New prints.

Thankfully, my new body of art work is coming along quite nicely. I've been on a great roll with coming up with compositions for portraits and for the most part, they have all turned out looking great! Finally, I am starting to have a body of work I am extremely pleased with, and that is a HUGE thing for artists.

Let me talk about the titles. Titles are probably the thing I have the most trouble with, simply because it can make or break a piece. The worst thing in the world is looking at a very successful piece of art and the title is incredibly generic. It honestly changes my look on the piece. With this new body of work, I wanted to focus on the identity you can find in the portrait of someone. Which is why I chose to do portraits of my friends, because I know what types of personalities and energies I am working with. I like for titles to be simple but describe the subjects well.

I decided to name the prints based off of a certain characteristic that the subject carries. These examples shown below are portraits of my friends Keirstin and Erica. The title of Erica's print is "The Latina" because it elaborates on her heritage as Peurto Rican woman.


The image taken of..


The finished print. These are 18 x 18.


Now onto Keirstin's portrait.

The image taken from. I adore this picture, it describes her to a tee- on her iPone with her pet goat!!!



Here are the finished prints, these are quite smaller- 9 x 12.

I have uploaded these onto my site by the way, check out the rest!
http://mallorey-rogers.weebly.com

Trying something new...

Something I decided I was going to devote my summer to is to build my body of art work. I have not created hardly a single thing this past school year due to my busy business (sorry I'm a DORK lol). I'm making a goal to build my gallery experience and try to have a lot of shows this upcoming few months/year. In order to do that you have to have a number of GOOD pieces. I'm working on a series of lino portrait prints but my supplies had not come in yet--- so I decided to make a collage of my sister, Heather :) The image on the left is what I looked at for my inspiration.

I went out and bought some scrapbooking paper, rubber cement and an x-acto knife (which was PINK, may I add. Totally pimp! :))


Starting to cut all the colored shapes... realizing that it is going to be a LONG night.


6 1/2 hours later..... pushing down each individual colored piece of paper....


Here's how it looks so far.... needs more work, but I'm pretty happy so far :)

The Changing of Desires

This afternoon I was in the car driving to Jackson to pick up some art supplies at Hobby Lobby. As I drive, I often reflect. Reflect on my job, my health, my goals, my relationships, my trials... I think that's why I love to drive so much, lol. And then I began to think about all of the desires of my life. I graduated college just a tad over a year ago and thought of what my desires where at that time. They were the usual from a college graduate. i wanted to get a teaching job, make money, find a place to live, become financially stable, all the good stuff.

God really REALLY took care of me when I graduated. This job at PCHS just literally popped up out of the blue and landed in my lap. My apartment which is incredibly nice and I absolutely love fell into my lap at an amazing monthly price where I can live comfortably and still save money. However, as good as these things where I didn't find it to be the desire I intended for. My desire was to live in a big city such as Murfreesboro, Hendersonville or Nashville. I really dreaded the idea of being stuck in a big city. AND I was not thrilled about teaching high school, I really had a desire to teach the younger ages.

I have completely fallen in love with working with teenagers. The Lord has put in my heart a desire to work with high schoolers in such a pure and loving way. I love everything about teenagers- their personalities, their energy, their outlook on life and how they all have the world at their fingertips. And just recently, another opportunity has fallen into my lap. To be the FCA sponsor of the school. This idea scared the life out of me, as much as I adore the Lord and going to church and working with others, there was no way I felt equipped to be a spiritual mentor to these students.

And then just last week, I got a phone call from a college friend I have not heard from in years, Ben. It was kind of a shocker that he called me, I was quite curious as to what he was doing in life and what made him call me. APPARENTLY... he is now the FCA Representative for West Tennessee. His job is to work with all of the Huddle Leaders in the school systems, come and speak to the students and publicize all of these events that they are having. This completely FLOORED ME. I had no idea one of my friends from COLLEGE happened to be the FCA Rep that I needed to talk to for being prepared to lead FCA during the school year. He was so happy and excited that I was going to be a new Huddle Leader and immediately invited me to this summer leadership FCA Camp they are having in North Carolina at the end of June. They have praise and worship, games, team and leadership building, small group studies... so many things that I know will help me prepare my heart and mind as a Huddle Leader.

I am so excited for what God is doing in my life right now, it just feels like he is having 100% control over my life and he is steering it in the way He wants for His glory. And I thank God that my desires have been changing to His desires.

I've been saying all this year that I can't wait to pack up and move closer to Nashville... But as of right now, I am totally happy about what He is doing in my life right here.

My new way of eating

One of my constant struggles is to stay fit. I've put on a good thirty pounds since college and it has been such a hard fight to get it off. I've put it on and lost it several times, I try to keep myself active by working out and doing yoga (my absolute favorite!) but in the end it never helps like it should. After a lot of reflecting I realized it's my inconsistent diet. I will eat well for about two weeks and then for a few days go back to my fast food and drinking cokes fringe. This has really kept me from getting in the shape I desire. I found this plan on google that sounded like so much fun.

It's called the Color Diet. All you do is make your plate as colorful as you can. If you think about it, all the healthy and good food is almost always colorful. Examples are fruits such as apples, bananas, oranges, strawberries, blue berries. Then you got veggies which are colors in carrots, lettuce, spinach, peas, etc. The fattening food such as potatoes and starches don't have much of color. They are all bland looking, which would make it not a good choice to eat because of the lack of color.

I've been doing this for several days and it's been a lot of fun and you don't even realize you are eating healthy! Here is a list of food to choose from when you go grocery shopping and care to start the challenge with me:

sweet potatoes
dark green lettuce
tomatoes
avocados
peppers
(red, green, yellow, hot)
carrots
broccoli
celery
onions
garlic
alfalfa sprouts
olive oil
spinach
flax seed oil
green teanuts
beans
peas
sunflower seeds
wheat germ
soy
tofu
oatmeal
whole grains
(wheat
rye, etc.)
wild rice
yogurt
milk
cheese
eggssardines
and other small
cold water fish
low-mercury seafood
(eg: wild salmon
shrimp
light tuna
pollock
and catfish)
wild game (deer, pheasant, etc)
organic chicken
organic beef, sparingly
pork, sparingly

Printmaking in the morning...

My lovely total of four girls who are taking my summer printmaking class. We're doing linoleum printing right now, my favorite!!


Jerika (right) and Raquel (left) acting like girls while they work on their prints.


Raquel's print of a lion.


Dedra's print of the moon.

They are going to look SO good when they finish.

What do art teachers do over their summer vacations?

I thank Jesus that this school year has ended somewhat peacefully. It's been an incredibly tough year as a first year teacher: two suicides from students and 1 death of a student drowning in a flood. Definitely a lot of heart break. I've grown to really love my students, much more than I anticipated I would. I know I am going to have to pick up my stuff and move within a year or so. I find myself complaining about the town I live in (big and bad Parsons). It's on the middle of nowhere and there is nothing to do, and I have to drive a good 30 minutes to get to a near Wal-Mart....but I have a JOB. And not that, but I have a job I really enjoy with students I have become very close to over the years. It's not going to be easy leaving them, but I thank the Lord that he has brought sweet and wonderful students this year. I went to the graduation without kleenexes and regretted it instantly. I sobbed like a little girl. Up above is a picture of one of the FCA students, Tyler who left me :(

I have decided for my summer vacation, I wanted to earn a little extra money and also give me something to keep me busy with. SO.... I am teaching a printmaking and drawing class to a group of students I had this past semester. They are two and a half hours, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, throughout the month of June. We met yesterday for the first time and so far I have seen OUTSTANDING artwork from them. I can NOT wait to post them online when I take pictures :)

On a side note, I am in wedding season right now! My sister is getting married in September and one of my best friends is getting married next April. Guess who is the maid of honor in BOTH weddings! :) :) :) Wedding planning is such a blast, and I can not wait to plan my own.....

Speaking of weddings, ever heard of wedding band tattoos?? Any thoughts? I'm quite interested....