Friday, March 28, 2008

Latest Artwork

I finally got around to scanning my latest artwork. So now it is here for you all to see!

This is a picture of Venice, which I copied of a lovely photo Mrs. Patty took while there. I used a combination of watercolor and black marker.

I did this accroding to a book my dad had lying around. The book was filled with pictures of Toronto in the 80's so this is a cafe from then. It's also watercolor but with a fine tipped black pen. I'm afraid you'll have to look at it sideways, because my computer skills are extremely primitive and I couldn't figure out how to turn around! Whoops!

And this here is out of my own imagination. It's a fairy, I was in a fantstical creature mood. This is just watercolor I think, although I might have snuck some pen in there somewhere...

Well, that's all for now, thanks for reading!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Interesting Things

Hello! Did you enjoy a lovely Easter Sunday celebrating Jesus' amazing resurrection? Well we did! I'm excited about how much he cares about me. Enough to give me the gift of his death on the cross.
Lots of interesting things have been happening around the Till household lately. This week was difficult for my dad, who has been struggling with some real problems at work. That's been hard, but this afternoon he embarked on another trip to the States. He'll be gone for three weeks, raising support, encouraging people to pray for BMA and getting four students settled in with American families. It can get a little hectic when he's gone for a long period of time, so I hope we hold out!
Soon my brother Patrick will leave to look for colleges! It's a reminder that we only have him for another year and a half! That's not nice to think about, I'm going to miss him a ton.
As far as I am concerned, a few interesting things have been going on with me too. Maybe some of you know that I have been interested in an art high school. (Stredni Umelecka Skola v Ostrave, for those of you who speak czech) Well right now I'm pretty serious about this school. I have to complete a portfolio of 25 pictures by January to apply. The scary thing is they only take about nine kids. So it's something I've been praying alot about lately and hae been wondering if this is something God wants for me.
The other, smaller interesting thing that has happened to me is; I got my hair cut! My hair was starting to get pretty gross. Split ends were becoming tripple split ends and I wouldn't be surprised if small animals had started nesting in it's tangled locks. Anyway I went to the haircuttery (I'm not sure that's a word...) and asked for "something different", in other words really short. The haircutress (Ok I admit, I made that one up) however decided she didn't want to cut my hair as short as I wanted her to. She insisted that it would look horrible. So I got a nice sholder length haircut. It was cute. But when I got home I hacked off an extra two inches or so, till it was the length I wanted it to be. I'm pretty happy with it now! And I would show you the before and after pics we took, but my dad just flew away with the camera for the next 3 weeks! I'm not saying you should try this at home (cutting your own hair, I mean). The real moral of this long winded tale is: Don't let your haircuttress boss you around!
Ok, that about wraps things up for now. I'm hoping to have the use of my tutor's scanner soon so that I can show you my latest art work. Bye for now!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Tensing

I'm a member of a Christian singing group called Tensing, which meets in my town. It's a great place for teens to sing, hang out with friends and just have fun. Along with singing, we occasionally dance (I only dance when forced...) or do drama. Being a lover of drama, naturally I was excited when our leader asked me to lead a series of drama workshops. How wonderful! A chance to act and boss people around, at the same time!
I lead the first drama session (after lots of valuable consultation with my very dramatic father) about three weeks ago and was pretty pleased with it's results. I stressed the importance of three main keys to good drama; support, position and movement. I illustrated each with a corrosponding game.
Last week I planned a game that focused on support. Unfortunatly, there was a whole lot of people and I didn't really have their attention.
This week I was asked to lead a drama workshop for the whole two hours, seeing as our leader is in Israel. I was kind of dreading exercising authority over people who are the same age as me or older, not to mention keeping them occupied for an hour. Anyway, I prepared a short explanation of the phrase "suspention of disbelief". That means when the audience knows the play isn't real, but despite that they are willing to enter the world created by the actors, that is if the actors do their job right. This all sounded great when I was getting ready at home, but then I had to somehow say that in czech. I realized that a little late. Too late actually, I don't really think they got it...ANYWAY, the rest of the hour went ok. We played the games I had prepared, and some of the kids got pretty into it. I did have one non-tensing person show up. That was difficult, seeing as I don't think he had any interest in what we were doing at all. Maybe he thought there would be food...Now I'm trying to write a script for the skit we will do at our next concert. That's a bit scary. I've never written a play before!
Well, now you know how I've been spending my Monday evenings! Thanks for reading!

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Renovating

Hello! I'm afraid it's been a while since my last update, so I'll try to be as witty and charming as possible to make up for lost time:)
Some interesting things have been happening around here lately. We are renovating our house! My parents have been dreaming up plans for our house's makeover ever since we bought it. The idea is to have three stages of construction. The first stage is knocking down the wall separating my parents bedroom and the living room. We have been experiencing the side effects of "stage one" for a week. The workmen came on Monday to knock down the wall.
For the first four days I stayed with a friend. I felt very grown up for those days with no parents. But now I'm back and can return to being thoroughly adolescent. I'm now living in my little brother's bedroom. This means waking up each morning to see the tiny grimacing faces of his Lord of the Rings figure collection. Actually I've made friends with most of them. Underneath their tough warrior exteriors they are sensitive, caring guys.
Well that's all for now! I'd like to post some before and after pictures once "stage one" is finished. But we'll have to see if our camera and my computer cooperate enough to do so. Thanks for reading!