Now which ones should I use?

So, a few days have passed, and I have been trying to work out what items to take with me to this dinner. I’ve been throwing around ideas. Grandpa’s pictures, definitely a My Sky. The dolls that Grandma made the doll clothing for. And pictures by Gabby. And definitely my other Grandfather’s cherry coffee table. But  how could I not include the stained glass pieces? I have so many great pieces of artwork done by my family members, and so many images I could show. I have to remember though, Monica and Anne both said the 3D Tree and 5-6 other pieces, that was it. No more. So if I wanted more pieces, I’d have to be creative about it. I could bring in my computer or iPad and have a slide show going in addition to items I bring. But about those items, which ones? Which ones speak the loudest? Which ones bring something to the project?

I had to go back to the beginning on this. I was going about it the wrong way.

Phew!

I just finished all of the edits I had from Anne, along with my own. I had to go through both the digital version that will be printed, and here in each post and on each page. It took hours!

I added more photographs to the Family Tree section, and to the Me section.

Now to put all the pieces in order in two documents, and then to add page numbers, and then to print. I am meeting Anne tomorrow at our stomping ground, Boulder Coffee so she can do a read over of the rest, and to help me make sure everything is in the order it should be in.

Here will be my final order:

Cover Sheet

Dedication Page

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Proposal Chapter

Me Chapter

Calendar Chapter

Family Trees Chapter

Posts Chapter

Afterword

Annotated Bibliographies

*From Digital To Hard Copy

With a due date sooner than I expected, I am attempting to do some of the easy stuff quickly to get them out of the way. With the art pieces all created, the focus is here, tying up loose ends, and figuring out the order to things, and then making sure everything is checked for spelling and grammar. I wrote the foreword and introduction, and put in all the page breaks. I also had to go through and check font size, type and color. When I printed out the first section for Anne to go over, I noticed everything copy and pasted from here was in a deep plum purple color, where as everything I wrote in a Pages document was black. It took quite a while to go through, but it was definitely needed.

I sat down to write out the last few blogs, and realized I didn’t have the images to work with, so stepped away again from the computer, and went into our spare room with all the art work waiting for me. I spent well over three hours taking photos of each item. I then came back and uploaded them from my memory card, and then set them to upload here to the site overnight. With nearly 85 images, I knew it would take a couple hours, so I went to bed so I’d have a clear focus in the morning.

Morning:

Great news, all the images uploaded! Today, I will drop them all in. A new page will be started, it will be misc work that I have done from high school to the present. And, the Family Trees page will have images added by each family member under their name. Of I go to get the work done!!

*OMG I Lost A Full Week!!

Earlier this morning I finished up the two trees, and some annotated bibliographies, and then slept for about 6 hours before I had to run off to the last Art Therapy Group session on campus. Our last directive was to do something related to how we had grown either in the class, or outside… I didn’t follow the directive this time around, instead opting to try out some techniques I’d found on pinterest (and youtube). I layered in colors using many different medias and ways of applying them. This is the final product:

Layering Chaos

Mediums used: watercolor, acrylic paint, rubber stamps and ink, mr.sketch markers, glitter paint and glitter puffy paint.

This afternoon I met with Anne, our typical Friday afternoon meeting. As we got to working on what I’d done, we came upon the actual due date for this whole thing. At some point I put it wrong on my calendar, and thought I had until May 2 to turn it all in. Turns out…. nope! Friday 26 it is all due!!

I have gone through this whole site, copy/pasting into a Pages document, making chapters, writing the introduction, writing the foreword and etc. It’s up to 130 printed pages, and I’m not done. I need to add the last few posts, upload all the images and print the rest out, along with the afterward, the page numbers need to go in as well as a the list of chapters. I’m thinking we are going to be over 200 pages… though it is hard to guess with all theses images from family and my own artwork to be posted.

Finally Near The End…. 3D Tree Almost Complete!

The last two and a half days I have been making the items that I’d intended on hanging from the 3D Tree. I originally was going to create all the pieces and then paint them all gold. Sounded like a great idea at the time. But now that I’m putting them together, I realize  it is important to have something on them indicating what they are. So instead of gold I went with “realistic.” It is amazing how much time it takes to do things when you are aiming for easy recognition…

In creating these pieces, I went back to my original post dated March 19.( https://mindfullyartistic.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/  )

Here are the final pieces. I didn’t take images of all the steps…. but if you want to see how I made something, I’d be happy to repeat one and post the directions for it. All are ready to be hung besides the oil paint palette I used actual oil paint, so it will be a few days before they dry enough to hang. The rest are waiting for the flowers to be opened to blooming! Working on those now! In mean time, take a look at the pics below!

Acrylic Paint Palettes

Wooden Cars

Collage Materials

Bolts of Fabric

“Polaroid Film Pictures”

“Strathmore Sketchpads”

Altered Books

Oil Paint Palettes

Bundles of Fiber Materials

Handmade Glass Bracelets

Ready Or Not! First Thesis Presentation~

With just a few weeks left of the semester Jesse, Cathy and I had to do our first thesis presentation. Our instructions were to share something of what we were doing, and to keep it to about 10 minutes. For the few days before I tore through all the art portfolios that stored my own work work and then went through the boxes and portfolios that I  had collected from my family. I needed to figure out which pieces were the most important. I kept changing ideas. I knew for any part of this, keeping it to 10 minutes would be difficult. After a few late nights’ practicing run throughs, I decided to share the internal and external influences that created an environment that lead me to become the photographer and artist that I am. Here are my written notes. I used them to help stay on track.

~~~~~~~~~

Notes: Part 1: Presentation

Notes: Part 2: Presentation

Notes: Part 3: Presentation

2D Tree & Procrastination

When I first got together with Monica to go over my ideas for a thesis, I literally wrote down 25-30 things that I found interesting. As I was listing them off, she took notes on the ones that stood out to her. We then batted around some more ideas, pulled in a bit more information, and then I was off and running to flesh out the project. One of the parts that I wanted to do, I had never done before… I wanted to create a blog! I wanted to do one for a couple different reasons. The first was because I had heard of so many that became  known, and made money. Yep, that’s right, I had this idea that if I could create something on the internet, that I may just may be able to come up with a way of earning money at the same time. The second was because I knew I needed to make myself accountable some place. Sure, we had deadlines with the thesis, but honestly, there were hardly any given. I knew that I’d wait until the last minute for everything, and though that worked for  some projects and papers, I knew I couldn’t do it with this one.

Why do I mention all this? Think 24×36 primed stretched canvas waiting to be painted on… Literally the canvas has been waiting for nearly a month with paints all near it, my ideas thought out… but not worked on. I kept saying that I could do it tomorrow- oh, it’ll just take a few hours- I’ll do it before Wednesday’s group… That is the procrastination that lead to me finally realizing that this first presentation we are giving is less than 48 hours away.

***WHAT?!?! 48 HOURS???***

Yep, that’s right! Just 48 hours! I’m to have a 10 minute presentation ready for Wednesday’s class. We meet at 5:30 as usual, but there will be more people there than just our class. All of our teachers and mentors have been asked to come as well. I am trying to figure out what to focus on. I have so many pieces…

Back to the 2D collage!

Working Space: 2D Tree

Background Sky: 2D Tree

 

2nd Sky Layer: 2D Tree

2nd Sky Layer: 2D Tree

3rd Sky Layer: 2D Tree

 

Trunk & Branches: 2D Tree

 

Collaged Tree Trunk

 

Close-Up Collaged Tree Trunk

I finished up the layering in of the trunk late last night. I immediately took another picture. This afternoon I jumped right in to adding the leaves. I should have stopped now and then to show the progression, but completely forgot until the very end…. So, here is the picture I had taken of the leaves I had cut up from old magazines and specialty papers, card envelopes and scraps of fabric from my grandmother.

Cut Out Leaves

Leaves On Tree

So here it is! I don’t have all the leaves on it- I think I have about 10 or so small ones left. I have a few places I want to fill in a bit with more leaves, so I am in the process of cutting more while I wait for these silly images to upload! Photographs to come will be the additional leaves, family first names, and then the lost children. I will be adding a bit more to the sky, and some sort of grass to the bottom.

 

 

Personal & Family Values…

So in art therapy today our directive was to think about our values and the values of our families. We were supposed to create something with those, I think perhaps also how they help us, though not positive on that part… It was interesting to see what everyone did. Another girl and I both did trees, very different from each other, but trees none the less.

As soon as I heard the directive, I was excited because it meant I could add more to my family tree theme… I didn’t take pictures all the way through, I wish I had! And then, I attempted to use salt on the water color, and it didn’t work like I had hoped. I’ve never done that combination, but have seen it, and loved it. I hope to be able to learn it soon. I have read in several blogs, and pins on my pinterest account that it takes the right timing of applying salt as well as the correct saturation of water on the page… I’m guessing this will be like when I learned out to drive standard… all at once, something will *click* and I’ll get it… let’s hope it doesn’t take as long as the driving thing did! *lol*

Anyway, here are the pictures I did take to share with all of you!

Family Values: Inked & Watercolor Pencils

Family Values: Inked & Watercolor Pencils w. Water

Family Values w. Background

Family Values: With Salt

Family Value: Finished

Like I said above, I’m not really seeing the salt effects at all… could have been any number of things however, so I’ll be giving it much more practice in the weeks and months to come!

Oh, and I didn’t say above, but those values are within the inner rings of the tree… family values can keep families strong. The strongest part of a tree is its core. The values I listed include: loyal, respect, passion, creativity, reliable, positive, love, honesty, truthfulness… and love again… I could have done so many more…

Collecting Artifacts

For part of my learning about myself, and about the artwork of family members, I have spent a good deal of time figuring out what I have that would be representational of their work. Today I spent nearly six hours at my folk’s place digging through my boxed up stuff. I was able to find quite a bit:

~Ginny Dolls with all the doll clothing my maternal grandmother made.

~Pictures taken by my maternal grandpa of her dolls and clothing that were for sale at area doll shows.

~A triptych series I did with my son on a trip to an apple farm.

~Trinkets both my children made for me in elementary school.

~My baby book.

~Pictures of some of the costumes I made for my daughter for halloween.

~A violet afghan my mom knitted for me.

~My old typeset tray.

~A coffee table my paternal grandfather made.

I also went around the house doing some photographic work of things my father built/remodeled; images of stained glass my paternal grandfather created; stained glass my mom created; macramé work my mom has created; crocheted hangers that my paternal grandmother made and my mom made.

My mom also had a few more things from her mom for me! And, my dad had a book with some photographs in it of projects he had done over the years… and which I forgot to grab on the way out the door…

Everything has been loaded into the house. This weekend I will photograph everything I can so that I will have it available if I want to show it on Wednesday’s presentation… it is coming up fast!!

3D Tree Update

The tree itself is now completely painted. The base is almost done.

Tertiary Tree

Close-Up Tertiary Tree

 

Base to Tertiary Tree

The base will receive another coat of brown acrylic paint before I sleep tonight, and the vibrant colors will have hopefully the last touch up. I will need to be adding to the base to make it look like it has dirt, maybe some painted faerie rocks and flowers about the bottom.

I am very excited that this tree is almost done. I can’t wait to start on the 2D tree, so I’ve decided that I will go ahead and start on it. Especially if I am at a point where my art medium pieces are drying!

Another thing I want to share, is that with the change over in medications, I am no longer having the enormous amount of nightmares I was having before. I am still having them, as that’s part of the PTSD I have, but at least I’m not having upwards of five or six a night, and I’m not waking up my spouse from a sound sleep with them! Thank goodness for small favors right? I don’t feel the meds are perfect. I need to be on it longer to know, but I think this might be in the right direction.