So I went into college for a bit last week to go see everyone and to get myself out of the house for a bit. Dave mentioned that our deadline had been brought forward and that all of our work was to be up and ready to exhibited by the 8th May which is only 2 months away. Even then, the work itself is going up for exhibition a few days beforehand. This means everything we do between now and then is to be exhibited, and basically we don’t have the time to waste on things we aren’t enjoying or don’t see going anywhere.
If I’m honest I was only going to do the Lauren Child’s poetry competition because it seemed easy enough to do with it only being one piece to make, and because we had to do a minimum of 2 competitions. Fast forward to now the idea of having to do it really feels like it’s going to be a chore, I’m not excited about it, I don’t particularly want to do it and I have 3 other projects I’m far more excited about and confident I can make work and actually make them good. Plus I finished my entry for pictoplasma last week so it’s not like I’m missing out on the experience of entering competitions.
So, I have 2 months now to do 3 projects which are as follows:
- Self love/Body positivity pattern.
- “The sad girls guide to life” poetry book.
- Negative thoughts plush toys.
So the first mini project and it is fairly mini is I want to make a pattern built up of little love hearts with quotes that have messages of self love and being body positive, I thought this was be a good pattern to print and make apparel out of because I think it’s something that everyone struggles with a lot and I think it’ll be a really cute idea to do. Not to mention, I’ll get some nice new clothes out of it. The tricky hing with this project will be making the clothes themselves, but fortunately my Granny used to be a seamstress and has offered a hand to help me out (I’m thinking jogger bottoms and maybe some scrunchies from the scraps, I’ve considered t shirts and crop tops but I’m not so sure. I feel like that might be overkill. I’m going to use illustrator to try make this, as the pattern itself will be fairly easy and will be good practice to help me learn the programme a little better.
The second project is going to be the biggest challenge I think, I want to make a book of my poetry with sort of abstracted illustrations to go alongside them. I’m thinking it will likely be easiest to do this digitally and will probably be quicker, but that might mean that I require a lot of outsider help as working digitally isn’t really my strong point, but I am a little worried that working traditionally will take too long. I’m hoping that with the other projects being a little smaller can take a little time for experimentation and see what works. I was going to get my mini projects out of the way and do this last, but because I’ll be relying on an external source for printing (likely vista print or something) I thought it would be better to start with this one, then if anything goes wrong towards the end I’m not rushing around like a mad woman trying to get things done and freaking out about it. I plan on having my poems written and chosen by the end of this week and then I can start brainstorming imagery for the book and start storyboarding it. I’m thinking if I design 10 poems then that should be enough, especially with a blurb to write and a front page also.
The final project is one that I thought up a few months back. Just before I was discharged form therapy my therapist told me about a technique that she calls the “don’t be a dickhead” technique. I don’t know why she calls it that and honestly it holds no relevance to the technique at all. I’ve searched through mind’s website and other websites like health line but I couldn’t quite find what She was talking about, in fact there’s a startling lack in therapy techniques in these websites, there’s mostly the general “eat well, fresh air, and exercise” advice which isn’t really enough. The technique is used to tackle negative thoughts and stop you from ruminating on them and basically making yourself feel like a bag of shit in the process. So what you do is you identify those thoughts, and the words/phrases are and how they make you feel and you attach a character to that, something funny looking like a little monster or a gremlin, and then you can also attach a noise to it. My therapist chose the crazy frog ring tone for hers. Then the idea is that your brain now identifies that thought with something humorous and it cuts off the receptors that allow negative emotions to build off the back off that. I thought this would be a really interesting concept to make some cute little plush toys or little dolls from. I’m thinking I could work with 3 different negative thoughts, one on body dysphoria and like body image insecurities, maybe one on sobriety and addiction and I’d like to think of another one, as I think 3 as a set would be really cool. I’m not entirely sure just yet if I want them to be very cutesy and child friendly, or maybe a little more dark and creepy. When I was making my mood boards there were a few that were just humanoid and just drawn in different ways, and I know that would be a lot easier for me to make given my sewing skills are just basic. but I’ hoping I can get some mind mapping done this week and maybe some initial drawings as well so that by the time my poetry book is finished the sewing portion is all I need to do.
My plan for this week and what I’m hoping to have done is as follows:
Poetry book work ( Spending Friday day time on this)
- Choose poems for poetry book.
- Complete artist research and mood boards for poetry book.
- Begin thumb nailing for poetry book.
Pattern work ( working on that this afternoon)
- Choose quotes for inside the hearts.
- Make the assets for the pattern in illustrator.
Doll project work (Spending Thursday doing this)
- Mind map thoughts and concepts for each doll.
- Sketch out ideas for the dolls.
References:
Mind.org.uk. n.d. Self-Care. [online] Available at: <https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/mental-health-problems-introduction/self-care/> [Accessed 19 February 2020].
Healthline. 2019. 10 Tips To Help You Stop Ruminating. [online] Available at: <https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-stop-ruminating> [Accessed 9 February 2020].
Pombo, E., 2019. Self-Help Techniques For Coping With Mental Illness | NAMI: National Alliance On Mental Illness. [online] Nami.org. Available at: <https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/January-2019/Self-Help-Techniques-for-Coping-with-Mental-Illness> [Accessed 19 February 2020].
Meg Dobson-Armstrong Art 