December Wrap Up

December like the rest of this year has gone by so fast that I almost missed it. I did however capture a few special moments during the month. 

First was Sissy and Bubba's Winter music concerts. Sissy plays both in orchestra and in band as well as singing in the chorus. In their school band and orchestra are only open to 3-5 grade so Bubba who is in second grade was only had a chorus performance.

Sissy and her best friend both play violin and are in the center of the above photo. Everyone calls them twins and they do look a lot alike. Here is a cropped version of the above photo. It is not the best but easier to see why they are referred to as twins by their classmates.

In band Sissy is a percussionist and for this concert she got to play the snare drum which she was very happy about.

I tried to get a nice shot of her in the chorus performance but I definitely wasn't prepared for the fact that both her and her 'twin' moved the entire time. They held hands and even when everyone else was standing still the two girls swayed to the music swinging their joined hands. It was really cute but made for fuzzy photos.

Bubba was much easier to get a nice shot of. He is the little boy in the second row from the bottom wearing the deep blue shirt, just behind and to the right of the boy who is smacking his own forehead. Yes that is what he is doing, the poor boy goofed and sang out before it was time to start singing. I felt so bad for him as he didn't sing the rest of the performance. 

The concerts all went well and were very cute.

Next came Christmas

We had a quiet but nice Christmas. 

The kids were happy with their presents.

 Miss. M was happy with the fuzzy Cheshire Cat sock's the kids got her.

 Mrs. G was happy with the 'old lady' scarf the kids got her.

Mr. G was happy amused with the 'connect the dot' activity book the kids got him. His job requires mapping (connecting dots) so we tease him that he is just a glorified dot connector.

With a little over a day left until the new year I am excitedly anticipating a number of changes in my life and hopefully they will all lead to a rewarding year. 

How about you, are you looking forward to 2015?

This That and the Other Thing

Looking through the images I have complied to use here on Artistic Composition it occurred to me that my creativity isn't necessarily dormant but rather it is all over the board. So here it is a rather random post of my unfocused creativity over the last month.

We start by putting the camera away and pulling out the sewing machine to create this Sailor Moon costume for my granddaughter to wear on Halloween.

Next while trying to come up with a design to wish a young woman who likes the Harry Potter stories  a Happy Birthday on her Facebook page I came up with the above design and was inspired to create the motivational print below as well.

This next photo is actually a composite photo created for my Father-in-law.  At the end of October I went to visit him and my Mother-in-law in northern Arizona and they took me to see the Grand Canyon. He asked if I could get a good portrait shot of him as he has not had his portrait taken in some time. He is 6'8" so without a ladder to take the shot most of them wound up with more sky than canyon in the background. While he liked them we both decided a composite with the canyon in the background would be just right.

With so many beautiful shots of my trip to Arizona I have been working on creating some new inspirational print designs to add to our gift shop.

Of course it occurred to me that a new year will soon be here so the past couple of weeks I have been working on various designs for scenic and inspirational calendars which I am now adding to our gift shop. The design below is from a photograph of a statue of Merlin the Magician that stands in a shopping center in Sadona, Arizona and can be found in the Arizona calendar collection.

Do you ever find that your creativity becomes unfocused?

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