Tom's Murals

While Tom was 100% supportive of this project, he wasn't too enthusiastic about painting. But I twisted his arm ;). He painted two of his and I painted one.

His first one is the Chinese symbol for love.

His second one is a skier. (Before he married me he used to ski 40 something days a year. . .that definitely has changed!)

Tom got his masters from Purdue so I convinced him a logo would be a good representative for him. (What he *really* wanted was Western Bulldog's Logo--Australian football team--- just to be quirky--ah I love that guy!)

Cache's Murals

Cache spent so much time on his murals that he opted not to do a 4th one like Caleb and Chandler. His first one was time consuming, but not quite like the others. He chose a newspaper. He loves history so this one was fitting,

While this Charlie Brown one looks simple, it took him a long time. He was really close to finishing it and decided it didn't look as close to his working image as he'd like. The difference was that his image was quite pixelated and had portions shaded. So he went back over the entire thing with a 1/2" stipple brush and stippled on gradation, shading and a bit of a pixelated look.

His last one is a world map by population. See Canada? It isn't very populated. Neither is Russia, but China and India definitely are! I couldn't even begin to count the hours he put in on this one. He cut pieces of masking tape to put around each country before painting it. (He did them in sets of colors.) Each color took quite a few hours just to tape.

Caleb's Murals

Caleb's first mural is from a computer drawing he did a couple of years ago. It was a perfect one for him to start out on because he learned a lot about handling a brush and getting straight lines. If he hadn't been as meticulous on this one as he was he probably wouldn't have been able to do his next ones that were much more difficult. Caleb loves to play around on design-your-own-shoe sites. . .and since he didn't want to pay the price for them, he took the second best thing. . .painting one of his designs on the fence! The shoe is also fitting since he started cross country this year and he has loved running. (And coming from a non-running background I'm impressed with how well he does as a freshmen even against big schools.)

One of our favorite games is Killer Bunnies and out of our ginourmous stack of cards (which, at this point is at least 8 " high) this Red Timid Bunny Reroll card is Caleb's favorite. I love how it turned out. (As a side note, I did not keep track on how much time we put into the fence. But I did keep track of one color on this one. Just the black outlining took 10 hours---I actually did all of that because it was so meticulous and difficult to get the right width on the lines and get them straight. The fence was particularly rough in this area so it was quite challenging.)

Caleb's passion and main love is mountain biking. If you would like a lengthy conversation with him you will start asking about shocks, suspension and disc brakes. So this other very time consuming one fits him very perfectly.

Chandler's Murals

Chandler is my artistic one. . .he loves to draw and sketch and color and sculpt. He notices details. . . . Mom, did you love that black outline around the numbers on University X's jerseys? So I was disappointed that he didn't love this project more. BUT, he still did a great job and stuck with it until he was finished. I think what happened is his social life started taking top priority. Anyway, he did an Indiana Jones Lego Head (his own sketch--instead of from a clip art or other source). I loved it when people saw it and knew exactly what it was.

He also chose this BYU one. After we got that one traced on we realized the lines were so hard to tell what to paint where so I ended up helping a lot with that. He helped fill it in and touch up, but I did all of the outlining. It turned out amazing and I think it fits our family perfectly! It seems to be one of everyone's favorites.

He chose these books because he likes to read.

His final one was the Jazz. This one he did 100% on his own. He did a great job!

Tessa's Murals

The first two things Tessa requested to paint on the fence was a "rainbow with a sun" and a Hello Kitty.

That was all I was going to do for her, but part way through the process she requested abc's. The addition of the short vowel words was my contribution--I might as well have a teaching tool too!Even though Tessa painted a little on each of her murals, midway I decided I wanted something that she could paint herself--or at least mostly by herself. So I decided to do some paper dolls with a few outfits (since she also loves to dress up). On that one, she did all of the painting of the color. I painted the black outline, stood over her as she painted each color and then I went back over the outline to give it a clean edge. I thought it turned out so cute!

Please use your imaginations. . .these pictures are quite bad.

Fence Tidbits

Preface. . . this is a very BORING post. . .it's mostly for my records.

1) We ruined SSSOOOOO many brushes.

2) There is stray paint inside and outside of my house. I was feeling bad until I read this. Suddenly the little splatters here and there seem fine!

3) This was such a love-hate project for me. I thrived on seeing the pieces come together. I was so motivated each day to get out and make progress on the ones we were working on. Yet it was hard not to feel like the whole project was hanging over my head. You can't do everything in life and when you are painting a fence, you are not cleaning your house or attending to your children as you should. That caused me a certain degree of guilt throughout the process.

4) I often got up at 5:00 or 5:30 (depending on what time it got light outside) and read my scriptures for a half hour then went out and painted until family scripture time. {In August during that cold spell I was painting in a coat and gloves in the morning!} Those early morning hours were a sanctuary for my soul. . .seeing the break of dawn, hearing the birds, doing something I LOVED and pondering on the scriptures I had just read. . . .many insights and tidbits of inspiration flowed through me this summer. Much needed and much appreciated.

5) One of the reasons I embarked on this project was because of this article about mothers using their education in raising their family. (I referred to that article here as well.) The thought of that kept me going when I almost decided that what I was trading this project for was not worth it (see #3). BUT, hopefully, my kids have very positive memories of the whole experience: of working side by side with me or consulting me for advice, of taking a big project that they have to envision in their heads and carry it out to completion, of sticking with a task and finishing it even if it is hot or they are tired of painting, of working through problems, of feeling satisfaction of creating something fun and working together so that everyone can finish their project (which meant taking large turns cleaning and caring for the littlest ones). A lot of good came out of this.

6) I love mixing paint. I loved the challenge of the kids bringing me a picture of the color they wanted and I had to get that with the primary and secondary colors + white and black. Fun!

7) I went through phases when I said to myself, "What in the world am I doing? Who does this? This is so weird and surely the neighbors think so too. etc." But then I would go out and get lost in it and love the process and decide that I didn't care.

8) We mixed all of our paint in those square plastic baby food containers. (for once my saving for an unknown reason paid off!) They were great because they had lids and were about the right size for most colors we needed.

9) I've had a couple of responses on my "nothing-quite-like-purposely-decreasing-the-value-of-your-property" comment. . . what I meant by that is that we could not sell our house for as much money as we could with a solid colored fence. But we're not planning on moving so for now, it's okay.

10) People have also asked if we can put anything on it to preserve our work. I asked the paint store people about it and they said that there is a clear coating but if it goes wrong (which it does often) it goes terribly wrong. It is also $90/gallon. It would take 10-15 gallons to cover our fence. . . so we are just letting it weather. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

I Highly Recommend

I have made myself a student of Sister Beck. I try to read, reread and listen to all of her talks and presentations. So when I saw this on the Mormon Channel I had to listen to it. It took me a couple of days to get through since it is about an hour and a half. But it was SO worth my time. I love that lady! She has inspired me so often to be better, to improve and have the right perspective. And she did it again. Here is the link to an inspiring hour and a half!

Greta's Murals

As Greta cannot talk yet we had to guess for her what she might like on the fence. Of course by the time she can state an opinion, her preferences may change, but I guess by then all of our mural choices might be different too. . .

I find it interesting how Greta notices glasses. Her favorite books are the ones where there is a pair of glasses and she often points to hers when she shows us those pages. So we painted a pair of glasses for her. They didn't turn out fantastic looking, but she walks up to them and points to hers so at least she relates to them. (This was my most problematic mural. . . I wasn't working with a stellar image to begin with and I didn't design it beforehand. . .I just did it as I went and that proved disastrous twice. When this one starts peeling, we're in for a really interesting look!)

The text on it says "Straight as an arrow". That is what her doctor always says when we go in for check ups (supposedly it is a classic statement of his). With her glasses she sees straight as an arrow!

I've learned to not leave out any paper I want kept scribble free on my table. That includes scriptures and journals! She loves to color and draw and will do so at every chance she gets. So she got a box of crayons.

I Spy!

I spy a shoelace, RUN, ROOSEVELT and RED,

A mirror, four books and a big Lego head.

I spy two pink bows, a girl on the run,

Blue claws, Canada and a big yellow sun.

I spy a basketball, a small little net,

A big puff of steam and a black helmet.

{We're done!}

Come and play I Spy in our backyard!

Saturday, September 18 from 12:30-2:00

(open house)

(Stories about the paintings, closer pictures and a few other musings to come at a later date.)

Sneak Peeks

I'm hoping to finish the fence this weekend (I've hoped that for the last three weekends so we'll see. . .). When we are all finished we will have a little "open house" for anyone who wants to see it. But for now, here are a few sneak peeks!