Art

Sculpting:
My enjoyment with sculpting came with play-doh. My parent's had stocked the house with that as well as other learning materials and I would pass the hours sculpting things such as animals, buildings and vehicles, and reproductions of people. Although my early creations were a bit Lumpy and unappealing, my later ones became slightly more developed.

Sketching and Color:
This fascination started way back in first grade. My teacher, Mrs. Finch, had decided that she wanted to have an art class incorporated into her syllabus and we had a free period at the end of the day. So the entire class took art. It was taught by an odd woman with dreadlocks. I don't quite remember her name, but then, I don't remember much at all from my first grade year. After that, I kind of dropped normal art to pursue and develop my musical and photographical abilities. I never really picked it back up until this year. My home school teacher that all turn all my work in to, Michelle Piotrowski, informed me that there would be a first semester art class and she was thoroughly convinced that I should take it. Now all that was left to do was convince me. But she finally did and I consented to attend the classes every Monday morning from 9:00 to 12:30. Although I didn't see it, my world renowned art teacher, Joan Constable, felt that I excelled in her class and instantly employed me as captain for the Chalk Art team that was to compete at the local Fresno Fair along with recruiting me into private training for Young Masters. The class is over for this year and i'm now taking Driver's ed. in it's place, but I went out and bought myself a watercolor set, cheap crayola stuff, but it suits my purpose fine.

Writing

Books:
Let's see...Where to begin about my passion for books and stories. I suppose it started way back when with the Muppet Stories. I'm the first and oldest child in my family and as such my parents made sure to spoil and provide me with a lot. So when I was little, I had plenty to learn from. As a little girl, i fell in love with the Muppet Story series. If you're familiar with the Muppets from TV, this book series was about the Muppets as toddlers and children and each book had a lesson, along with the ones that were about ABCs and counting. There was one about honesty, starring Fozzy and Kermit, one about friendship and sharing starring Kermit and Piggy, and a whole string of others. As I got older, I went for the goosebumps series by R.L. Stine, then graduated to Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, and eventually to authors such as James Patterson, Carla Neggers, and the book, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. But my passion for being an author truly began in my freshmen year. I had been telling myself that I was going to write a book for almost 6 months and my motivation finally came when my 3rd period English teacher, Annie Scott, assigned the class to write a story. That's exactly what I did. I was about 6 chapters into the book I had Titled Give it All by the due date so I asked for an extension on it because the project had inspired me and id gotten a little carried away and there was no way I could completely wrap it up in just a couple of days. I'll never forget her response: "Of course. That's what I was going for. To inspire students to go on to do bigger and better things."

Poetry:
My interest in poetry and songwriting mostly began when I started realizing that life was hard, which was probably sometime around my fourth and sixth grade year. The love for music and rhyme was already present, all that was missing was putting it down on paper. It's my way of getting out what I'm feeling in an expressive and creative way whether it be anger, joy, depression, or just random emotions. I'm not very good with expressing those in a normal conversation format, so poetry and lyrics provide assistance where normal words fail.

Music

Vocal:
My mother was the start of my love for music. She is a gifted vocalist and I was fortunate enough to inherit that from her. Sher was offered the opportunity to pursue a career in music, but turned it down because of stage fright. I first decided I wanted to sing when I was a toddler. My mother and I had a song that we sang together every time we heard it. I remember it well and still listen to it on my ipod all the time. It Matters to Me by Faith hill, a country artist who started her ascension to fame by winning a talent contest at the age of fourteen. Although singing along with my mother was substantial for my younger years, this was no longer the case as I entered my pre-teens. I decided to join my school choir in the 6th grade. My teacher, bill Samuelson, was a huge encouragement to me. I continued in choir in my eighth grade as well as freshmen year and found that although it wasn't exactly a goes use for my particular abilities, it was fun and I liked it. These days my interest in vocalists run towards those with unique vocal talents such as Amy Lee, the lead singer from Evanescence, Rihanna, Shakira, Celine Dion, and Carly Simon.

Piano:
I also have a love for the piano. This started the very first time I heard the moonlight sonata by Ludwig Van Beethoven. I fell instantly in love with it and decided I wanted to learn how to play the piano as well as develop my vocal abilities. In addition, my ability to play by ear won me tickets to the last local Metallica Concert. Yes, I'm a rocker. I learned and played the intro the The Day That Never Comes that was off of their at-that-time new album for KRZR and they loved it. It took about 15 minutes, a lot of support and help from my friend Lani, and a whole bunch of pacing back and forth. I still play piano as well as keyboard by ear, as I can't read music and so far by ear, I've learned many songs by Evanescence and Linkin Park.