Wednesday/ February 19/ 4:00-7:30 pm

Activity: I painted lots and lots of bubbles (in word form too)!!!

Commentary: I wanted to get the bubbles down today for sure, so I worked on whiting out a bunch of different sized circles in preparation to paint real bubbles which I’ll do more of tomorrow. Then I completely made up a new font of my own (bubblish letters) to put in the sun. It says “Do One Thing”. The rest of the logo is something (I don’t remember really) and I have noo idea where I’m going to put it… but I will figure it out eventually! So what I did today: made bubble beginnings and added words to the sun :) What I’ll do tomorrow: finish the bubbles and continue the water part of the sunset! Yeah I feel like I’m going to get this done, I really do and It’s a really good feeling! I also had a lovely chat with Mr. Janitor, a new friend of mine whose name I don’t know… But oh well It’s nice to have company when I’m painting because I do get kind of creeped in the cafeteria after the sun goes down.

Total # of hours for this post: 3 hours and 30 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 85 hours and 21 minutes

 

Tuesday/ February 28/ 4:00-6:10 pm

 

Activity: I painted many mini twigs and a nice sunset.

Commentary: I really don’t have much to say. I couldn’t stay as late today because I have a lot of homework tonight but it was still a pretty productive day. I went over the water with another layer of paint to help it blend better, then I added more branches to the tree to make it more realistic and pretty. I spent most of my time on the sunset though. I think it’s coming along nicely even though it doesn’t look how I want it too, I’ll just settle for it because at this point I really don’t have enough time for my version of perfection. I’m finding less and less to do lately and I think whats going to take the most time now are the bubbles, which I think I’ll start tomorrow..maybe.

My mural, the entire thing!

The finished sunset!

So many colors, so much wasted paint today :(

 

Total # of hours for this post: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 81 hours and 51 minutes

Monday/ February 27/ 3:50-7:15 pm

Activity: I painted a sunset and a few waves.

Commentary: The time I had to paint seemed to go by really fast today, but I got a ladder today! Yay! I could reach the sun and actually get some work done on it, and then I began to paint the tops of the waves as well as fixed up the little stream part it starts at. I couldn’t bring myself to paint more leaves and so I quit trying after about 30 minutes of that. Clearly I’m not meant to paint nature for the rest of my life. Or at least not trees. Or leaves. Ever.

The ladder that’s saving my mural!

The whole mural so far :)

I fixed this part.. Kind of

The wave. Not even close to done or good looking, but it’ll get there eventually.

Me and my famous making hat! Someday I shall be a famous artist recognizable because of her painting hat haha

Total # of hours for this post: 3 hours and 25 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 79 hours and 41 minutes

Friday/ Febuary 24/ 9:17-5:04 pm

Activity: I painted what is hopefully going to be some of the absolute last leaves I’ll have to paint onto the cafeteria wall.

Commentary: I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again. I absolutely can’t stand painting leaves anymore! It’s soo BORING! Ughh. Just no. I used a different paintbrush (it’s bigger with a finer point) than I used for the rest of the leaves and I think it made a difference in how fast I could paint each leaf. As in, I painted much faster :) YAY! Mr. Janitor came to watch me paint and he talked about his granddaughter who’s going to college soon and his wife who does artsy stuff too. It’s strange having an audience for little bits at a time while I paint, just because I’m not used to it, but I kind of had fun thinking about if I’m the only one who notices the slight variations in colors and brightness that I have to mix. Just another thought I’ve been pondering I guess. After a while Chris (my boyfriend) showed up and suddenly an audience seemed unbearably distracting so I packed up an hour early. At least I managed to finish up the leaves for the most part, and went over the edges of the tree with blue. Yay for progress!!

Recent pictures~~

Total # of hours for this post: 7 hours and 47 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 76 hours and 16 minutes

Thursday/ Febuary 23/ 9:37-3:35 pm

Activity: I went crazy with blue paint and the after effects were splattered all over the cafeteria wall.

Commentary: It was a good day painting. I made a ton of progress, theres now a decent looking ribbon of water circling around the almost finished tree with a sunset to one side. Or its the beginning of a nice sunset anyways. I made some new friends today, especially with the one janitor that almost scared me to death yesterday. He likes to watch me paint which is kind of nice since I get paranoid standing around in the darkened cafeteria alone all day. I’m still a little worried over time since its almost March and I’m not quite sure how long it’ll take before it’s perfect. I’m not sure but hey, I have the water, the tree, and the sunset. Next just a few nice fish, some roots, and bubbles! Now lets just pray the fish and bubbles don’t take long. At least I know the tree roots will only take an hour or two at most.

My quickly snapped picture!

Total # of hours for this post: 5 hours and 58 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 68 hours and 29 minutes

Tuesday/ Febuary 21/ 9:30-3:00 pm

Activity: I painted diligently up until one of the janitors spooked me. It was a scary experience.

Commentary: Day one down, 2 left to go. It would have been 3 but they’re waxing the hallways tomorrow..so I’m not allowed in. CRUDDD!!! I’M NEVER GOING TO FINISH IF THINGS LIKE THIS KEEP HAPPENING! Ok. Now that I’m done being overly angry at the world, I’ll tell you about today. I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped I would with the amount of time I had. Then the janitor came up behind me while I was in my zone, and I freaked when he made his presence known. Then he proceeded to tell me I couldn’t paint tomorrow. AHHHH!!! <– yeah. It’s that bad. I’m not even done with the tree yet and there’s just so much left to paint and not enough time and I’m entering full on freak out mode as February disappears. In a desperate attempt to get something done today after spending all of my time painting more leaves, I splattered blue all over the area where the stream of water will be with the underwater fishy scenes. Now it looks like more than a weird looking tree, which makes me happy and slightly less freaked about finishing. Other than the scary janitor, the cafeteria lights were off today, making the entire room all dark and eere looking, with scary noises coming from all over. It was just a bad day. A REALLY bad day.

I took pictures though :)

Total # of hours for this post: 5 hours and 30 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 62 hours and 31 minutes

Thursday/ Febuary 16/ 3:45-6:05 pm

Activity: I worked on painting more negative space and filled in the leaves of Australia!

Commentary: I’m so very excited about how everythings going right now. I have it planned out that I can come in for 6 hours a day from Tuesday-Friday over the Febuary break so yay! I’m going to get this thing done! The repetitive leave painting and off-white matching hell hasn’t discouraged me oh so completely. Besides, I’m really getting the tree done, even though I had NO idea it would take WEEKS and now I’m VERY mad at myself for my poor judgement of time, I still believe that once I get rolling on painting everything else, it will all get easier and go by faster.

PICTURES!!!

Epictastic angle shot

Yep, this is what I wore to paint. And yah, I got my poor dress covered in my wall matching mixture. Joy.

Mural as of today!

Practically done with Australia and part of Asia today :)

Total # of hours for this post: 2 hours and 20 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 57 hours and 1 minute

Wednesday/ Febuary 15/ 4:00-6:35 pm

Activity: I worked out my arms while painting leaves in some high up places.

Commentary: I feel like I got quite a bit done today after my 2 days painting break. I literally couldn’t bring myself to paint monday or tuesday, like it was a completely emotional impossibility as in my leaves would have turned black, or worse, rainbow colored from the shear boredom of it all. I don’t like repetition and I think I’m starting to lose my mind after painting so many annoying green leaves! Anyways, I’ve gotten myself in the right mindset again and am still working on setting out dates over the break to come in and paint. I’ve stopped setting goals for myself just because they stress me out and I haven’t accomplished any that I’ve set yet which is just depressing to me. I really wish I could feel more cheerful about this entire project because I love painting in general, but painting so many tiny details for a month and a half without a break? UGHHHH…..

Here’s a picture of my progress though, I think the fact that it looks more done is happy and encouraging :)

Total # of hours for this post: 2 hours and 35 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 54 hours and 41 minutes

 

Friday/ Febuary 10/ 3:45-7:18 pm

Activity: I filled in spaces between itty bitty leaves with multiple shades of green until my eyes started to hurt.

Commentary: I feel like I got absolutely nothing done Friday even though it’s the latest I ever stayed. I had to help Stephanie with her senior project at the same time and my boyfriend Chris stopped by to watch me paint like a creeper. It was actually really fun having my 2 favorite people there and I didn’t meet my deadline… not even close. Luckily I have a new plan! I’m going to do my best to schedule time during febuary break to paint ALLLL day! I’ll probably never rest and go home exhausted and sore every night but for heavens sake I’m going to finish this mural! Grr… *determined face*.

Anyways, here’s a lovely picture of the part I worked on on Friday, and Chris photo-bombing on the right :)

(Yup. He looks like a creepy elf child and I’ll forever make fun of him for this picture!)

Total # of hours for this post: 3 hours and 33 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 52 hours and 6 minutes

Wednesday/ Febuary 8/ 3:45-6:35 pm

Activity: I rushed to try and keep up with my schedule to finish the tree by painting tons of tiny leaves.

Commentary: I’m starting to realize that I’m not going to meet my goal, there’s just too much I have to touch up on with that dumb tree before I can move on! I’m loving how it looks though if that’s any consolation. I’m planning on working on the mural on the weekends soon (just not this weekend) to get more done. I was also planning on asking for permission to work during winter break but my parents signed me up for drivers ed, leaving me break-less and without any time to paint. Oh joy.

Anyways, here’s what all I did today!

 

Total # of hours for this post: 2 hours and 50 minutes

Total cumulative hours: 48 hours and 33 minutes