And After The Reception Part 1

These images are from before dinner, during the ‘wine and cheese’ portion of the gathering.

The Chandelier. I liked it!

Grandma and Mom

Robyn and Anne

Jason and Lauren (right side)

Jason, Lauren, Robyn

Mom showing Grandma My Thesis

*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.

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.

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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…

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.

Tissue Paper Flowers and Pipe Cleaners

As with any project I am working on over a period of time, I start dreaming about what the end result might be. Sometimes I dream many different concepts, and other times I get stuck on just one. This project has been no different. Over the past month the tree has evolved as many times in my dreams as it has in reality. And, so often I believe that even when I’m not actually focused on a problem, project, idea or etc, my brain somewhere is still working on it. I’m sure a lot of artists could relate, and perhaps you can too, even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist.

“At the birth of the word “art,” it was a verb that meant “to put things together.” It was not a product but a process(3) that Eric Booth writes about in his book, The Everyday Work of Art: How Artistic Experience Can Transform Your Life.

It is interesting how we change word meanings for a length of time. I firmly believe anyone can work through the art process to create something wonderful. I taught an art class this past fall. My 25 students ran in age from three-6 year old girls, to teens, and adults: male and female, moms and dads, grandparents. Some thought of themselves as artists, some worked in the arts field, while others swore they couldn’t do art for anything. With just a few basic instructions, showing the process, they were able to learn how to create in the simplest of ways. By the end of the session, each and every person had created a piece of work all their own.

This tree has been begging for something. What that something was, I just did not know. Until one night- it was one of those nights where the insomnia was so bad, I thought I’d see the sun rise. At the point of lingering between sleep and not, flowers came to the forefront of my mind with this tree. It needed flowers! The flowers would show the blooming of all the art mediums that this genetic family of mine played in.

After the initial idea, I jumped into pinterest to see what types of paper flowers I could come up with. As I was looking through, I wasn’t thrilled with what I was finding. I didn’t want them to have a “scrapbook” appearance. In fact, I am not much of a scrapbooker anyway. My other thought was that those flowers could become very heavy, very fast. And, my tree’s branches of reeds might not sustain them. That’s when I came across these beautiful tissue paper flowers! I recall making them as a kid in Sunday school class, and in regular school as well. I finally found a few bloggers who had touched on the subject. I found one in particular that I decided to use. Michelle Dupuis the creator of Rust & Sunshine ( http://rustsunshine.blogspot.com ) posted a tutorial on making five real to life paper tissue flowers. Her directions were superb, and very easy to follow. I choose to follow the instructions for Dahlias. I chose them for two reasons, the first is that Gerberas and Dahlias are the two brightest flowers I can think of… next being Glads! And secondly I could make them two tone bursts of vibrant color.

“…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…

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!

 

On The Day Before

Yesterday was art therapy group with Casey and the gang, and then after I met with Anne for our weekly meet up. When we start the group we always give one word on how we are feeling. And at the end, we do it again… usually we are more calm, focused, even reenergized by then. I was a few minutes late and missed out on it, but made it for the day’s directive. Honestly, I know I sat there, and I’m sure I heard it… and yet I completely missed it… So, instead I looked around the studio, and thought about what type of project I could do and be done with… one I didn’t have to take home and finish, as I’ve had to for most of them. So, I grabbed some Bristol Drawing Paper, gave myself a paper cut getting it off the pad (of course had to then ask for a band aid because I was gushing blood), and then used an exacto knife and metal ruler to cut down to 3″x3″ squares. Amazingly, did not cut myself in that part of the process!

I then grabbed a Sharpie black permanent marker and started a bit of doodling. I did five in all.

Five Doodles

Afterwards I felt a bit more accomplished than when I walked in. That was the point to me doing these mini pieces of artwork. I have so many parts going at once with this thesis, that I wanted to feel really completed about something… it worked!

I was to meet with Anne at 2:30 in her office instead of the usual coffee at Boulder because she had another engagement on campus. I missed the coffee… I even went to the basement cafe realizing they weren’t open yet. Talk about bummed! Oh well, I found my way to her office, and plopped a seat on the floor and pulled out my laptop so that I could get images uploading, and continue working on the posts I had to put up.

When she came, I moved with her into her office. Her office-mate not being there was a bonus for us. We went over Wednesday’s thesis class, and what I had presented. After that I updated her on the work I’d been doing, the updated pages, and then some images, and we talked about my first ever annotated bibliography. We worked out some of my phrasing, but otherwise I was on target. I shared what I had done in the art therapy group (above) and then we got talking about other things, med changes (again) and what other things were going on, and what my feelings were about graduation, and how far I’ve come, and how if I can stay on this calendar I can complete the work and be on time and successfully graduating in May. I’m very nervous for it, and what will happen after.

Anne is such a good listener, and I love that she is so intrigued and fascinated by my project as I am. I appreciate how much time she devotes to me, and her willingness to keep poking me along in our Friday meetings!