Thanksgiving Feast...

At school the students could dress up as indians and pilgrims and of course Lesli and I did too, because we never ever miss out on a chance to dress up. 

Thankful for:

   my family:

Mom: You taught us the importance of loving God, people and the arts. You encouraged us to be our own by not caring what other people thought of you; you showed us how to care for our environment by teaching us to clean and picking up trash wherever you went. And you did it all smiling and dancing and being crazy. And still are.


Dad: You are the coolest. I may have gotten my shyness from you, but you also passed on your love for music and your cleanliness (OCD?).

Dylum: You are still my best bud. Keep dancing and creating. For.ev.er.

Lesli: Best fran. Wild Heart. Grumpy angel on my shoulder. Hee hee. Best singing partner.

Cody: I was remembering you as a toddler tonight and almost cried. And then I thought of you calling me buddy. And I laughed. You are one of the best artists I know. Seriously.

Hannah: Ooga Booga Suga Boo, Hannah Banana, Bopadoobop, Scooterboo. You know what I just said.

My honey: (secrets, sppp sppsss, psstt) It is kind of embarressing how long me and our friends can go on and on talking about how amazing you are and then realizing you are someone we know and we are about to see you walking through the door. I love your tender heart, your bending voice, your sharp wit and your sweet hugs. I am so proud of you.  And totally in love with you.

 


 my job(s):

I get paid to hug a bunch of precious children and teach them to read and draw and tell them they are loved.                    Best.Job.Ever.



   my home:

I am a homebody. I just love laying on my bed in the most beautiful bedroom ever. I love sitting at home and drawing or reading. I love listening to one (or four) of the different bands living in our house practicing down the hall. I love hearing roommates and friends chatting in the other room. I love just sitting on the porch enjoying Highland.


  my friends:

So many of my friends are like extended family. I love you all!

Wildhearts:
Sisters for life.


I am thankful for so much.

This has been mushy enough, but I just wanted to let y'all know. K?

Im gonna miss this man next month.

What do you do when you attend a workshop? Make sure your best friend comes along too. Mine being fellow Wild heart Amy Lynn Scott Treme (photographer and collector of all things vintage) made for an especially fun and exciting time. The photographers that attended were split into 4 groups. And guess who was in group one. Yea, that's right, me and Amy, the ones who have never been to a workshop before. Amy was all game, but I was nervous.

The best way to relax your nerves is to laugh, at least that's what my body tells itself when I get uncomfortable (Amy, sorry again for the time I laughed in your face when you told me Shotgun ate your new glasses; sorry girl at my 4th grade camp who happened to open the door when I was spraying it with bug spray, oh, just about eye level). Anyways, Amy was here to help those nerves of mine by serving up some delicious shots like this one here:

My Best Friend: funny, creative, beautiful.

The models, Jacob and Lillie Duncan are really married. How cute is that!

So these are some more photos of what we were SUPPOSED to be shooting, but we were in a beautiful location with PERFECT lighting with nothing but time and cameras on our hands. What were we to do, but keep taking pictures of each other? Right, my thoughts exactly. So in-between taking pictures of these beautiful creatures we snapped a few shots of each other. 

I would like to apologize here for the terrible editing. I just recently got Photoshop and am still learning how to do this. I am most pleased with the shots that looked great even before editing, like that last one of the couple on the farm.

Three Nails Photography Workshop

I have always done photography as a hobby. I use to use a lot of magazines as the basis for my art compositions, but once I got a nicer camera decided it was time to step away from the murky waters of copy right infringement and work from my own photographs. While I still occasionally use magazines for personal pieces or for practice sketches, more often for commissioned work I use photos of my friends and family. Since more and more of my artwork was starting at the photography level I was interested in developing this hobby a little more.

I went to the Three Nails Workshop not knowing what to expect. I was a little nervous since I had never been to a workshop before and I knew that this one would be filled with other photographers with much more experience than me, but that was shaded by my excitement. I have seen Hunter's work nearly from the beginning and watching his progression and seeing the beautiful shoots he was creating let me know that the sets he would have us shooting were going to be spectacular. I was also curious to just hear the stories of his crazy journey and learn some "how to's" of this trade.

It was everything I hoped. Walking into the workshop was like stepping into one of his photographs. Somehow he made this large open space seem cozy and inviting with a cute backdrop of ladders, canvas and string lights. ...

The photoshoots were magical and I want to share more about those later. I just want to end this by saying that the most valuable thing I took away with me from this workshop was this:  it is important to have a clear vision and to have confidence in yourself as an artist. As a person and an artist I am interested in so many things! So many things that instead of taking the time to do one thing well I scatter my energy into a bunch of things. So right now I am working on finding out what I really love and going for it with all that I've got, realizing that focusing on one thing isn't necessarily shutting the door on everything else. I think that is what I have been afraid of.

That being said, this workshop was an insightful, freeing, beautiful experience. I was spurred to ask myself some meaningful questions. I got to witness what confidence in your craft can look like and I met a lot of nice, talented, encouraging people. If you have a chance to take one of his workshops, I highly recommend it. It was a wonderful experience and I enjoyed it so, so much!

This handsome goat was on the location of the engagement shoot.

More photos to come.

Three Nails Blog

As I work on designs for the new Engine cd coming out (soon!) I found some images from the old cd.

You can follow me on instagram and see more pictures of the Wild hearts, wild animals, pets, pet puppets, artwork, my art classroom, old photos, singing/dancing family members, singing/dancing non family members, and how I feel about math. 

tooyoungtobehippies

Working at a school and still going to school can be exhausting. I am slowly getting back into the (non-summer/ rest of the year) routine.  Going back to the job was not as hard as going back to being a student.

As far as work goes: I am happy that this year I am starting off a little more prepared for my art classes with a month or two planned in advance. I am excited for the upper class, because with only 4 students we will be able to do lots of fun things like go on field trips and make bigger messes. : ) In the classroom I have noticed the difference a summer off has made. My patience has been renewed and the kids are cute again.

Mrs. B recommended a book for me to read and I would recommend it to any one. It really has a lot to do with my new outlook on working with children. It is called "Loving Our Kids on Purpose". I would like to post a longer review on it later.


Photo of me wearing a shirt designed/printed
by my awesome brother Dylan Hillman of
Art Punch and Camille, my fellow
chicken-leg having friend.


School: let's just put it this way: I have lots of homework due tomorrow and I felt it pertinent that I update my blog. right. now. I am taking Practical Math and Non-Profit Organizations. They are not hard classes; it is just hard to stay motivated when I feel like my life is somewhere else. The fun, exciting things and even the feelings of 'I have to get this done!' are all in other places. Not at school. My school.

It gets confusing when you work at a school and can call school, work, but then you have homework and that can be your schoolwork or I could say it referring to the school where I work, but then why wouldn't I just call it work, oh wait bc I have another job or two and I could be talking about those places of work except to make it even more confusing one of my other jobs is in the same building bc I work in my church nursery which is also where the school is located so at any time I could say "I am going to school, I mean church, I mean work, I mean work at the church, I mean schoolwork church that uh, yea" and you would just have to guess by the day and time when I said it. And then it is kind of like a puzzle. And that makes confusing things more fun.

For the future:
I go to school: LSUS
I attend church and work in the nursery: CC
I work at a school: CCS (in a classroom and in an art room)