeless people by name and they know what is going on in their lives.  It was really cool to see our leader greet each man or woman by name and then ask them what was new in their life.  Our leader then asked the person if they had any prayer requests so that we could pray with them.  All four of us stood in a circle, held hands, and prayed for the person's needs.  It was very awkward at first to be standing in the middle of the busy sidewalks downtown, praying over the homeless, as everyone else went past lost in their own lives.  Once I got used to it, I felt the power of  the prayer.  When were done handing out all of our lunches and conversing with the each person we walked back to the vans to wait for the other groups to finish.  On the ride back home we discussed what happened and the specific prayer needs of the people.  God is at work among these people!  It was an awesome experience- something I hope to continue being a part of.  I leaned that these people may be in a tough spot at this point in their life, but they are all hopeful that their future will be brighter.  The Lord says, "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future!" Jeremiah 29:11

I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it.

I am now on the service committee here at school.  It consists of (from what I've figured out) attending a meeting once every other week and brainstorming service opportunities for the students to do.  And also, serving in various ways through out campus and the community.  The last meeting was a discussion about ways to get involved in new and existing ministry opportunities.  I sat through the whole entire meeting and didn't volunteer to do/help with anything.  I didn't feel excited about any of the things because they would have made me feel uncomfortable- placed me outside of my comfort zone.  This whole not volunteering for anything didn't bother me until the next morning, when I was doing my devotions.  I am reading the book "Blue Like Jazz" and on this morning I was reading about Belief.  A few of the phrases went like this: 


"But the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something.  And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them.  It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything... Andrew is the one who taught me that what I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do... Andrew would say that dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory.  Living for something, Andrew would say, is the hard thing.  Living for something extends beyond fashion, glory, or recognition.  We live for what we believe, Andrew would say."  ~Donald Miller


Talk about a wake up call!  God said never said that serving Him would be easy, he just said that it would be worth it.  God calls us to move beyond our comfort zone and adapt to the situation.


1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (The Message)  "Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it."

Troll Nation

Tonight there was a pep rally because the volleyball team had their first home game!  Jenna and I decided not to go to the pep rally and went right to the game.  Two of our friends play on the team, so we cheered them on.  With the help of the energetic crowd, the team won!  This is my friends and I at the game; it was a "black out."

Troll Nation: a rumbling riot of trolls who emerge from under bridges to rally together and over-enthusiastically inspire fellow trolls onto victory.

There you have it! 

A Godly Woman

Last night we did Bible Study with our floor.  The verses we studied were Proverbs 31: 10-31- the portrait of a godly woman.  We had a GREAT discussion!  My RA found two websites that helped us study this verse more in depth.  Here is a passage from one of the sites: 

"But what about today’s woman? Of what value can this ancient poem be to the diverse, complex life-styles of women today? To the married, to the single, to the young, to the old, to those working outside the home or inside the home, to those women with children or without children? It is more relevant than you might at first expect — although it is also too good to be true.

When we examine this ancient biblical ideal of womanhood, we do not find the stereotyped housewife occupied with dirty dishes and laundry, her daily life dictated by the demands of her husband and her children. Nor do we find a hardened, overly ambitious career woman who leaves her family to fend for itself.


What we find is a strong, dignified, multitalented, caring woman who is an individual in her own right. This woman has money to invest, servants to look after and real estate to manage. She is her husband’s partner, and she is completely trusted with the responsibility for their lands, property and goods. She has the business skills to buy and sell in the market, along with the heartfelt sensitivity and compassion to care for and fulfill the needs of people who are less fortunate. Cheerfully and energetically she tackles the challenges each day brings. Her husband and children love and respect her for her kind, generous and caring nature.


But with all her responsibilities, first and foremost, she looks to God. Her primary concern is God’s will in her life. She is a woman after God’s own heart."


Here is the links to these websites, ladies, if you want to read more.  These passages really helped me pick apart these amazing verses! 
http://proverbs31woman.com/
http://www.wcg.org/lit/bible/poet/prov31.htm