Snowy Days in Shrewsbury and Sarai's Art Work

We have had two snow days from school in less than a week!  Wed, Jan 12th we received 24 inches of snow and today (1/18) we got 7.4 inches plus almost an inch of rain/sleet on top! 

I didn't take too many pictures of the snow from last Wed's storm.  Abram,Tobin and I shoveled for 3 1/2 hours to clear it away.  We were tired when the job was done. 

I tried to capture the 3 foot drifts at the entrance of the garage due to the wind.  Shoveling was hard in certain spots because the wind had blown deep drifts.

There's Abram in a sea of snow.

Tuesday's snow storm was easier to work with; it only took Tobin and I two hours to clear the driveway!  Our driveway is tough to shovel outside of the garage doors because it is so wide that you cannot throw it to a side easily. We create odd patterns while we clear trying not to throw too much snow back onto the driveway.  This is the view outside of the garge at the widest point.

Tobin working on the end of the driveway.  Notice how tall the side walls are.  I climbed the left pile at the end of the driveway, in order to shovel it lower, so we could see cars on the road while we were in the car! Our driveway has enough issues with pulling into a busy street.  I don't want the snow piles to add an extra hazard, plus Tobin is driving more and I want there to be a clear path of view for him. 

Rachel join us outside.  She had created a snow tunnel from Wednesday's storm.  Here she is trying to find it and dig it out.  Yesterday's storm had lighter, icier snow that didn't compact as well though.



There was even a rare appearance of Carmen in the snow.  She isn't much of a snow girl, but today she ventured out and tried to help with the tunnels.

Rachel gave up on the tunnel idea and went for the snow bed.

I took some photos with my phone while shoveling.  When Carmen and Rachel ran towards the swingset I asked Sarai, who was inside, to take picture of them.  She takes more photos than I do! 

The chase is on!

Rachel capatured Carmen!  Both girls just threw snow and tackled each other afterwards. 

Cappi thinks he wants to go outside. he did escape though.  He ran into the open garage, out onto the driveway, but was scared of the huge snow piles and reluctantly waited for me to pick him up and bring him inside.  A week earlier I had gone shopping and came home to find the side entrance door open!  I feared that the cats had escaped into the snow.  I saw cat prints outside, looked everywhere outside and found them sitting in the kitchen waiting for me!  I think the cold and snow scared them back inside.  I was lucky no one ventured far.

Tobin and Sarai have finals this week.  Tuesday's cancelation was a gift to Sarai.  She had an art portfolio to do for her final.  She used the extra day to add to her project.    She took a new art course called Printmaking.  This semester was the first time it had been offered at Shrewsbury High.  Sarai enjoyed it, learned much and was equally frustrated as she learned how different materials work well with prints while others are poor print makers.  Her art work has been entered into the Boston Globe art contest.  She is excited to be a freshmen entered into this contest.

Here is board she created using various materials to create tecture in her prints.  She was told to make a monoprint on tissue paper for this project.  Zori was the inspiration for this piece.

This turtle is one that has been entered into the Boston Globe art contest.  She has given her teacher the best two, so this guys is the third best! He was made from linoleum. 

Sarai made a fantastic portfolio of her work. She is concerned that she may not get it back.  I decided to take pictures to save as memories of her work, which then inspired me to share them on the blog.  The cover features all the different prints she made this semester.

One of the first prints she made was carving out of styrofoam.  This material is very frustrating to work with.  I am impressed with her composition of presenting her work. She has four prints and a small piece of the styrofoam carving on this page.

These are the cat prints.  We took photos of the prints so we could keep the originals intact.

Sarai decided to cut one of the turtle prints and make the whole page seem as if it was under water.

We took a photo of the linoleum press she carved.

I decided to show some of my favorite prints that we took photos of .

This was a water color print.

She did create one last print from plexiglass, but she made prints during her final and included it directly into the portfolio so I don't even know how it came out.  Hopefully, she gets this project back and I can see the final project and share it with you. 

Sarai has great artistic talent.

So that's the story from Lake Shrewsbury during a snow day!