June 6th: "You're a good bike, Charlie Brown."

Yes, I know...It has been over a month since my last Doodle-a-Day entry, but I figure that I DO have a few decent excuses. For one, I just graduated from college. So, the actually graduation only lasted a couple of hours and it took place weeks ago...I am still going to use that as an excuse! Also, this doodle is more than just something done in a few minutes on paper. This so-called "doodle" was done a bike! I spent the week following college graduation decorating my bike in my spare time (which was really all of the time since I wasn't doing anything else) and my mom couldn't help but laugh when family would call up asking what the recent college graduate was up to. Maybe I should have been reading up on a topic I just couldn't get enough of in college or in Europe or even working, but it just wouldn't have been the thing that I would prefer to look back on as having done the week after graduation. No, no...decorating my bike is more my style. I can't take credit for the actual doodles that I decorated my bike with-that belongs to Charles Shulz-BUT I can take credit for the hours I put into decorating my bike with his artwork! I decided that with the price of gas being what it is now and all the talk of "going green", I might as well do something to help my wallet and the environment. The result? A decision to ride my bike as much as possible and drive only when I really need to. I started out just riding around my bike the way that it was (a purple resembling Barney and Tinky Winky's love child) but for some reason it just didn't feel like it was really mine (actually, the bike wasn't really mine always...I bought it from a woman down the street a few summers ago). So, I decided to customize it and what better way to customize anything than with something you love? I have always loved the Peanuts comics, so doing this project just seemed right. If nothing else, I will always be able to find my bike on a crowded bike rack.

May 5th: Memories Of Me

It's nearly 1am, which means that finals week has officially begun. My first final is for my painting class and is more of a review of my work than an actual test. For class we were assigned to paint a number things including a lot of fruit, some paintings of our hands, and a few self-portraits (I also painted a My Little Pony as a still-life, but that's another blog post entirely...) Looking over my work from the semester earlier tonight, I realized that I did not have all of my paintings done so I finished a few up. One was a final abstract self-portrait, which ended up looking nothing like what I had hoped for (probably because I didn't know what I had hoped for it to look like in the first place) and the other was the painting above, which I painted while watching Waking Life (a very philosophical movie). I decided to paint this self-portrait without looking at myself. I didn't want it to look realistic, but I wanted to try to capture myself as I remembered myself. I find it so funny that no matter how many times I may look at myself in the mirror, I never seem to be able to remember exactly how I look. Does that ever happen to you? Writing this, I am reminded of James 1:22-25 which reads,

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does."

Since this is my blog and I can write whatever I want...and since I just finished watching a very thought provoking movie, I am going to let my thoughts becomes words and let you in on what is going on in my mind as I reflect on all of this. So, I painted this image of myself from what I can remember about myself. There are the obvious things-my blond hair, blue eyes, the length of my hair, and so on...but then there are the things that I would need to really study in order to interpret correctly in this painting, such as the location of my freckles or the way the light in the room reflects in my eyes. What I get from all this in reference to faith is that maybe the only way to know God more deeply is to really study who He is. Even more than that...What I feel that this verse in James is saying is that in order to really know God and to relate with Him, it is essential to hear about who He is, but even more so...it is essential do what He would do. Since Jesus is the word of God (John 1:1) and James 1:22-25 is telling us to not merely listen to the word, but also do what it says, it seems that we are commanded to listen to what Jesus has to say, but even more importantly do what he says. I think that choosing to do rather than simply listen is where true faith resides. Anyone can go to listen to someone's teachings, but actually acting on them is a different level of existence entirely. It is said later in the book of James that "faith without deeds is useless" (James 2:20) and I believe that! Having faith, but not acting on it would be like reading every issue of Self Magazine ever published, but not exercising a day in my life! I could go on and on about what the best foods to eat or the best exercises to do were, but if I never did what I read about would you believe me? I want my life to be a living and breathing and acting example of the truth that I believe in, which is Jesus Christ. I hope that I didn't lose you back at the third sentence into this post...and even if I did, it was fun getting here.

May 4th: Super Pig

This doodle is a perfect example of why I will miss my Graphic Design class. I was fortunate enough to take the class with two people whose company I quite enjoy, making the hour and fifteen minutes two times a week seem to fly by. The three of us collaboratively created this little number on our last day of class. I started by drawing the pig, and then we passed the paper back and forth until we felt that it was complete (and the class was almost over, giving us another reason to wrap things up). I am going to miss that class, even though I still don't quite know what I learned from it...

April 23rd: Coffee House Doodle

A little gathering known as "QUILL" (that's fancy talk for the campus coffee house) meets every Thursday on campus. I was required to attend seven during the course of the semester for my poetry class and speak at least three times. Last week I didn't feel much like reading poetry so instead I did something that I have learned that I do best through detailed examination of countless notebook margins and empty mechanical pencils-I doodled. (Please note that I was going to Starbuck's a lot prior to drawing this...)

April 15th: Arizona, here I come!

In trying to keep up with drawing/posting doodles as well as school work I have found that overlapping the two from time to time can be very efficient! I drew this for my graphic design class. Our assignment was to draw a point of purchase display for a public place with a person in it to show scale. I was drinking Arizona green tea as I sat down to do this assignment, so naturally my beverage worked its way into my art. I was a little embarrassed to show this in class because no one else had put the person inside their piece. I even overheard one girl say, "Why is the person inside it?!"...In case you weren't able to figure that out either, I created this to be a Arizona tea stand. Also, in case you didn't know, that person is a man. My teacher thought that it was a woman. I'm thinking that this wasn't my best work...

April 14th: What does bunny love?

I haven't had the chance to doodle or post in the past week because I have been busy with other things, but I did try to make time yesterday and today to doodle. Please note that the time that I "made" to draw this doodle was during a meeting (oops!) Oh well, I was inspired by a little line that I had accidentally drawn in my planner that looked like rabbit ears and I had to take action!

April 2nd: Envelope Art

With more and more people talking about global warming, I have been making a greater conscious effort to reduce, reuse, and recycle ("The Recycle Song" song from Rocko's Modern Life is resounding in my ears as I write this). I thought that I would take recycling an extra step and recycle this used envelope into a doodle before sending it on it's way to become a Starbuck's napkin.