Installation Pictures

 

New Poster Idea (possible volvel also)

For the last couple of weeks I've been coming up with new concept ideas for a poster. I tried to think of ways that I could relay useful information to my viewers and also be a great design. I have had this design in my head for a while now and I've finally put it into illustrator. I love where this is going and have gotten great feedback and ideas from various people.

John McVey gave me the idea of turning this into a giant volvel (if you don't know what that is, I'll bring in an example tomorrow to look at). I loved this idea and it has the potential to have that "wow" factor that my project needs.

I have also gotten feedback on different ways of arranging the data and colors and so on. Any more feedback would be great. I want to push this idea as far as it can go (or until the deadline is here and I need to finalize it.)

The idea of this poster is to show information. I know that, at first, it makes you think. But I'm perfectly ok with that. The plants that help pollinators are listed at the top left of the diagram, and to see what categories each plant falls under you need to follow that specific plant's circle all the way around. I broke the data up into 7 categories: herb/flower, fragrant/scentless, whether or not the plant flowers, if it is used in cooking or has medicinal uses. These are some things that many gardeners look for in plants so I decided to focus on just these 7 things. I got the coloring from the colors I used to represent each plant in my illustrations.

I hope that explained it well enough. I can explain more in person tomorrow in class.

Foods We'll Lose Book (Not Updated)

Here's the book I made a couple weeks ago. I'm still working on cutting out all of the icons of the foods we'll lose and keep the 5 foods we'll still have.

Posters - Possible Silkscreens

Here is a poster I started working on over break. I think this would be a good thing to screen print and (maybe) sell during the show. I haven't decided yet and I would like some feedback.

Beverly Bees

I finally heard back from the woman over at Beverly Bees on Essex Street. She said that she cannot meet with me due to health reasons, but she gave me the contact info for the Essex County Beekeepers Association. She said that they should be able to help me out so I will be sending an email out to them shortly. They aren't as close by at Beverly Bees, but Topsfield is a short drive away.

Seed Chart

Here's something that I've wanted to make for a while. Not sure what it's use would be other than to show how different seeds can be.

Plant Typography - White Clover Experiment

For the last two weeks or so, I have been experimenting with creating typography out of plants. This is my first successful attempt. I formed the letter "A" out of a mixture of soil, clay, and white clover seeds. In order for the plants to grow, I placed the formation on my kitchen windowsill, where the suns shines in for at least half the day every day. I really hope this works out because I have some fun things planned out if it does.

the letter "A", front and side view

Honey Typography

I've been playing around with different ways of creating typography. This was just a fun exercise to get me ready to make my plant typography, but I'm loving how it came out. I took a small bottle cap and poured some honey into it (it was my mini palette). I then used it to paint with. Here are some pictures I took of it. I had to photoshop the whole alphabet together since I ran out of space on the first paper. Also, sorry about the dirty cutting board background.

Update: Charts

I'm still working on these and I will bring these sketches (and more) to class tomorrow.

I think I'm going somewhere good with this chart below. The color around each plant is the color that each plant is and also the colors I chose in my illustrations. I have plans to arrange the plants by how much rain and water they need. But this is where I'm heading at the moment.

                                  

I also started working on stuff like this. Not sure how I feel about it yet.

Task 2

My second task this semester was to email the people over at Beverly Bees. I emailed them several days ago, but haven't heard back from them. I plan on calling them or even going for a visit if they don't respond.

Tasks 1

My first task was to try and make my seed balls look more attractive (John calls my last ones "rat turds"). I found non-toxic paper and followed a new recipe on how to make them. Here are my results:

So far, I like the way these turned out. I'm going to test them before I make more batches with different seeds.