The Gail Files

Gail Fleming is by far one of my favorite characters in my books, as well as being one of my favorite teachers of all time! She was my choir instructor at Southwestern Illinois College, which was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life; my first class with her was Music Appreciation, which was awesome, and right now I'm in World Music, which is also a blast! Anyways, here's some of my random sketches of her, her friends, and family as presented in The Gailean Quartet, which shall, God-willing, be published and/or e-published in the next couple of years. To see pics of the real Gail and the SWIC choir, scroll down further to the pictures under "The Gailean Quartet." The other Gail, whose name is spelled "Gale" in my drawing, was our piano accompaniest in choir; both Gailes were brilliant at the piano! Darice was the head of music department at SWIC as well as being a wonderful piano and vocie teacher. I never had her as a teacher personally, but I still love her just like I love the rest of the music staff, so here she is! The character named "Rory" is one of Gail's daughters in the books, though she was named after the daughter of Ed Jacobs, the music theory instructor at the college. Lil Gail represents a child-like alternate dimension type form of Gail, so any Chibi Gails you see are Lil Gails; also, the grown-up Gails without glasses represent her in her younger years as seen in "The Last Musician." Well, there's your bit of Gailean Quartet history. That's all you'll get out of me; have to wait til the books come out and read them yourselves! Enjoy the pics!

Illustrations from "Golden Healer, Dark Enchantress" by Christine E. Schulze

Here's the illustrations for my book being e-published by the Writer's Exchange; enjoy!

Illustrations from "Chryselda Sofia" by Christine E. Schulze

These are some older illustrations of mine for some of my older stories about the great Chryselda Sofia; her name means "Grey Fighting Maid of Wisdom," and she was modeled after one of my best friends, Sarah.

Miscellanious Illustrations

This is a collection of illustrations of characters, some of which, like Shelby, Miriam, and Hannah, the one with the cool angel wings, are from various books of mine, and others of which have yet to find a home in one of my books. The two at the end, Joseph and Chrysilla, were some of the first anime drawings I ever did, and I like to refer to them as the "lumpy-headed" couple, which I suppose sounds a bit mean, but they are a bit lumpy. . . .

Illustrations from "The Gailean Quartet" by Christine E. Schulze

This is my collection of illustrations from my newly finished series "The Gailean Quartet." This is by far my best and favorite series, so I'm working to get it published or e-published! My favorite character here is Miss Gail; don't she and Chamblain make a darling couple? But I'm glad how the other characters turned out as well, especially Amanda(whose name is now "Mandolin" in the book) and Ashlei with their vibrant colors. One of the characters, Dannyelle, never actually appears in the series, but she'll be in "The Chrysillean Solo," a sequel to the series I'm planning. Her quirkiness does remind me of Chrysillee from the Gailean Quartet though, or Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter!

I've decided to add some pictures of the REAL SWIC Choir of Fall 2007-Spring 2008, so I hope you enjoy my photography as well as my drawings1 Thanks to mom for taking the pictures that are actually during the concert!!!
The first set of pics is during the Fall 2007 performance. This was our Christmas show and included a beautiful candlelight portion during which we sang Mrs. Fleming's favorite Christmas song, "Candlelight Carol" and surrounded the audience with our candlelight. It was so peaceful and angelic. . .and then we spiced things up with the Sisteract Version of "Ode to Joy"! Also included was my favorite choir song of all time "Soon Ah Will Be Done." I could sing that one over and over and over. . .and over. . . .

This is me and my Mom. :)

The next set of pictures are from our 2008 Concert; we did a bunch of cool stuff, including the girls singing Celtic Woman's "Sail Away" as well as a fifteen-minute medley from Stephen Sodheim's "Sweeney Todd." Thanks again to Mom for filming the songs so I could make pics out of 'em!

THE SETS





Here we all are getting ready for the big show!

Here's us girls as we sing "Sail Away;" the song, originally written for Enya and popular to

Celtic Woman fans, was arranged by our brilliant pianist, Gail Long, herself!

Ah, at last, it's time for the most exciting part of the concert, the "Sweeney Todd" medley. . . .

Here we see Sascha Duran in her role as Mrs. Lovett singing "Worst Pies;" awesome job, Sascha!

Here's Emily, one of our brilliant narrators!

Chris Cortez, longing for the beautiful"Johanna"

Our other Mrs. Lovett, the lovely Lea Graves, singing "By the Sea."

Lindsay enchants the crowd with her gorgeous soprano voice as she sings "Green Finch and Linnet Bird."

Ah, Mike O'Maley, our infamous Sweeney, sharpens his blade as he sings "Pretty Women."

Jess Boeschen, our Toby, charms the crowd with "Nothin's Gonna Harm You."

And finally, the tragic but dramatic end of "Sweeney Todd" culminates in our final piece.

Here's our last song of the evening, a fun spiritual called "Down by the Riverside."

It's me and the lovely Miss Gail!

Finally, here's some of my favorite pics from class. Enjoy!