july 7 2013 (85 days to go)

meet Kathy DeAtley, my mentor artist for the printmaking portion of my project. Taken on Day 1 while we were still smiling :)

I am thrilled to announce that I finished printing TREE 52 on July 4th.

On the 5th, I reviewed all the prints and decided to reprinted the first nine trees!!

I celebrated today by having, with my morning coffee, one of the cookies (froze a few for special occasions ) from my October 2012 show, “a love affair” that was made to announce my 2013 show…”52″ ..too tired for much more than this

As much as I was ready to be done, I looked at it as a good problem…it meant that I felt that my prints improved with experience. Did the redos on Fri and Sat…all that is left for the prints to be ready to exhibit is to sign and frame!!!

I don’t know what I expected but not 22 straight 10-12 hour days. I think I was ready for a 2-3 week project but maybe not with the intensity of time and effort….and DRAMA.

Here’s the nitty-gitty behind-the-scenes stuff… 

Day 1 – 4 had a lot of technical difficulties that I mentioned in the previous post…but as the technical issues went away physical drama took over…

back brace

Around Day 5 my back spasmed and I worked very uncomfortably for a few days. Then I broke my glasses on Day 8, with no time to shop for new frames so I wore two-year old glasses. Hope the trees look okay because I was inspecting them with less than perfect vision.

taping lasted five minutes

Day 12 starts with achy body and localized tingling in my back….computer DR says possible shingles but I  outsmarted (I hope) that curveball by having gotten a shingles shot three weeks earlier. I added a daily 30 minute nap to my schedule. DAY 15 the 106 DEGREE WEATHER ARRIVES. I love my studio but it is all windows on the afternoon sun side of the house…also the side of our 100 year-old home without insulation. Zee would come up to check on me and

hard to believe that is my foot

exclaim “why don’t you have the air conditioner on?!”…it was on!! By Day 18 my feet had had it and gave into swelling up big time!!

My pill cocktail, to start each day, consisted of my vitamins, motrin and a cold tab. I am a very fit person but this kicked my butt…IT WAS LIKE GROUNDHOG DAY…TEARING, INKING & PRINTING 182 TIMES!!

TEARING

INKING

PRINTING

Hey, I’m not complaining, I  just thought you might enjoy reading about some of the non-art challenges. The good news is that the “trees” are done, I don’t have shingles and that my ankles are back!

All is good…all of the time…xo…sue

PS I can’t thank Kathy DeAtley enough…I LEARNED SO MUCH FROM HER. Kathy is so nice that I was afraid she wouldn’t push me…I was wrong about that. When she came to inspect my work she was nice but honest and because of that I improved.