Heidi's Haven

On a recent trip to Milwaukee, I spent a day wandering around the Milwaukee Art Museum. First of all, the architecture of the building is incredible. The "wings" of the roof are opened up each morning and closed at night, and they "flap" closed and open again each day at noon.  And really, you just can't beat that gorgeous view of Lake Michigan! The art inside was truly incredible. We spent the entire day looking at all of the pieces. Luckily, I went with my sister, who studied art in college, so she was able to point out important artists and tell me about their work and the movements they were involved in.  By far, the coolest thing was a piece of interactive art. It was literally just a light in a room and a fog machine, but we spent such a long time playing with the effects in this room.

Earlier this summer, my family and I decided that we wanted to try something new. So, we signed up for a class and locked ourselves in a sweltering room for a day. We tried glass blowing! First of all, we all showed up wearing flip flops and shorts, a big no-no when it comes to dealing with melted glass that's about 2,000 degrees. However, after the instructor assured us that, "eh, it'll be fine", we headed into the studio to start working. We picked out what kind of project we wanted to do, picked out what colors we wanted, and got right to work. I was really surprised by how much work the instructor had us do on our projects. Of course, she helped make sure I didn't completely ruin my piece, but I actually heated, shaped, and worked the glass, and blew the glass into shape at the end.  I decided to make a bowl. So, after blowing into the tube to shape the glass into a sphere, I had to take a big breath in to create the indent in t...

Hey there! So some pretty exciting things have happened. I recently moved two hours away from home to a new university. How scary is that! I really love it here so far (apart from the classes haha), and I'm really looking forward to some new experiences. Also, in August, I went to Chicago for two days with my mom and my sister. My sister wanted to go to the Art Institute of Chicago, and I wanted to go to the Shedd Aquarium, so that's exactly what we did! I saw so many amazing paintings at the Art Institute. I saw some by Monet and Van Gogh (some of my favorites!), which I really wasn't expecting. I live in kind of in the middle of nowhere and I had expected such famous paintings to be in New York or Paris. It was such a great surprise seeing them so close to where I live! We also did a bit of sightseeing-- you can't go to Chicago without seeing the "bean"! On our second day, we went to Shedd Aquarium. I absolutely LO...

Hello there! I'm so sorry it's been so long, I've been so busy! I don't know why I have to be so busy, I'm supposed to be on summer vacation! Anyways, I wanted to tell you all about something they do in my town called Chalk Fest. This is when people have the chance to draw anything they want on the sidewalk of a block in town, and can even win prizes! This took place late last week. Unfortunately, I went to look at the artwork at night so I couldn't get any decent pictures, but trust me when I say that they were amazing! The whole block was completely filled with incredible drawings. I was kind of surprised by how many amazing drawings there were, and how many people in my town are so incredibly talented! (Not me, I can't even draw a straight line let alone a huge chalk masterpiece.) Another thing I found was really cool was that the drawings were so good and detailed, they didn't even look like chalk drawings. They looked like they were painted on...