She did it!

My wonderfully gorgeous, intelligent, talented sister graduated! Now she can come have fun with me in college! Here are some of her incredible accomplishments.

Music

As everyone knows, Samantha was a member of the American Fork Marching Band and participated as a bearer of a big stick (aka clarinet for those who don't know the band lingo). She always did a great job, and I always loved going to watch her competitions.

Art

She was chosen as the American Fork Sterling Scholar for Visual Arts, and she got all the way to the finals- don't know why they didn't pick her, but we aren't bitter or anything.

Samantha is an incredible artist! So I thought I would put up some of her portfolio.

Self Portraits

This one makes me giggle because I can just see the attitude seething. This was a school assignment and she was obviously not too thrilled about it. :)

I love her eyes in this one.



Tiger Love
This blows my mind. Pointillism. Millions of dots. Those are all dots! Needless to say, she was working on this for quite a while.

Close-up of the eye


Milo the Guinea Pig
Since the moment he was born, he was Samantha's baby. He and his siblings were born on 9/11. He's the second one from the front with the white stripe on his nose. He was a great pet, & Samantha really loved him.



AragornThis is something called a lino-cut. She carved out a piece of linoleum (that's really hard, by the way), then rolled ink on it and stamped it on paper. She didn't really like doing it and wasn't super thrilled with how it came out, but I still think it's a cool design.



Eiffel Cat
I'm proud to say I helped inspire this one. Ok, so it's only because the Tower is my picture that happened to be sitting on my floor behind Ralph, but still. :) This is white pencil on black paper, which is more difficult that one would think. Instead of concentrating on creating the shape, you focus on the highlights. Neat.



Fruits of "Pear"adise
She submitted this one to the Reflections contest where it won second place on the district level. It's kind of a funny story, because it was a last-minute submission, so she didn't actually title it; her teacher did. It was done in prismacolor colored pencil and has stripes of solarization.



Dad
This is a favorite picture of our father, taken for a faculty picture at BYU. We think it's got lots of character.



Baudelaire
This is a French poet with one of his poems about death along with a red anemone, symbolizing death and a withering almond blossom, symbolizing hope, or rather a lack of it. It's incredible to me how piercing his gaze is, despite the pastel with which he was created.



Old Tractor in a Wheat FieldThis is a collection of pictures my dad took on his mission that Samantha did in acrylics. I like the colors and the way the medium adds to the rustic feel.




London ManAnother of my dad's photos, one he took on a band tour in England. This one has been chosen to hang in the Covey Center until August.


Hanashi-Banashi (chit-chat in Japanese)
Again, a mission picture from Japan- just a bunch of old ladies waiting for the bus. It's terrific!

Tea Time
This is Samantha's first watercolor. It's absolutely incredible, looks just like the photograph. In fact many people think it is a photo when they first see it.


So there you have it, just a few of Samantha's masterpieces. Be sure to look for her name in famous museums 10 years from now! :)