Accessories

Custom pencil cases I ordered to go along with my coloring books for Happy Tails

Process Book

Here are a few screen shots of my process book.

It started out looking like this :

But that just looked like everything was jammed on a page so I limited myself to three or four images per page. So this is now what it is looking like :

Happy Tails

Video

Link to the video to be played on a loop -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnzXkDJPws4

Done & Done

Gang's all here.

Step by step of the box containing the coloring books.

I am currently exporting my short movie I put together. I will post it on youtube and then post a link on the blog because when I upload a video via blogger it takes down the quality of the video a lot.

Kitty Connection

I spent the afternoon at the Kitty Connection animal shelter in Medford. I took photos and got video footage of the cats currently there and also Penny the pit bull. 

The shelter is currently at capacity. The cats that are currently there were mostly abandoned. As you can see in the first video, some of the cats are still dirty from being outside. Marie was explaining more in depth to me about the adjustment time you need to give an abandoned animal due to their trust issues with humans and you wouldn't want to overwhelm them by trying to bathe them right away. One of the cats she has right now is only a year old. A family had adopted him when he was a kitten, and once he reached a year old and wasn't a "cute little kitten" anymore they actually approached a rescue group and asked if they could trade in their cat for another kitten. Obviously the rescue league said no that's not what they do, and the family just turned around and surrendered the cat. 

I didn't have an opportunity to tape an interview with her because she had meetings going on during the time I was there. I had planned on taking the audio from the interview and having it play over the short video I've made so far. 

Crunch Time

I completed and printed my three coloring books and got several copies of each printed. I spent close to three hours in Kinko's cutting each individual page out because Kinko's wanted $1.25 per cut which would have added up to a ridiculous amount of money just for the cutting. 

I have also finished my giveaway bags for the show which contain promotional/informational materials from local animal shelters. I have put together about 300 of these for people to take for free during my show.

I don't have pictures of the coloring books as of right now, not do I have pictures of the completed boxes to hold each series of coloring books so I will update with those later.

I am also still working on a short movie/documentary to be shown with my work. Thus far what it presents is footage of two animals shelters which allowed me all access to their shelters, as well as footage of my two dogs Rusty and Ruby who are included in one of the coloring books, and Oona and Chicha who are included in another coloring book. I am still trying to get in contact with the very first animal shelter I visited - Kitty Connection in Medford. This is where the third dog of the coloring book series, Penny, is located because her owner runs the shelter. The movie cuts back and forth between the full cages of an animal shelter to adopted dogs outside and enjoying their freedom.

Oona and Chicha

Yesterday I met up with Tessa at Singing Beach to film her dogs and to get more photos of them. 

So far

Just a quick update using photos. 

Making of crayon boxes

Crayon boxes after

Custom box to hold each series of coloring books

New stand ups

Animal Shelter Visits

Today I went to the Lowell Humane Society and also the Animal Protection Center of Southeastern Massachusetts. I had been in contact with people from the shelters and offered to give our some materials for them as a promotion for their shelters. The first is a 1 year old pit bull named Chance who was a sweetheart, the second video is just to let you hear how loud it is in the dog part of the shelter, third is an 8 month of kitten, and the last video will break your heart into a million pieces - She is a 2 month of kitten named Ellie Bow, she has a birth defect and her front paws are bent inward so she walks on her "elbows". She still runs and plays like an average kitten except she needs to be on carpets or blankets so she doesn't hurt her elbows. She has taught herself to sit up and balance like a rabbit would when she's sitting still. She was very sweet but broke my heart. 

Stand-Ups & Coloring Book Box

Today I created my first mock up for my stand-up dogs. I want these dogs to be place around my area in the gallery, to bring my drawn dogs to life. I tried to keep the paper dog to the size of the actual dog but this one ended up being a bit bigger. I really like the way it turned out, although I had to use a bit duct tape and extra pieces of foam board to give the stand up more support in the back. I thought about having kids color in the stand-up dogs but I like them way too much as line drawings to have them colored in. 

For the packaging I would have like to have the three coloring books stored in a custom clamshell box, but based on money and time this is not going to happen. The average price people wanted for one box was around $125, and it wasn't guaranteed they would be done by the time of the show. Seeing as I myself do not know how to make them, I am trying out a different idea. I bought a box that is used to store photos or scrap book items. I cut about 1.5 inches off of it because it would have still been far too tall once the books were in it, and this brings it to the exact size I was looking for. I plan to spray paint one box to see if the paper will hold the paint, but for now I am please with the size of this box for my coloring books.

Exhibition Thoughts

I have been considering what to include in my exhibition. I had been taking video footage of most of the dogs I saw over the past two semesters just incase I thought of something along the line. I am now talking with someone who knows how to edit the video footage, as well as audio recordings and we plan to meet up and discuss creating a short (about 5 minute) "documentary" of the dogs that are featured in the coloring books, as well as incorporating footage of kids actually coloring the books and their interaction with it and the information within it. I had done a lot of broad research last semester and this is a way to incorporate it into my show. I'm sorting through information I have and figuring out what point I want to convey through out the 5 minute video.

I have been thinking of how to get my work off the wall and give it a more physical being. Tomorrow I am going to print one of the line drawings of a dog to the life size scale and make it into a stand-up. I considered blowing up one of the photos to life size, but I run into the same issue as before - each dog was photographed on different days and the lighting in the photos is so drastically different.

Second Demo

I've spent the weekend making another demo of a coloring book. I found already made books that are completely empty. I bought two different styles -spiral and also a bound one. I have been putting the images into the book by transferring them with wintergreen. I had not really done transfers before so I'm learning through trial and error of what to do and not to do. One of the issues I am having right now with the coloring books and the ink is visible through the next page. (Shown below) I also didn't give the pages enough time to dry before going onto the next one so most of the pages have smudged. 

I've put the plot building of the other coloring books on hold. I'm focusing on how the coloring books are going to be made/put together before I continue working on the other books. 

I also made many copies of the drawings I have done so far to give to small children to have them color and react to. I might incorporate the colored drawings into some type of poster once I get some of them back.