Artistic Tuesday : Kitty Charcoal Drawing

Today I thought I would experiment with my new charcoal pencils and tortillons. I've never used them before so after filling a few pages with scribbles I tried to draw my cat, Grey Kitty. That's its name, yes. Like I said before I have some very creative names. Anyway, he was sitting on our deck in the snow so I attempted to draw him. I started by drawing his shape and then I shaded everything in with my charcoal and blended it with a big tortillon. It was fun and I learned more about using charcoal. Here's my finished piece of art!

Artistic Tuesday : Duct Tape Laptop Case

Today I made this laptop case for myself with duct tape! The design is an origami horse made of neon colors. I put two horse snaps on the flap to keep it closed. This is the firsts case I have made, but I'm hoping to make more on order. I used foam on the inside to cushion the laptop and the bottom is three layers of duct tape to reinforce it. It took me about a roll of black duct tape and 4 hours to finish this case. 

Snow!

Iowa weather update! It snowed Monday. :( It is finally melting!!! It's still freezing cold though, and I just hope it doesn't snow again anytime soon. I'm not ready for winter.

Artistic Tuesday : Bunny Collage

I have two pets bunnies at our farm. Their names are Caramel and Polka-Dot. As you might guess from their names Caramel is caramel colored and Polka-Dot is polka-dotted. We have some very creative names! Our bunnies are sisters mixed between a mini Rex rabbit named Alice and a spotted meat rabbit named Roger. They are big, fluffy, and fat. We've had them for almost two years. They were born on Easter so they are our Easter bunnies! Anyway I was drawing bunnies and I made this collage of different breeds of bunnies. It's pretty cute!

Home Ec: Banana Bread

Today in homeschool home economics class I am baking my amazing chocolate chip banana bread. The recipe I use is from an old 4-H cookbook titled Fayette County 4-H Club Cookbook. I thought since it is so good I would share the recipe with you. Here it is!

 Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Makes 1 large loaf

8 ounce package of cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup margarine

2 eggs

1 cup of mashed banana or about 2 bananas

2 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup chocolate chips (you could also use nuts)

1. Combine softened cream cheese, sugar, and margarine, mixing until well-blended.
2. Blend in banana and eggs. 
3. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda together. (Don't mix up the amount of baking soda and baking powder. You're bread will not turn out well. I speak from experience.)
4. Add dry ingredient combination to the banana blend, mixing just until moistened.
5. Fold in chocolate chips (or nuts).
6. Pour into greased bread pan.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Check to make sure it's done on the inside.
8. Cool 10 minutes then remove from pan.
9. Enjoy your delicious banana bread!
   
   Here's a picture of my bread!

Artistic Tuesday : Carving Pumpkins

Hi! Sorry I haven't blogged in a week or two. I've been really busy with birthdays, youth retreats, girl scout meetings, 4-H meetings, farm chores, and school. I haven't had much free time but I'm gonna try to blog more this week. So here's my Artistic Tuesday!

Tonight my family and I carved pumpkins. Each of us kids got our pumpkins ready by cutting off the tops and scraping out the pumpkin guts. Some of my younger siblings won't stick their hands in a pumpkin (and maybe I won't either) so it took a while to scrape them all out. I carved a really detailed vampire on mine. It took me a couple hours to finish while my siblings were done in about an hour. My sisters carved the headless horseman and a scaredy cat on their pumpkins. My younger brothers carved two happy smiley faces and a ghost. When we finished we lined all the pumpkins up on our porch and admired our works of art. Every year I make sure my pumpkin is really cool. Last year I carved a smiling cat face and the year before I carved a witch on her broom flying across the moon. I wish I had a picture but since I don't you'll just have to imagine how amazing our pumpkins looked. Tomorrow my mom and I are going to make pumpkin bars, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pies, pumpkin seeds, and pumpkin pancakes. We'll be eating pumpkin for a while! Happy Halloween everybody!!!

Artistic Tuesday : Horse Zentangle

Hi everyone! I had a busy week, especially in my art classes! This week this is the project I worked on. We were supposed to learn about the art principles and design elements. I tried to use them all in this picture. I sketched lots of random, fun designs in circles. I wanted to use colors from my bedroom like lime green, purple, and pink. I drew some horses in a couple circles because they are my favorite animal. One of my favorite circles is the zebra circles in the middle. I am going to add this to my art collection hanging on my wall.

Artistic Tuesday : Salamander and Bug

As you can figure out from my other blogs, I love drawing animals, so this week I sketched a picture of a salamander climbing on a log to find a beetle hidden inside of it. When drawing this, I focused on detail and making the sketch look 3-D. I used shading and line to help me in making my sketch look 3 dimensional. I want to color  my sketch soon with colored pencils.

Artistic Tuesday : My Animals Sketch

This week I started sketching a horse laying on its side.I thought it would be cool to try and include most of my pets in my sketch. I drew my pony next to my dog then I drew a little black kitten trying to climb up onto the horse's back. I then sketched three of my calico kittens sitting in front of my pony. 

I really love the kittens in my picture. They are my favorite part!

Rendezvous 5k

This morning some of my friends and I are running (really just walking) the 5k at Fort Atkinson Rendezvous! I am really excited and I hope I don't get winded in the first mile. My oldest little brother is running it too. This my first 5k! It is the first for a lot of my friends too. I think a couple of my friends might run since they are in cross country and they actually can. I don't really like to run and I can't run for a long time anyway because I would have an asthma attack. Part of the course of the 5k we're running is up a huge flight of steps. I might not even make it past them but I really hope I can. The 5k is starting soon so I'd better go!

Artistic Tuesday: Patches Pony Sketch

Recently I've been working on this simple picture of my pony, Patches, for my room. This is the rough draft. I am going to paint this image in full color on a large canvas for my wall! I drew this while outside watching Patches graze. 

 This sketch I made while I was just playing around with shading. When I was making pony sketch, I had another piece of paper under it. I shaded over that piece of paper with the side of my pencil lead. I think it looks kinda cool. Hopefully I'll get to that canvas painting soon so that I can share that with you too.

Dells & the House on the Rock

This weekend our girl scout troop headed to Wisconsin Dells. We spent Saturday at Kalahari's indoor water park and theme park. I had so much fun! We went on every water slide and my dad even went on a few. The scariest water slide in the water park was called the Screaming Hyena. First you climbed up a huge tower 5 1/2 stories high. Then you stand in a glass capsule, kind of like the one Katniss stands in before the Hunger Games, with your hands above your head and your legs crossed. You can hear a heartbeat pulsing through the capsule and then it starts counting down...3...2...1! Next the floor falls out from under you and you fall almost straight down the 5 1/2 stories you just climbed up. My dad was the first to go down the Hyena. He was so scared. It was hilarious!
On Sunday we went to the House on the Rock near Spring Green, Wisconsin. The House was built inside a hollow chimney of limestone rock by Alex Jordan in the 1940s. If you are interested in amazing architecture, interactive museums, music, automated orchestras, the world's largest carousel, collections, airplanes, music, old cars, or pretty much anything else you would love the House on the Rock.  I think little kids would get bored during some of the tour but they would definitely love the giant carousel. It was the most amazing building I've ever been in.
My favorite part was the thousands of hand-carved carousel horses that were lining every wall of two huge rooms. The infinity room was another really cool part of the house. Inside of the infinity room it seems like the room goes on forever and never ends even though it does eventually.
Other parts of the House and the collections around it were the Gate House, the Mill House,  the Streets of Yesterday, The Heritage of the Sea, the Tribute to Nostalgia, Music of Yesterday, the Spirit of Aviation, The World's Largest Carousel, The Organ Room, the Doll House Collection, the Circus Collection, the Oriental Room, the Armor Collection, the Weapons Collection, the Crown Jewel Collection, the Doll Carousel, and the 3 beautiful gardens outside. There was soooo much to see. We spent 5 hours looking around the place. I loved it. I wish I could live there.
So I had a really fun weekend with the girl scout troop and I hope you decide to check out the House on the Rock and the Dells sometime soon!

Artistic Tuesday: Mouse eating Cheese Sketch

This past week I was just drawing random things and I started making this mouse sketch. It was in my lined notebook but it still looks pretty good. I like drawing small animals because of all the detail. My favorite part about this sketch is the mouse's head. It looks very realistic and it's super cute too. I always seem to make the best pieces of art when I'm not even trying to. 

In this second picture I tried to cover up the lines. It's a little blurry, but this is the close up of the mouse's face. Mice are adorable...until one gets in your house.

First Volleyball Game!

I woke up this morning to the sound of paws pounding on my bedroom window. I looked out of it and I saw my dog, Allison, sitting outside my window trying to claw her way inside! She chewed the screen away from my window when she was a puppy so now she just has to get through the glass!
Later today I played my first volleyball game this season. Our team did a great job! We won 3 out of 4 games. Great job to everyone one on the team! The seventh grade game was a tie. Our next game is coming up next week! I'm super excited for it. Hopefully we'll win that game too. Go Trojans!!!

Artistic Tuesday : Red Horse Sketch

Hi again! I 've decided to start a thing on my blog where every Tuesday I show you the latest pieces of art I've been working on. 

Today I'l show you my favorite horse sketch that I made after I saw a gorgeous horse that looked red. I hardly ever draw anything but horses. Sometimes I draw other animals though. I love this horse sketch. It is on a large sheet of paper that's hanging on a wall in my room. I was practicing shading and color when I made this sketch. Usually I don't color the things I draw the horse I modeled this off of was so beautiful I just had to color it. 

Cute Little Kitty

My little sisters dressed up Maggie, one of my kittens. I think she liked it!

Princess Maggie

Horseback Riding through the hay field

Ballet Lesson

Back to School

Today on the Farm

Hi everyone! Today my dad took some of my younger siblings to buy a truck of fire wood. We unloaded it in our garage all the way to the ceiling! Then we spent the rest of the morning making my grandma's special salsa. We cored tomatoes, then cooked them and peeled off their skin. We used a colander to get the seeds out and we added some other veggies. We canned the spicy salsa the rest of the morning. All of the fruits and veggies that went into it were grown in our garden. This afternoon we went outside and picked pears. Then we went inside and cleaned them. I showed my younger sisters how to take the green tops off of strawberries with a straw. Later my mom and I cleaned off the table and we had grilled cheese as a late lunch. 

I love art and using different mediums to draw and I just got some new charcoal pencils! In my free time I drew a few sketches of horses. In another post I'll put on some pictures of my artwork.

So anyway, it has been a BUSY day and I'm ready for supper!

First Blog Ever!!!

In the Boots of a Farm Girl

Me and Allison (with my brother and my grandma's dog in the background)

Hey Everybody! 

My mom just started homeschooling me this school year and this blog is my Language Arts assignment. Hopefully I'll get a good grade and have fun too!

 Here's a little bit about me. My name is Hanna. I live on a farm in Northeast Iowa with my mom, dad, and six younger siblings. Our initials spell out HA HA HA H and our dog, Allison, completes our family acronym with an extra A. On my 7th birthday, my parents gave me a black and white kitten who I named Boots. I now have over 30 cats and kittens descended from my first kitty-cat. I also have a slow, old pony named Patches. My littlest sister rides around the farm on him. I've always wanted a real horse that I can ride and show at the fair. Hopefully I can get the horse I really want, a Palomino mare named Fancy Lady, for my birthday, which is coming up this month. I'm going to pay for Fancy with my own money. All I have to do is earn enough money to buy her. Wish me luck!

In my blog, I'll tell you about things that are going on around the farm, events that are happening around our area, and I might have some updates about my mission to buy myself a horse!