Believe

I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure & wearing lipstick. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything else seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe tomorrow is another day. I believe in Miracles.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Getting a Degree & Choosing a Major

"It is so important that you young men and you young women get all of the education that you can. The Lord has said very plainly that His people are to gain knowledge of countries and kingdoms and of things of the world through the process of education, even by study and by faith." Gordon B. Hinckley


Well, that being said, I made it a priority to get a Bachelors degree from a good University. For many people, it takes a long time before they are able to choose a degree, but I was lucky and never needed to change my Major. It was just going to be ART.. But then I decided to do Art Education because I could always fall back on the teaching aspect (incase my budding art career came to a stop) I feel like I have LOTS of interests and things that I'm decent at, so it is definitely hard to focus on just one. My degree being a Major in Art Education, and a Minor in Health Education still had a lot of diversity; I studied ART (drawing, color and design, ceramics and oil painting), HEALTH (biology, anatomy, physiology, Physical Science) and then EDUCATION (philosophy & Psychology of education, art/health methods, teaching kids with disabilities (that class was during the SA world cup...didn't get too much out of it) lesson planning etc etc.) Pretty divers if you ask me.
I would still love to learn so much more; how to fly a helicopter, become a yoga teacher, learn aromatherapy, acupuncture, homeopathy and I have seriously considered getting a Masters degree in Art History.... Time will tell.
I honestly had the BEST college experience, I am so lucky!
Elvis was my first painting I did when I was in Grade 11, with Acrylic paints.
Later, when I got my Patriarchal Blessing it said that "I will enjoy the beauties of the earth, especially because I have a talent in the artistic realm" Well... that helped. 
I don't know how much is "talent" and how much is hard work, because especially when I was in my art classes with other Art majors... they were all so good, and so above me because I also had to balance my health and education classes... oh well.
This baby won me the "Art 30" prize in high school... pretty much the only prize I've ever gotten in academics. I'll take it!
Then I started in with my classes, but found to love color composition and oil painting... I do wish I did more mixed media and watercolor..I just didn't have enough time!
I love painting portraits, and find if you can paint a face, you can paint anything.
I love Impressionism, but have yet to find my own exact style. My life painting teacher was Albin Veselka- he is amazing and will definitely be very famous one day.




Art classes are 3 hours long, 3 times a week, but only 3 credits. It's a very time consuming and taxing major. I thought it may have been a walk in the park, but let me tell you it was not. Just being graded on your ability to create and mix paint is stressful enough!
This below was done in Oil painting1 that I took from Leon Parson- he is a genius, and teaches with the spirit. I also took head drawing from him and learned a lot...I'm just not the best drawer.

I took figure drawing from Josh Abaglin. I was terrible at it, but enjoyed learning the anatomy and theory behind it. I broke my right arm during this semester, and didn't do too well.

My first painting I ever sold... 50 bucks! Boo YEAH!

I did this one for my sister. I'm pretty sure my mom has some sort of art of mine in every room in her house. I love their support! I really enjoy getting commissions and creating things for people-I'm pretty out of practice, having being graduated for a few years though. I'm not very good at just painting just to paint or for no reason... I need to do more though to keep up my 'talents'. haha

This is my pride and joy, one of two of my pieces of art to be displayed in the student gallery in the BYU-I art building.
I love that I got to graduate with my two high school besties Jenae and Stacey.

And of coarse, Jer was there to support me :)


My thoughts:
Do what you can to get a degree. Choose a major and go with it. Don't waste time, find things you like, Be practical. Remember to have tons of fun while in college too. Find ways to use your degree, even if your job does not require any of the skills you learned. For example: I work in an office now- so I paint for people, sell hand-painted cards on Etsy, and substitute teach on my days off.

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