1. 6x6 Art Exhibit- I put up the student 6x6 art exhibit this week. Yes, I know it's a bit crooked but hey I'm not perfect. It definitely makes the dining hall look more colorful and fun.
2. The "Dreadful" Project- I was checking my email during lunch Monday and since I'm involved with the Sketchbook Project, I'm on their email list to be notified when new projects begin. The email I received was a call out for FREE partcipation in a new project called The "Dreadful" Project. This project is a collaboration with Showtime, The New Yorker and The Sketchbook Project. Below is a description of the project from the following link; http://www.sketchbookproject.com/dreadful.
The "Dreadful" Project
In the Shadows
With The “Dreadful” Project, we invite you to set your nightmares to paper. Sign up and we’ll mail you the official “Dreadful” Project card, to sketch and narrate a little piece of your own horror tale, inspired by the theme In the Shadows. Illustrate a monster, create an eerie scene, share your greatest fear or whatever lurks within us all.
With support from Showtime and the new original series “Penny Dreadful,” this is a free project open to only 1,000 participants. Select works may be featured in a special insert in The New Yorker and online. See full rules below and visit NewYorkerOntheTown.comfor more on this unique project.
I decided to sign up for the project because it sounded pretty cool, it was a global open event and it was free. They only had space for the first 1,000 registrants and it was filled up within 2 hours. I was around number 750 to register. It wasn't until later that night as I was more thoroughly reading about the project that I realized the artwork was due by March 19th. This was not good since I'm leaving very soon for vacation and would be gone for 10 days.
Although I had a busy week I started sketching an idea Wednesday on lunch and by Friday had started drawing and painting the piece. I ended up using these paints I've never tried or heard of before called Gouache. The material was weird to work with as it was kind of like watercolor and kind of like acrylic paint with more of a tempera look to it. Here is how the paint is described by an online search:
Gouache is a type of paint, and its main appeal is that it is water-based. Other than that, it is very similar to acrylics. However, the fact that it's water-based renders it different uses than acrylics. It could also be described as concentrated watercolors, which makes it heavier and more opaque.It took many layers and a tiny paintbrush to do some really small details on my piece but I got it finished Friday night. I have to say I'm really pleased with the results. What's even cool for me is that it all came from my head. I didn't reference anything! Kind of scary huh? Below are some photos however it was really hard to get all of the details to show up. I wish you could see the details as it looks way better in person. I won't tell you what my nightmare is about and will leave it to your interpretation! Feel free to comment and share your thoughts of what my nightmare is about. I doubt my artwork will be picked to be displayed in The New Yorker but hey you never know!
3. Faculty/Staff Art Exhibit- Friday morning I helped to hang up the faculty/staff art exhibit in the college library where I work. There is a lot of unique and beautiful work in the exhibit. Some of my favorites are 3 winter images taken on campus after a fresh heavy snow. They are framed and mated wonderfully and the composition is beautiful. What's even more surprising is that the photographer works dispatch in our Campus Safety Office and considers himself an amateur photographer. This is one of the things I love about this art exhibit in particular, you always get surprised at who created the artwork and what their position is at the college. There are some extremely gifted artists at my work place!
See my piece!
The quilt is made by my grad advisor.
4. Glass Fusion Pendant Making- As I've mentioned before, I'm a member of a Meetup group called Rochester Artists and Craftpersons. I attended another art gathering event at Deborah's house again and this time there was 6 of us that were taught glass fusion and created 5 pendant necklaces over two days. Deborah and her husband were very nice to open their home to us all and Deborah provided all of the supplies. She even has a kiln in her home! We designed and put the glass pendants together on Saturday and then went back Sunday evening to take them out of the kiln, add the bails on the back and learn to make adjustable cord necklaces. One of the aspects I love most about any type of glass work is that you never know how it will turn out once the glass melts.
My pieces are the center column- pre-kiln firing.
All of our pieces.
The group of us.
My finished pendants.
Me modeling one of my finished necklaces.
5. A Cappella Tournament- My friends invited me to go with them to the regional college A Cappella tournament held at Syracuse University this past Saturday evening. Since I have enjoyed attending the A Cappella concerts put on at the college I work for and I enjoyed the movie Pitch Perfect, I decided to go. We had a really good time. The show was very long and we didn't get home until 1am but it was worth it. Way more my taste than the ballet performance we went to a month ago. Although the one downfall was a guy sitting in front of me that my friends and I noticed smelled like really bad BO! It was totally gross smelling that for 3.5 hours!
Yep, this is the quality of pictures when taken with my 2nd craptastic phone. Definitely not what it looked like from the naked eye.
6. Stampin Up Creative Cards- My friend Marcy is a card making genius and recently became a Stampin Up demonstrator. She held a party today and I had a great time creating cards and eating a lot of goodies. Loved her peanut butter chocolate no bake cookies. I'm salivating just thinking about them!
I loved that Marcy is so awesome that she doesn't use the general Stampin Up card designs and instead spent a lot of creative energy designing totally one of a kind cards. She's amazing! What's better then creating, eating good food, listening to great music, and hanging out with friends?! If you live in the Rochester area and want to throw a card making party, I'd definitely recommend my friend. Contact me if you want her info.!
The mustache/British invasion card is cool because it's stands up and is called the "easel" design.
7. Baby Onesie- My mom bought this onesie after seeing an idea on Pinterest. She mailed the onesie to me and sent me the Pinterest link and asked me to create this project for the baby shower we are going to be having for my sister (again I can post this because my sister never looks at my blog and won't see it). It's a cute idea and at the shower you have each person that comes sign the onesie. I got it started. I used fabric markers on this project. Here's the link to the original Pinterest post; http://www.pinterest.com/pin/403846291557646306/.
8. 12.6 Miles- So I haven't been running that much lately. In fact only 3 times last week though they were longer runs. I woke up in a good mood and decided today would be the day that I would run 13.1 miles for the first time. My run went pretty darn well until I hit mile 12 and bumped up my speed (I think I got overly confident and excited that I was almost at my goal). Then my body just fell to pieces. I got a really bad cramp on my right side that just continued to get worse. I tried really hard to push through it but it just didn't happen. I had to stop at 12.6 though I walked it out until I hit 13. On one hand I was highly disappointed that I couldn't make it another half mile but then I tried to think optimistically, I still ended up running farther than I ever have before!
