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

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.

 

 

3D Tree In Color!

This tree has literally taken over my studio. Thankfully we have a table for just the laptops and homework, and whatnot!  I have brown craft paper taped to the floor, paints in the cups so I can recycle them when done, and paint brushes galore. I forgot to take a picture the first night I was painting. I had painted purple and blue. As the days have come along, some of the colors have shifted in an effort to keep the natural flow of a growing tree, but also to create more of a balance with the colors. When I first started the color process I honestly had no idea how the tree would be exactly… I had a pretty good idea, but I knew it would figure itself out as I went through the process.

In Process-3D Color

I decided to start the tree while it was on its base so I could work out the color flow. Red insistently was the overwhelming color.

3D- Different Angle

 

Base Paint

Once I did a couple coats of the tertiary colors, I tackled the ‘dirt’ section which, you may recall is an upside-down papasan chair foot stool. We had bought the papasan in Washington State at a Goodwill Store. My son Rook and I are the only two who use the chair, and neither of us use the stool, we put our feet on a giant blue yoga ball… or we don’t use anything at all for our feet. In the image above I mixed five or six of my 2oz paints again to get the brown. With the light would underneath, it is having a variant all its own. Some parts were shiny and needed to be gone over a couple times. I’ll be doing one more coat to make sure I have it all before I weave in some papers and colored pipe cleaners.

I am working on what types of tissue paper flowers I want to have blooming from the tree. I found this cute Dahlia tissue paper flower while on pinterest, that I think I will use. I’ll link to it if I do decide to use it!

 

“…until you find better and brighter ones.”

While reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s book “An Unquiet Mind” she describes the point of being in a high manic phase in these words:

“When you’re high it’s tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones.”

Manic Highs Overwhelm

I created a painting in our art therapy group today, on flashing colors, ideas, linear, splotches… those highs can be amazing! And then in an instant, I can be overwhelmed by them…

The Interviews and The 3D White Tree

I have received back a couple of the family interviews. My grandmother, mother and father have sent me theirs. Mom printed hers out, and hand wrote her responses to each of the questions. Grandma and Dad’s are typed. I had thought the week before I’d received someone else’s, however it was a letter letting me know they would get to it, and send it along. There is one member I would love to hear from, so I can’t wait to see if it happens!

As I’m waiting for these to come in, I’m continuing to work on painting the 3D tree. It is finally looking like a tree!

Tree base with basic white paint.

Tree trunk/limbs painted white.

All Three Parts with paints lined up.

Taste the Rainbow: Figuratively and Reality.

When deciding how to paint this 3D tree, I decided immediately that it would be abstract and that the colors needed to be bright and cheery and as abstract as the tree would look when done. I chose to use the tertiary colors, which are the six rainbow colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. I also knew that I didn’t have a lot of extra money floating around for buying new paints, which is why, if you have been following along, I decided to use up some of the 2oz bottles of acrylic paints. This worked out amazingly well. I cleaned out paints AND put them to good use! I really enjoyed mixing them, and seeing how they intermingled together in the cup. Here are some photos:

Divided By Color

Mmmm Yummy Paint Cups

Okay, seriously, I didn’t taste the paints! But for whatever reason, they are so pretty, and look like they could be the rainbow cake batter I made for this awesome rainbow cake last summer. In fact, here I’ll show you the batter:

6 Bowls Of Cake Mix

See what I mean? Brilliant colors! I love these!! And, here is that brilliant cake baked:

Close Up Of Rainbow

The rainbow cake was a huge success! I think my tree will be too! I’ll share more as I paint!

 

The Mediums We Work In: Part Two

With the production of my 3D tree nearing the end, and painting have started, and on its way to nearly done, I felt I should be giving some serious considerations to what my hanging items would be. They are listed like this: {Medium (item to hang) #needed}

Acrylic Paint (Paint Palette) 3

Altered Arts/Altered Books (A Mini-Handmade Altered Book) 2

Collage (Mini Sheet Collaged Front and Back) 3

Drawing/Pen &Ink (Drawing Pad/Pen) 5

Fibers (Small Bolt of Fancy Yarns or Fabric on a Hoop? ) 6

Jewelry (Tiny Beaded Bracelets) 4

Oil Painting (Paint Palette) 3

Photography (Polaroid Film Sheet) 3

Rubber Stamps (Rubber Stamps) 6

Sewers (Fabrics/Needle) 5

Woodworking (Chisel) 3

These mumbers are based on how many partake in that particular art medium. Some members of the family are fairly prolific and use a wide variety of arts. An example of this is my Aunt Barbie who as an Art Therapist must have a variety of talents to work with her clients. Some of them draw, some collage, some color… it all depends on their capabilities and what they may be interested in. There are vast overlaps, as these are based on 13 family members.

The Mediums We Work In: Part One

As part of the 3D tree, I am looking at the different mediums my family members (and I) work in. Some of us have varied interests (i.e. My grandmother Peggy, mother, aunt Barbara, and aunt Robin all sew). I am going to hang from this tree an item that represents for each type of medium. Here is the list I have come up with:

Paint Palette = acrylic/oil painter

Polaroid Film Sheet = photographer

Rubber Stamp = For those who created a rubber stamp.

A Beaded Bracelet = For those who make jewelry

Drawing Pad/Pen = For those who draw

A Mini-Handmade book = For those who do altered books/projects

Fabric on a Hoop = For those who quilt, and/or do embroidery

Something wooden = For those into woodworking

Fabrics/Needle = For those who sew

My intent is to have each person represented by the different work they do. So, say I’m putting my mediums on the tree, I would be represented in several ways, with several items. I am an artist, photographer, sewer, altered artist as well as a jewelry maker. I would get all of those hung from the tree. My purpose in doing this is to show that we are all multi-talented artists. I plan to make all of the items be painted in gold. The tree itself is in the tertiary  colors.

Shopping List

It seems like no matter what we do we always have a shopping list of things we need from the grocery store. I know Robyn and I always seem to either forget an item, or didn’t know we were out until we returned home. I have to be honest in saying that I love it when I have art supplies on my shopping list! So much fun to visualize what the end product will look like, and to guess what I might need to buy to enhance the supplies I already had.

This 3D Tree Shopping List is actually quite small as I was able to pull from my studio collections. I decided to use the poster tubes plus paper mache plus lots of paint. I also had reeds left over from a former project. I separated all the 2oz tube paints I had into those 6 tertiary colors- reds, oranges, yellows, blues, greens and purples.

Red Acrylics

Orange Acrylics

Yellow Acrylics

Green Acrylics

Blue Acrylics

Purple Acrylics

 

After I divided out my paints, my mom met up with me at our neighborhood Michael’s Arts and Crafts, to buy a bit more in the reds, the green and the darker blues. Aren’t these colors fun? I can’t wait to get them mixed into their six main groups and paint! We also choose two bottles of gold and an extra bottle of white. The items that I will be hanging will be all in gold so they really stand out. I envision the tree full of the different kinds of art mediums we all use in our work!

 

Branches

The days are going by quickly. And, the growth of this tree is becoming quite clearly a larger than perhaps I thought tree… which by the way I’m absolutely loving! I just cannot work fast enough on this to get the colors on! I’ve dreamed of this tree for many nights… I’m trying to come up with the way the colors will play into it. I know I don’t want them too blended like sunsets, and not absolute horizontal rainbow stripes… like the socks I love that Robyn bought me…. I do adore them- they are like Rainbow Brite!

Blooming Branches 01

Blooming Branches 02

Blooming Branches 03