Alaina's workout plan

The last time we had Alaina over she was being so silly when we were feeding her.

We decided it was her way to work out while eating.  

Here's her demonstration of this pan.

 Feet up!

 Feet out!

 Feet down - you may take a bite now.

 Feet back up...

And repeat!   Don't you think you would lose weight if you followed this plan?

ArtPrize Top ten

I showed you several ArtPrize entries on Friday.  Today I'll show you the top ten.

There were 1517 entries.  People had to register to vote, so many people didn't vote, but there were 

412,000 votes cast.

Fourth through tenth place won $5000.

Here's #10

This is City Band, by Chris LaPorte.  It's a 23.5 x 13.5 pencil drawing, taken from a photo the artist had of his grandfather and the band he played in in 1925.  The detail was astounding.

Here's a close up shot of the center of it.  It really looked like a photograph!

#9

This is return to Eden by Sandra Bryant.  It's a mosaic, and the picture doesn't show it's true beauty!

#8

The Chase, by Dennis Harris.

This is sculpted with clay, foam and steel inside the animals. There is one moose and 8 wolves. The moose alone weighs 2000 pounds.  5 of the wolves are connected to one leg of the moose to give the appearance of being airborne.

Here's a close-up, showing the faces and the weigh they appear to be running.

#7

Origami by Kumi Yamashi

This was 99 pieces of 9x9 origami paper, that was folded so that when a light shone on it from one side, the shadow would reveal a face.

This close-up of one, shows the details.  On some you could see eyebrows and even whiskers.

#6

Life in Wood by Dan Heffron

This is a fur seal carved from one black walnut log.  It took 4000 hours to complete.  The artist allowed people to touch this one, to appreciate the texture of the fur and flippers.

#5

Lights in the Night by Mark Carpenter and Dan Johnson

This was an event that had everyone talking.  I wish I had been there, but had to make do with pictures.  The pictures I have were from the website.

On this night, 15, 000 chinese lanterns were lit and released.  People were lined around the river, across the bridges and down streets with these lanterns.  Friends that were there said it looked magical!

Here's what it looked like from a distance.

They did think about the clean up.  People that found them and mailed them back were entered into a drawing to win money.  I believe the clean up went well, I heard no bad publicity on it.

#4

Stick-to-it-ive-ness - by Richard Morse

These horses are made of metal and tree branches.  They really did look quite amazing, placed in the river.

#3

Rebirth of Spring by Frits Hoendervanger

Third place won $50,000.

This painting was 8 feet by 6 feet.  It was simply gorgeous.

It looked very realistic and the use of light made you feel you were sitting in a forest. 

#2

Song of Lift by Martijn van Wagtendonk

2nd place won $75,000

This can't be appreciated by a picture.  There were over 100 birds, that began slowly flapping their wings when music started,  The lights were dimmed and a light show flashed over the birds as they all began flying.  It was really a neat thing to see in person.

#1

 

Elephants by Adonna Khare

!st prize - $200,000!

This drawing was spectacular!  It was 36 feet wide by 8 feet tall.  The artist continued to work on it throughout ArtPrize. It is a series a large elephants, intertwined with smaller animals.

The details in this drawing were incredible.  Everywhere you looked , you would see little things tucked in.  

This was the piece I voted for, although I really had a hard time deciding because there were so many wonderful pieces.

It was another great year of ArtPrize.  We are blessed to have this in our area.  This was the fourth year and it seems to grow in popularity every year.  We're already looking forward to next year!

ArtPrize

Every year the city of Grand Rapids is the site of the biggest art competition in the country.  It's going on right now and I have to warn you that I have lots of pictures to share with you.

This year there were 1517 entries, set up at 161 venues, covering 3 square miles.  Artists come from all over the world to take part in this.

It runs from September 19 to October 7, and I've been there 3 times during that period.  It means lots of walking, but it sure is fun!

 

This is one of the outside venues that had a lot of entries.  Look at all the people!

Here's a few of the entries that I liked, that didn't make the top 10.

This was a favorite, especially for the kids.  Each bone was individually crafted and then put together.

 I really like this fountain.  It's called Living Water.

Simply amazing quilts!  This is a set of 4, depicting the 4 seasons.

 

This one was titled "Friends".  It's one that just makes me happy!

This was made of junk.  When the artist pushed a button, the wheel turned and the bells made music.  It was playing Ode to Joy when we were there.

 The Davidson family - made of Harley Davidson pieces.

This was a display of a bunch of little monsters - but they were cute monsters.

This picture was made of dryer lint!  It wasn't colored in any way, just used as it came from the dryer.  It's been purchased by the Ripleys people and will go into one of their museums.

Penguins splashing in the fountains!  This is another favorite.

I thought this was really neat.  The artist took populations of different cities and graphed their population changes over the last 20 years.  He then blew a glass shape to correspond.  They were all hanging in a row and most were pretty stable as you can see by the ones on the side.  The center one is Houston.  Hootin' Anni - thought you would appreciate that!

Nice dragon!

"Impressions"  This is like the toys with the metal pins that you can make impressions with, but on a much larger scale.  There were a brother and sister leaning into the pins from the other side, to make this impression.

You see the mosaic picture on the left.  The close up on the right shows what it's made of - Jelly Bellies!

This wood carving is titled Lifted.  It's from Psalm 40:2 - "He lifted me from the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire.  He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."

This was an old man and woman fishing, made completely of metal.

A bigger than life wooden gnome.

This was made of a whole bunch of framed pictures.   Each had the same picture of a little boy sitting on the bottom, but the background was the different and when it was all put together you could see the picture of the man.

There are so many more pictures I could share, but it would be the longest post ever!

Next week I'll share the top ten and the winner.