WIP: Digital R-Dio

Working on turning Rdio into a digital image file. Hopefully Once I do I can make stickers or something cool. Or he'll just be my experiment back into digital drawing. Anyway - Here is a work in progress photo (W.I.P.)

The End (Finals Week)

Finals getting you down? No worries - me too and I'm only a college freshman. So if you like punk, rock, alternative and a metal mix, here's a couple of jammin' songs I've been listening to while studying. They're pretty rad.

The End List:

1. Come Alive - Lot Lizard (Lightfighter EP)
2. Good Things - A Day To Remember (Common Courtesy)
3. Migraine - Twenty-One Pilots (Vessels)
4. Love Don't Die - The Fray (Helios)
5. Just Getting By - Tenth Avenue North (Islands EP)
6. New Demons - I See Stars (New Demons)
7. 99% Soul - Matty Mullins (Matty Mullins)
8. Beneath the Skin - Memphis May Fire (Unconditional)
9. Ydg - Of Mice & Men (Of Mice & Men)
10. All For the Best - Godspell cast (Godspell)
11. All I Want - A Day To Remember (What Separates You From Me)
12. Nerves - Icon For Hire (Icon For Hire)
13. Here it Goes Again - Ok Go (Oh No)
14. Last Hope - Paramore (Paramore)
15. Ready for Repair - Secrets (Fragile Figures)
16. Would You Still Be There - Of Mice & Men (Of Mice & Men)
17. The Sinner - Memphis May Fire (The Hollow)
18. That's What You Get - Paramore (Riot!)
19. Tragedy + Time - Rise Against (Black Market)
20. Shatter Me - Lindsey Sterling (Shatter Me)
21. Heaven's Sound - Tenth Avenue North (Cathedrals)
22. Underneath Every Smile - I See Stars (Digital Renegade)
23. Be Still - The Fray (Scars and Stories)
24. Up In Flames - Icon For Hire (Scripted)
25. Do It Now Remember It Later - Sleeping With Sirens (Let's Cheers to This)
26. How We Survive - Secrets (Fragile Figures)
27. Exile Vilify - The National (From the Game Portal 2)
28. "I Swear I'll Change" - Attack Attack! (Attack Attack!)
29. Without Walls - Memphis May Fire (Challenger)
30. Get Over It - Ok Go (Ok Go)
31. We Are Destroyer - Anberlin (Lowborn)
32. Heartbreak Kids - Secrets (Fragile Figures Deluxe)
33. Get it Right - Silverline (Start to Believe)
34. Catfish Soup - Attack Attack! (Someday Came Suddenly)
35. Said & Done - A Skylit Drive (Rise)
36. Trees - Twenty One Pilots (Vessels)
37. If You Can't Hang - Sleeping With Sirens (Let's Cheers to This)
38. By Your Side - Tenth Avenue North (Over and Underneath)
39. Overwhelmed - That's Outrageous! (Overwhelmed)
40. It Could be Worse - Time Will Tell (Single)
41. Breaking and Entering - Tonight Alive (What Are You So Scared Of?)
42. Sellouts - Breathe Carolina (Savages)
43. I Can't Make Your Decisions For You - We Came as Romans (Understanding What We've Grown To Be)
44. The Fallout - Crown The Empire (The Fallout)

I know I have a really strange taste in music genre... Don't bother trying to tell me that.

Poem of the week

Patrick Roche - Couples Therapy (NPS 2014)

Fantastic poetry from Patrick Roche. This kid always does a great job of describing how it is to live with depression. It's perfect and beautiful. Considering the weeks I've been having, this is a wonderful listen if you don't completely understand depression... So - happy Monday. 

Finals preview?

So this next week is "Dead Week"! Hurray for finals eh? Being an art major means spending eVErY SECOND OF YOUR LIFE IN THE ART DEPARTMENT. Which is cool. So, as a peek at what I'm doing here is 1/16 of my Digital Imaging final (It's one of 16 works).

Also - here's a link to the playlist I've been listening to while I work! It's an Attack on Titan video so it's collective music from the anime itself. Please enjoy it.

Link: Attack on Titan

Poem of the Week

This is a poem/blog by Mike Donehey. He is the lead singer of Tenth Avenue North - one of my favorite bands. I found the band back around when I was around 12 or 13. I was obsessed with the song By Your Side off of their Over and Underneath album. It made me feel safe in all of the chaos in my life. It gave me a sense of God really being their, singing right with me.
I never understood how bad my position was as a kid and now as a 19 year old, I see that I was living in a place I shouldn't have been. Caught up in a situation that was out of control and not my fault - even though I blamed myself so heavily. Abuse is hard to recover from (no it wasn't physical - I was lucky in that regard). Through the years since I first heard them on the radio, I have listened to their music all the way up to their now and current album Cathedrals. Mike and the band are people I look up to, because in a sense, their music was the only that ever understood me in my most messed up places. It was where I knew I could hear the voice of God so clearly. Even the days I couldn't hear God speaking through those words, they held me so close and carefully. Repeatedly telling me "It's okay, it's okay. You're alive and important. God loves you and there's no way you can lose him. So breath easy. It's okay". And I don't know - It was beautiful and comforting to a girl whose father consistently messed her up. And it just means a lot. I really respect Mike Donehey even if I've never had the opportunity to meet him. So hats off to you Mike for being an inspiration, a father, a musician, and a friend to all. You're totally rad and seriously a man after God.

Anyway after my little introduction/background/trail-off, please enjoy the poem of the week.

Mike's Tumblr Blog: http://mikedonehey.tumblr.com/

The Rain, the Porch, and the Voice of God
By: Mike Donehey

"…Pour out your heart before Him…"
-Psalm 62.8

It comes on me from time to time.
The endless restlessness.The drumming in my head.The hunger in my heart.The longing for the other side.

But unlike so many other nights,
tonight, I will not numb the pain.I open the front door and turn the porch lights off.
I sit in my children’s rocking chair
and listen to the pounding rain.
Knees up to my chest, I wait for the rain to come.

The sky is already trembling above,
and heaven’s cameras flash.I close my eyes.The negative burns white on the inside.The water comes.God cries, and my world floods. The ground drinks greedily on.
I wonder when I will get a drink.

An hour passes.
Or was it seconds?I feel my chest rise and fall.
I hear my heart beat in my ears.I smell the rain.

"Lift Their Burdens."

Who said that?
Was that me?|Was it my dinner?Was it…Him?

"Who said THAT!?!?!?!"

Only the distant thunder answers.I close my eyes and search for the voice once more.But all I see is the negative.An echo of eternity ringing in my brain, and
those three words still imprinted on my mind.

"LIFT THEIR BURDENS."

Whose?
The audience?My friends?My wife?My kids?

YES.

EXHALE…..

I stand up and stare out on the wet grass,
the shining concrete, the cleansed canvas.

Refreshed.
Clean.Simplified.

And suddenly, my eyes are clear.
For the moment, the longing is satiated.
I have a mission.
Three words to live by.Til the next time.Until the next storm lays siege on my soul.And when it does,
I’ll return to my undersized rockerand once more wait
on the porch, the rain, and the voice of God.