Is This Talent?

I debated on putting this here, on KS Born Talent, or over on my original blog, KS Born. Since I put my original post about the "Magic Kingdom" (very first post) on KS Born Talent I decided to post this here and then mention it on KS Born. I do not consider myself much of a sketch artist or painter. I have dabbled a bit in all of these, and have actually drawn a few things that I was rather proud of, but not something I'm real comfortable or confident with. Since I have found no one to help me with artwork for my children's story I thought I'd see what I could do. The following is a picture created with my Wacom in PhotoShop utilizing tools, textures and layers.

Please let me know what you think. What you might do different? To much color? To little color? How does the whole scene feel. Do you feel a story there?

Publishing History

Years ago I started researching my family history. I had a great-uncle that had been doing genealogy since the '50s (I think). He actually taught a course on researching genealogy in Albuquerque, NM. I have published two family history books. One on my Father's - Father's line and the other on my Mother's - Mother's line. My paternal line book is the Abraham Heinrichs Family which is predominately Mennonites who were Germans from Russia. They were in Russia for over 100 years, but lived in German communities and spoke and taught their schools in German. Many believed that God would not understand them if they prayed in anything but German. My maternal line is the Gates/Chapman family history. These lines were predominately English and come down from the same Gates line as General Horatio Gates and Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower. In the Gates line is the Captain of the Bedchamber for Henry the VIII. More recently we have my 5-great grandfather that was murdered in Wisconsin and there exists a plate glass negative of him dead in the middle of the road. Researching my family history was like being on a treasure hunt, turning up great treasures from time to time, never knowing where I'm going to find them.

The three smaller books are: a book published by my Gr-gr-grandmother about her mother called "Pioneer Short Stories". She tells about entering Lawrence right after Quantril's raid to find the cousins that lived there. The middle book is my republication of "Pioneer Short Stories" and the third book is a story written by my grandmother's cousin, Edna Windhorst, at my request. Edna lived to be 102 and lived on her own well into her later 90s. I encourage everyone to attempt to research your family history if it has not already been done. I did not like, nor did I understand history when I was in school. Researching my family history made it real, made it make sense, and made me want to find out more.

It also got me elected to organize a couple of family reunions. The cassette tapes below I put together from our family reunion in California. The talent show was the highlight. One thing that our Heinrichs family enjoys is singing. Getting together and singing truely "Golden Oldies" into the wee hours of the night is something that we always loved to do.

A Study in Color

Just playing around in PhotoShop Elements that came with the Wacom Tablet. Thought I'd just put a "Warhol" together.


Just a simple picture of a bunch of flowers. I love the way the different colors and effects transforms them. Can you pick a favorite?

New Toy/Tool

I have a new toy/tool for creating my computer generated projects. It's a Wacom tablet which will make cutting out and detail work soooo much easier on my hand. It is bluetooth and has a battery so I can use it completely wireless. Below is a picture of the tablet with the mouse and pen in it's holder above it.

Below is the first picture I've doctored using the Wacom. I have several other photos that I need to do this to, to get them ready for creating my story that I mentioned in the very first post on this blog. I'm still looking for someone interested in collaborating with the artwork for this.

Pow-Wow

I thoroughly enjoyed making the Native American artwork and adornment. I even made my grandson a shirt, leggings, breechcloth, moccasins, ankle bells, breastplate and headband with two feathers. I did beading on the headband and down the sides of the leggings but never decided what to put on the breechcloth so I never got it done. He was around 3 or 4 when I did this, and I took him to a Pow-Wow in Wichita. At the time I was helping out with the Cherokee language class at the Indian Center in Wichita and they had a booth at the Pow-Wow. Going there he didn't want to put it on, but when we got there he saw all the Native Americans in their Regalia and he decided he wanted his on too. Now for the part of the story where I got in trouble. While we were there the little guy needed to pee and the only toilets they had were the portables and they had already seen two days use and were rather nasty. I really didn't want to take a little guy that didn't know how to keep his hands off things in one of them so I told him that since he was being an "Indian" he needed to learn to "water the bushes", which is real easy to do with a breechcloth. Big mistake! Every few minutes after that he wanted to "water the bushes" everywhere. THEN! The next day I get a call from his mom (my daughter).... something about her turning around and there he is whizzing away in the front yard. I heard about that for a long time afterward. I still have everything except the moccasins, he wore them out.

Ryan Windham

Ryan Windham is another Wichita Talent that I'm not sure whether he was born in Kansas but lives here now. Shad and I set up the big screen to project live at Big Boys Toy Show every year for the last 3 or 4 years. Last year Ryan was one of the main attractions giving performances on stage, so I taped him. Entercom broadcasting had sponsored the "Wichita's Got Talent" contest and Ryan was the winner and now they were promoting him at various shows like this. He has a very unusual style, I hope you enjoy listening and watching him.

Flights of Fancy

Many years back I had the choice of buying a camcorder or digital camera. At that time digital cameras were quite expensive and they weren't really all that good of quality, so I reasoned, with a camcorder I could put my videos on the computer and cut clips from them, just like having a digital camera. I found that it was an excellent digital camera since I was able to get shots that I probably wouldn't have gotten with the still camera, such as my hummingbird drinking from a fountain.

BoxABuddy

Saturday, August 11th, will be the eighth BoxABuddy since T&S Mobile Projectors has been taping and creating DVDs of the event. Pictures below are the brochures and less than half of the DVDs that I burned, printed, put together for this upcoming event. The box at the top of the picture is a display that my son has built to leave at McGraws to promote the sell of the DVDs. The small area on the right hand side is a video display that shows clips from all seven of the previous events. The left hand side is just a lit area.


Here's a bigger picture of the display box...

The clips can be viewed on Google Video or YouTube. Just do a search for "boxabuddy" and it will bring them all up.

AHSGR International Convention 2007

In June, my husband and I attended the 38th Annual International Convention of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia in Hays, Kansas. I took one of the T&S Mobile Projectors camcorders and taped the majority of the programs from Wednesday night till noon Sunday. The DVDs above are what I have gotten edited and burned so far. I still have about 16 tapes to transfer and edit. The Golden Wheat Chapter (where I'm a member) does not sell these but keeps them in them in their library for use by members.

Nobel Knight

I woke up to find these pictures on my computer. My son had sent them, he has remote access to my computer and can suprise me with such things. This clay creation was made by a guy that he works with at CompUSA. I guess it's made out of a soft clay that can't be fired and doesn't dry up to quickly. I don't model so I know little about clay. Anyone know of a way to harden or preserve this type of clay? Would this artwork sell?

Native American Style Artwork

The following are pictures of items that I made in years past. I have sold or given away all but one or two of these.



This is a combination dream catcher and chimes. I had made chimes out of silverware several years before, putting them together with bent wire decorations and old glass beads. The combination of the chimes with the dream catchers turned out better than I had imagined.
















The chokers were fun to create, to see how the different combinations would come out. One of the "bear claws" were plastic, purchased from the leather store. The other two my father carved for me. I still wear the top choker and get comments from people everytime I wear it.






This is a medium size dream catcher. It is unusual as that I only wove the bottom half and not the whole circle.






This is a mandela, it is about 2 ft across, very large. I wish I had a better camera, the flash has bled out the colors.





This was the second necklace and earring set that I made like this. I really like the first one better, but I sold it. A little history behind this set... The large part of the necklace was actually suppose to be an earring. I had purchased a book on beaded Native American earrings and this was the pattern I followed. The earring was much larger than what I would ever wear, so I made it into a necklace and scaled down the pattern to make earrings to match. The first necklace had porcupine quills instead of the bugle beads. I have a picture, somewhere, but it was a bit out of focus.







This mandela is also large. It is celebrating the Indian war pony.






This double dream catcher made the perfect wedding gift, paring the couples dreams and keeping all "evil" spirits captive in the webs. Bells are always good medicine.



These sets are simple beaded chokers and earrings with added peacock feathers with beading.






This necklace is a beaded dream catcher. Really quite simple, but elegant too.




Last, but certainly not least, my cross of nails. I made many of these, mostly smaller ones than is. This is all hand made, including the beaded chain using gold filled wire.


All for now, hope you've enjoyed viewing some of my crafts from the past.

Metal Menagerie

My Metal Menagerie should have been posted here instead of on my everyday, everything else blog, but I hadn't created the KS Born Talent blog at the time. So I post a link to it from here instead.