words to live by

with all the craziness that is suddenly upon me, i had a nice happy happen today. katie nay, one of the most adorable gals ever, e-mailed me and in her e-mail she inserted a gem of a warm fuzzy. i sincerely hope you enjoy it as much as i do.


honestly, i will forever be indebted to katie nay (and whoever created this) for my new life theme.

dignity. always dignity.

again...forgive me.

here's the deal: due to probable popular belief in the blogging world, i've dropped off the face of the planet. verdict: i have not.

this semester's been crazy, but oddly sort of fabulous.

my class schedule's kind of nuts (wednesday is my favorite: i work from 9am-12:30pm. then i have class from 1:35-3pm, a class from 5-7, then a class from 7-11pm. guess that blows my new year's resolution to get in bed by 11pm each night!) XD

in other news, in these last two weeks (in no particular order):
i discovered midway, a town north of here and absolutely fell in love with everything about it. i took my big brother out for sushi for his birthday. i got trained for my calling and i'm getting the hang of it...for now. i've had 4 jambas. i'm more obsessed with typography. i took wedding shots of an adorable couple who which was loads of fun (although my feet were numb by the end: canvas shoes + snowy park hills = near frostbite). at work i got new toys: a wacom intuos pen tablet. and a new tripod. i've listened to coldplay's ep twice more. i got to handset type, ie, letterpress style and print it (like they do in 'newsies'.) i watched 'white Christmas' again, for the billionth time and it never gets old. i watched 'enchanted' for the 3rd time. i got an excellent oreo cheesecake shake at the Malt Shoppe, where i also inadvertently used the mens' restroom. on a date.

don't ask.


as for this week, i'm pretty on top of my homework so far. i may be taking more wedding photos on friday. that same day, 3 hardcore art competition entries are due, so that's what i'll be focusing on this week. i know that you're all waiting...with baited breath, i'm sure, for the rest of my 'antisocial' series, but i've had issues with technology: among other things, i just realized that my computer at work, which i do most of my photography and design work on, has a whoppin 80 gb on its hard drive. um...yay. i think i have about 3 gb left. ugh. so photoshop won't let me edit the photos i already have...it's just a hassle right now. so...i'm workin' on it. i won't leave you hanging for long.

and i don't planning on using any more mens' restrooms.

but i make no promises.

Antisocial: Part I (Illustration)

Forgive me!!!

I've been a complete blog slacker. But for a while, now, I've had a few blogs in mind I've wanted to write. This will be one of a series of probably 3. I realize that last semester, Fall 08, I was pretty antisocial...for me, at least. So I figured I'd explain why.

Reason #1: Illustration 1.
Taught by Prof. Richard Hull, this was a good class...but very hard for me. Mainly because I never had enough time to get all the projects done in the quality which I think I can get them to...which was frustrating. Each project (with the exception of the wolf and sheep one) required us to shoot from photo reference. This means we had to set up a scene and photograph it, then approve it with the teacher before we painted it. There was a LOT of time spent on these, especially because I'd never painted with Gouache before. Please don't judge too harshly, because they're still not finished. [Disclaimer: the cropping is pretty terrible, because I'm hurriedly putting this together. It bugs me, but I'll probably let it slide for now and re-crop and post them when I revise them.] But here they are for now*:

This was my first assignment. Monochromatic Still-life. I've since changed some things and it looks a lot better than it did, believe it or not.

2nd assignment: paint two full figures with a narrative base. (I still really hate the colors on this. I'll make the scene brighter and change the horizons so they look better. I'll also tone down the lil gal's skirt and pull back the contrast on her stockings. The photo shoot was fun; big sister Robin and cute lil' niece Gracie were good sports and fun to pose!)

4th assignment: book cover. This one was fun: Bro. Hull taught me about aerial perspective, and about how colors fade as they get further away in the order of the yellows fading first, then reds, then blues. Which is why we often see blue mountains in the far distance, and purple (red + blue) mountains before that.

This was the final project. We had to design a hero and a nemesis (or sidekick) and a scene. We turned in all the sketches, and then for the final we painted them all in the same piece of work. This, my friends, is why I finished my finals on the Monday before Christmas (which was on a Thursday...I still have gifts to give).

This was actually my 3rd assignment, but my favorite overall: I started painting at 9pm one Sunday evening and ended at 8:30 the next morning. With no breaks. :D It was kind of funny: the next morning, my sister Robin (who happened to be staying the night) woke up and was all disoriented, and saw the painting. Half-awake, she exclaimed, "Woah! Those are our toys!" then, "I used to pull Jonny around in that wagon! And that's the lunchbox! And your little stool we put in the bathroom when you were little so you could reach the sink!" Needless to say, it made me happy.

Please comment and critique; I'd like to get your feedback.

Part II: coming soon.

* all artwork copyright kristin gulledge, 2008

The Bottom Line: The Advent Conspiracy

I found this on Laura's blog, who found it on Kelli's blog (remember her? the awesome photographer in my Kaiizen group who took pictures of those Ghanaian orphans) and I'm passing it on because I found it totally and completely inspiring.

Please take two minutes and watch it.


The Advent Conspiracy Promo Video from theadvance on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas, folks. Really. Christmas. Think about it.

The Night Before...

I spent at my brother and sister-in-law's (Kevin and Debbie) fabulous home in Lehi for their traditional Christmas Eve Buffet. There, we ate, laughed, played, I got attacked by my nephew...a few times...and we tracked Santa. About every ten minutes, we'd get a reminder from one of the little'uns that we needed to check on where he was at that moment. This, perhaps, was the highlight of my night. There's something wonderfully magical about being around tons of kids (or, in this case, 5 kids and 6 kid-like adults) on Christmas eve, faithfully and innocently anticipating the arrival of the wondrous Santa.

Yet, inside, as each family reads from the Bible on Christmas eve, we never forget to keep the real meaning of CHRISTmas in our hearts.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Body Worlds!

I went to "Body Worlds 3: The Story of the Heart" tonight and I LOVED IT!!! It was fascinating.

According to trusty Wikipedia, Body Worlds is "is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal inner anatomical structures. " These cadavers are presented in a very artistic manner, yet with lots of scientific background and base. It started like my artistic anatomy class did: bones first, then muscles. This exhibit went far beyond, into the more physiological and medical side of things, all in a very appropriate manner.

Here's 9 of my favorite things.

1. I had to sign in as an "artist". I felt pretty special as I had to sign a release form a and wear a little sticker that labeled me "sketcher". Honestly, though, I wrote more than I sketched. Upon entering, everyone received little sketchbooks/notepads to write our thoughts in. As it was at The Leonardo in SLC, the front of the books states, "Leonardo Da Vinci explored the fascinating intersection of science and art. In this spirit, we invite you to use this notebook to record questions and impressions as you discover Gunther Von Hagens' Body Worlds." If you know me well, you know that I love mini-things. This definitely qualified.

2. I loved that everything I'd learned in Niki's class was applied, at least as far an bones and muscles go, as I studied the exhibit. My friend who took me, Craig, had some anatomy experience, but let me explain to him things that I observed in the exhibit from the knowledge I've gained through my artistic anatomy class. It was fun to see what I knew and what I needed to research more.

3. It was far more educational than I thought it'd be. I guess I assumed it would be, but the exhibit went into so much more depth than I thought it would. There were lots of signs about these different bodies and body parts that were helpful. For a bit more money, we were also supplied with little electronic guides, so if we were curious about a certain part of the exhibit, we could type in the accompanying number on the little key pad of this walkie-talkie looking thing and would be able to hear a detailed audio track about what we were seeing.

4. The "pregnancy" part of the exhibit blew my mind. It showed the embryo from the middle of the 5th week all the way til the 31-33rd week. Something that just looked like a bit of dust you'd find under your bed can be transformed into a living, breathing and fully functional human being. It was hard for me to fathom. No wonder procreation is such a sacred and supremely important thing in this life. I was reverenced and awed by it.

5. I thought it was way cool that as the lungs were exhibited, they included a set of lungs that were a very dark coal-color. The lungs of a smoker. Instead of just showing this, they also had a box for smokers to put their cigarette boxes in, with a mantra having to do with quitting now. They also had a video going, of Yul Brenner pleading for people not to smoke (his last testimonial before he died). There were also little cards provided with "my testimonial" on the front and on the back spaces for information if someone wanted to call and ask why you quit. I thought this call to action was cool.

6. The full bodies were all arranged in very creative and interesting, yet very educational ways. This was so innovative. Each position had a specific purpose. One cadaver was displayed in 3 sections to show the compact quality of the inner workings of the body. One of my favorites was doing the splits with his feet resting on two balls, supporting himself with a hand on the 3rd, while the other hand was holding all of his internal organs up in the air. The superficial muscles of his back were cut away and facing upwards, so that you could visualize how everything fit together, but still have everything in tact there for you to see. (i couldn't find an image of this online, but he's the very last one displayed in the video in this link. check it out)

7. In the exhibit, they showed not only the healthy parts, but what they look like with different diseases, injuries, etc. Some parts of the body were shown healthy compared to unhealthy. For example, they had a cross-section of a brain, then one with a tumor. Another displayed an entire woman with various injuries, and provided metal joints and attachments to compensate for what the body was lacking. It explained why these different conditions occur, and how to prevent them if possible. This is, by the way, the *picture on the right, although you can only really see her metal knee in this shot, and part of her broken jaw.

8. Throughout the entire exhibit, they encouraged us to take care of and respect our bodies. Not only did they expound on purely scientific information, they related it to our normal lives and had cool quotes on the walls about life in general. They included interesting facts, and among them were these: simply being optimistic (as opposed to pessimistic) greatly reduces probability of heart disease, you really can die of a broken heart (because of a "toxic overload of stress hormones resulting in stress cardiomyopathy-- same symptoms as a heart attack) , the reasoning behind goose bumps and numbness, the tiny electrical signals from the nerve cells can travel up to 250 mph (!!!), your heart pumps 1800 gallons of blood daily (they had one red-tinted room empty except for 33 huge oil barrels and a huge heartbeat playing on speakers with this information as a visual reminder. Kind of eerie but way cool).

9. At the end, there were a lot of interactive stations: one provided little tiles you could write on, answering the question of the week (this week's was "Can you judge somebody by their physical appearance?"). Then you could add your tile to the great wall of tiles with everyone else's answers. Another station had a camera set up, and you could record your story and watch the stories of previous visitors. Another had a bunch of listening stations, where you could listen to certain experiences of different people. Because we'd been there so long, I didn't make Craig wait while I explored all of these things. But they were awesome!

As an artist, I loved viewing the body as a visual reality.
As one fascinated by and interested in the sciences, I enjoyed learning more about the functions therein and how they relate.
As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, this testified to me even more how real God is and showed me that the human body was no "accident".
As a human being, I learned to respect and appreciate my body so much more.

And I'd go again in, well, a heartbeat.

(By the way, at The Leonardo, this closes on January 11, so hurry and go buy tickets! It's so worth it.)

*Also, note that photography wasn't allowed in the exhibit (sadly, but i understand why) so i didn't take any photos. the photos of the bodies are all from the internet.

Angels I Almost Heard On High

I've had a suddenly stressful last two days. But tender mercies are always plentiful, if you look for them. After figure drawing, I was kind of overwhelmed and as I went to exit the H-Fac, I saw a whole bunch of little kids, probably from some elementary school, singing on the main floor! Though I'm super stressed, I decided to stop and soak in some music. It did my heart some good to hear those children singing. That was 34 minutes ago. I have been to the bookstore to cut my illustration board, grabbed what is probably the only food I'll have time to eat today, and am in the h-fac again, and just heard echoed voices singing "Angels We Have Heard On High" from somewhere in the bowels of the H-fac above. I couldn't see who was singing, but I took a video because I had a camera on hand and liked the ethereal harmonic sounds, disembodied by a choir as far as I could tell. (If you're curious, check back later for the video...I'm too busy to upload it now....)

Then the choir tromped down the stairs. The otherworldly feeling was gone, but as they continued their rehearsal close to where I am sitting, I enjoyed the music nonetheless.

Amist all my finals, I'm glad I get subtle reminders that it's also Christmastime.