working hard

So for the past few weeks I've been working so hard I completely spaced on my blog posts. I have finished all three books. One per girl that I work with in Detroit. Each book shows a little bit about who they are, and what they enjoy creating. Here are some final images.

 I have three Final Books in which I plan to show during the show next week:

Finally I also started creating my website. It only has work from this year so far, but I do plan on adding my photography as some point. 

I have also been thinking about how I want to show my work once it is up in a gallery. I'm thinking I like the look of the work as it is set up in this picture, but I would like to have a name tag beside each piece of work, to show who created the images within the book. I also plan on putting up a statement beside the piece so that people know that the work is mostly based in collaboration, while teaching in Detroit.

Progress!
   I spent the last week doing a ton of projects with the girls. The girls painted the clay pieces that they worked on the week before.  I have never seen April as excited to work with art, usually she is very talkitive, which granted she still was... All that she was talking about was how much she loves clay. "when will we start the next clay project?" was asked while we were cleaning up Tuesday morning. Kamari also seemed to enjoy the work, she especially enjoyed mixing colors. It was fun seeing how excited they got when they mixed two colors together. Mixing white and red to create pink seemed to evoke the same expression as my sister opening presents on Christmas. (Pink happens to be their school color). Denee on the other hand, I do not think enjoyed working with clay at all. I dont think she liked the feeling of the clay drying on her hands. For the most part she rolled a bunch of balls out of the clay. But once we got to painting this Tuesday she seemed to be back in the zone, creating designs and colors with the paint to decorate all the balls that she had created.

   We also did a project painting wooden book covers last Thursday. Denee painted her book covers Blue and Maize! While she was working her speech therapist came in to see their work and asked if understood her color choice, and if it was on purpose. Denee said yes, and that it was influenced by knowing that I went to school at U of M and that the colors reminded her of working with me. My plan is to return the books at the end of the semester for the girls to use as sketch books in their free time.

   We also worked on the Dragon project I spoke about last week. The girls had a lot of trouble working on this project though, they wanted to draw the whole dragon, not just the body. In the end April and Kamari seemed to work off eachother making almost the same dragon. Denee did a fun pattern that resembles her other work that she has done during class. I am going to mail the pieces to Toko this weekend so that she can use them in the Dragon that she is currently creating.

   Lastly the girls worked with water color. I felt that I should bring it back since Denee loved it so much the first time we did it. (Happy Valentines Day) The girls drew a lot of hearts in their water color. But Kamari painted a lot of rainbows working with all the colors that she could in each of her pictures.
(Over all including driving this took about 8 hours.)

Bookbinding Work:
   I also worked at Hollanders twice this week, getting feedback on my work and cutting out board for the book I'm creating of Denee's work. As well as cutting holes for the tunnel book, and getting paper (6.5 hours)
   I also bound the three mini books that I am giving to the girls at the end of the semester (5 hours)


For the rest of this week and next I am going to work on finalizing my ideas for the girls books. I am going to start binding the final tunnel book. Also I am going to start printing out the pieces for the book I'm creating of Denee's book. The girls have winter break, so I'm going to spend extra time working on the books. I'm also going to try and find ideas at the library for new art projects to teach the girls.

Newest book and some other things

Over the past week and a half I have completed my first tunnel book. It has a few mistakes in it, but I'm glad I figured them out in the small book instead of a final piece. Overall it took about 12 hours this week and a few hours the week before.

I also created three books for the girls to paint on that I plan on binding in a Coptic style and giving to them at the end of the semester. I had to drill holes in all of them before they can start painting, as well as cut down paper for the center of each book. This probably took around 3.5 hours.

Lastly regarding books I cut out 32 boards for a book to put denee's work in. The pieces are all 5"x5" and I plan on using a wire edge binding to combined them all in the end.

I also went to Detroit twice this week. The first time I went we spent the class period playing around with water color paint. I have never seen Denee so excited to work with any other media as she did with paint, which is why I plan to use a lot more painting in the upcoming weeks.
We also worked with clay this past Thursday. It was a ton of fun and I am excited to see how they turn out after the girls paint them. April seemed to really love the clay, as well as a sticky style clay called model magic that felt like a sticky play dough to work with.

Tomorrow I am bringing supplies for a Dragon project. Peter has a friend, Toko, who is working on a project where tons of people create parts of a body of a dragon and then they will all be put together to create one piece in the end. The girls and I are going to spend the class period create pieces to help out. In the end Toko plans to pass this dragon artwork to the orphanage "Tohoku Rainbow House". Toko is hoping that this project will help bring in donations for the orphanage as well.

Once the clay is dry we will paint the pieces that they created last week. And start working on painting the book covers that I cut out to let them work on a medium other then paper.

During class this week

During class this week I spent a good amount of time in Detroit. I explained my project in full to the girls teacher. As well as got suggestions on the project. Mrs.Locy asked if I could possibly create a conventional book of Denee's work so that she can use it as a portfolio at the end of the year now that she is graduating.
I also spent 2 hours working with Denee on her project creating interact drawings on fabric and black paper with silver sharpie markers. Including driving and talking with her teacher I was in Detroit for 5 hours this week.
I also started my final book for Kamari. I am going to create a tunnel book to turn drawings into 3-D pieces. I cut out all of the pieces to create the frame, background, and the bellows of the book. I also worked on cutting out the actual images to put in the piece which turned out to be a lot more time consuming then I originally planed. Overall it took about 6 hours to start the initial set up of this piece.

I learned that I need to be much more patient when cutting book board. I spent a lot more time touching up my poorly cut pieces of board then I should have if I had just took my time in the beginning. I also spent a lot of time having to reprint pictures to put in the book because the coloring wasn't the way I had hoped. I think I could have gotten a lot further on this book this week if I hadn't been so careless in my cutting.

By the end of next week I hope to be over 50% done with the first book. I also need to finish writing my rough draft. I will also go to Detroit this Tuesday and work with the girls. I'm hoping to start a clay project, either this Tuesday or Thursday. Will see how it goes. Hopefully the book part of my project starts coming together soon.

This week during class

In the last week I have come a long way with my ideas on how the books will come together for the final project. My plan as of now is to have between three and five books that work with the work the girls have been creating the past couple of months.

Book #1 tunnel book
my first idea is to create a book for Kamari that shows the stories that she tells in her pictures using a tunnel book to turn her 2-d pieces into 3-d books.

I can't find any of the tunnel books that I have created before but I thought I would use this one I found online to explain my idea

Another book that I have been thinking about creating is for April. She already loves working in 3-d and would really like to create a book that will hold/showcase her work. It would be more of a box then a book in itself but will tie together so that when you open it, it will apear as they are unwrapping a present. 

I am also thinking about creating a book for Denee, which will show off all of her detailed drawing work. I am not sure what this book is called but it is made with bookboard in ways so that you can open it in differnt ways to change the order of drawings. Their is an example up at the WSG gallery on main street, but I couldn't get a picture of it. The artist was named Alvey, who I believe works at Hollanders. My plan is to ask him what this book is called next Monday and see if he can show me a bit on how he created this book. It reminded me quiet a bit of a Jacobs latter from when I was a kid.


My plan for the rest of this week is to meet up with the girls in Detroit this Friday, and then continue working on the books in my free time and at Hollanders this Monday. I hope to have atleast one book done by next Friday.

Over the break and during this week

I had a great time working with the girls in Detroit over break. I got to see them preform in a show at Angel Hall, they were all very excited to see U of M. I also got to work with them the Friday before Christmas. Only two of the girls were there since it was a half day but we got to work on creating wreaths for the holidays, as well as christmas trees out of construction paper. 7 hours

I also met with Celebrities Against Autism, in which my friend Calvin donated Art Boxes to each one of the girls for Christmas. I'm excited to show the gifts to the girls.  1 hour

I also worked on planing out projects for the girls to work on when break is over as well as ideas for books that could showcase their work. I went out and got the supplies over break as well. 3 hours

I plan on doing a lot of work next week both on the books as well as working with the girls. I also got a book from the Ann Arbor library, its on their book club recommended list for this month. It's called On a Blue Day. The book is about a boy with Autistic Savants who is extraordinary at math. I'm really excited to read it over the semester.