Grace Love of NYC

 Last day of Senior Project!!! Today was a travel day. We went 4 hours by train from NYC to Boston, and 2 hours by car from Boston to Proctor. It was a crazy and tiring day. Carrying the huge canvas and our heavy suitcases was exhausting. On the train, I worked on the reflection paper and continued to work on it when I got back. Finishing the paper was also the last thing I needed to do for the project. Finally, all done.  Total project hours: 1hr Total accumulated hours: 88hrs

Wow, Senior Project is really coming to an end. Today is our second-to-last day, so we wrapped everything up---literally. Starting off the day, my group headed off to Blick, again, to buy some wrapping paper and tape. After coming back and putting in our final touches, we wrapped up our huge poster to bring all the way back to Proctor tomorrow. At the beginning of the project, I've always been concerned about how we were going to bring such a big piece of art back to campus. I'm so relieved now that we've resolved the issue and have a solid plan for tomorrow. We also spent time working on more adjustments for the documentary, as well as working on our self-evaluation essays.  Total work hours: 3hrs Total accumulated hours: 87hrs

     For this past week, our goal was to make significant progress and finish up our poster and documentary based on the interview clips we gathered from the first week. After a whole lot of ups and downs, we have finally met our goal and are satisfied with our products.  For most of the week, we spent time at home doing a lot of tedious and repetitive work on our poster and documentary. We split the jobs up based on our skill sets: Jack editing the documentary and Claire and I working on the art for the poster. Claire and I spent a lot of time sketching, painting, and gluing. Our idea for the poster was for it to be a representation or summary of our documentary. We would pick out a few of our favorite stories, sketch the interviewee, and write a short paragraph in their voice about their narrative. Claire and I have different sketching styles, so I was worried that the resulting product would be inconsistent. However, though we could see the different styles, the...

These last few days of our project are not very eventful as we are just doing tedious and meticulous work with our documentary and poster at home. Starting off the day, my group edited the documentary together. We all sat around the computer to contribute our input. We also spent a lot of time researching other interview clips on Youtube for ideas and references. We also made a lot of progress on our poster by gluing on stories and painting on details. I also began writing my blog, weekly reflection, and final essay for the project. For the next two days, we will focus on finishing and adding in final touches to our two products as well as finishing our essays.  Total work hours: 8.5hrs Total accumulative hours: 84hrs

 Getting closer to the end of Senior Project, our products are finally coming together. In the morning, my group had a final meeting to go through all of our interview clips and decide on which clips make the cut and a final storyline for our documentary. For the past few days, we struggled with poor organization as we didn't have a common vision for our products, especially the documentary. We had a few arguments over the past few days and that took a lot of our time. After spending the entire morning on the meeting, we finally came to a final common vision that everyone agreed with to avoid any future confusion and arguments. We also decided to make adjustments to which interviews make the cut, resulting in Jack having to make adjustments to the documentary, and Claire and I had to re-do some of our sketches and narratives. So, that took the rest of our afternoon---poster work and documentary editing.  Total work hours: 8.5hrs Total accumulative hours: 75.5hrs

Today, my group started working at home. Claire and I continued to work on our poster. Since we finished typing narratives yesterday on a Google Doc, we handwrote the paragraphs on paper today. We know that writing can be messy, so, to ensure that the final product is nice and neat, we had to copy down everything in pencil first, and then go over it with pen. This took the most time out of our morning. While I was doing the writing, Claire cut out or sketches to prepare for them to be put on the poster and made name tags for our interviewees. Jack told us that he thinks we should go out to interview more as he doesn't think we have enough options to make our storyline as interesting as possible. So, that's how we spent our afternoon. After a productive afternoon interviewing and the Brooklyn Bridge Park, we went to Blick again to buy glue. Coming back home, we did some more gluing, and called it a day.  Total hours: 8.5hrs Total accumulative hours: 67hrs

 Today, Claire and I continued to make progress on the poster while Jack worked on editing our documentary. From my reflection, I mentioned that the gluing job we did on the poster was not done well, and so we have to try again this week. Claire and I ripped the old paper we had on the canvas off, and went to Blick to buy new paper. At the art store, we were contemplating two options: buy the same paper again that we really liked but is harder to work with, or buy paper that is easier to work with but we don't like that much. After scrambling back and forth in the maze of an art store, we decided to go with the same paper we had before and be more meticulous with gluing. We headed home and Claire and I instantly got to work. Gluing on the new paper took a lot of our time because we had to brush on even layers of glue and wait for them to dry. After that, we had to pause the gluing because we ran out of glue. Claire and I then rewatched our chosen interview clips to write paragraphs...

Starting off a new week, my group spent a whole day working on our poster and documentary. Claire and I finished off our sketches of our interviewees. After being satisfied with the sketches, we painted them using acrylic paint. Our idea for these sketches was for them to look cartoonish and animated but still resemble our interviewees. We spent almost the entire day on this as we had 7 sketches to work on. After finishing the paintings, Claire and I began working on the writing for each of the interviewee's stories. While Claire and I worked on the poster, Jack made progress on the documentary. Jack realized we needed more B-rolls, so we went out to film to finish off our long workday.  Total work hours: 7.5 hours Total accumulative hours: 50 hours

The goal we have set out for this week was to gather as many interviews as possible, begin outlining our documentary based on our collected interviews, and have a good head start on our poster. After a rollercoaster of a week, I can confidently say we have reached our goal. Starting off the week, we got started prepping our poster canvas so that, later on, when we have gathered and picked out our final interviews, we will quickly just put it on our prepared canvas. As my group—I, Claire, and Jack— are all passionate artists and have been on European Art Classroom, we excitedly put our skills into use and were already so pumped about this poster project in the first place. However, by the end of the week, when we took another look at the poster after a few days of not touching it, we realized that the background paper did not glue well onto the canvas and realized that for next week, we would need to take everything down, buy new paper, and start again. I looked back at the process ...

Today was finally our last interview day of the week. We decided to go back to Washington Square Park and Union Square for our two rounds as they were our most successful locations. Today was probably one of our more productive days. My favorite interview of the day was with two friends who also recently did a documentary project on love. We connected with them so well and they gave us very interesting responses. I notice that I, Claire, and Jack, are all very familiar and comfortable with the interview process now. We no longer have to ask each other, "Okay, who's next?" but rather naturally come up to people on our own and the group just follows. We are enjoying talking to strangers more than we are nervous about it. After finishing our interviews for the day, we went back for more editing and poster work. Claire and I decided that instead of printing and cutting pictures of our interviewees, we would sketch and paint them instead. One of the things I love about our pro...

 Today was another day of gathering interviews. We decided to try a different location today. Instead of going to a park, we decided to visit Times Square---the heart of NYC. We went in hopes of meeting a wider range of people as Times Square is filled with tourists. However, the moment we arrived, we slowly realized this wasn't going to work. Times Square was way too crowded and chaotic. Everyone was either on the move or taking pictures. We also did not feel safe as there was always constantly a moving crowd around us. We tried to come up to some people but were too overwhelmed by the chaos in Times Square. Thus, after a long while of scrambling and gathering a few interviews, we decided to move to Brooklyn where we were more comfortable. We went to the same location that we went to the other day: the Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Here, we felt in our element and interviewed people in the park for a few hours.  After gathering some high-quality clips, we went back home. We wen...

Today was day 3 of our project and day 2 of our interviews. Our schedule for the day was the same as yesterday: one interview round in the morning and one in the afternoon. We started off the day by going to Central Park at 9am. Being new to NYC, Claire, Jack, and I all had to get more comfortable with using the subway. While I was intimidated at first by the complexity of the different lines and directions, we finally figured it out today and I can confidently say that I know how to use the subway in New York City.  We got to Central Park and began "scoping" for interviewees. We looked around and realized that the people in Central Park were much different from the people in Washington Square Park. Most people were sitting on park benches alone, and most were of older age. There were also fewer people sitting on benches in Central Park than in Washington Square, which meant we had less possibility of finding an interviewee considering we normally look for people who were sit...

Today was our first day of interviews. We decided to do two rounds of interviews: one round in the morning, and one in the afternoon after lunch. The overall consensus was that we were all very nervous. None of us had done public interviews like this before and were all anxious to come up to strangers. We were anxious about being turned away, discouraged, and were overall intimidated by the idea of talking to strangers. However, the beautiful weather in NYC today helped put us all in a great mood and made us feel much more relaxed.  We started our first round of interviews at Washington Square Park. We started by walking around the park to see if there was anyone approachable enough for us to bring up the courage to come up to. Our goal was to interview a wide range of people: different ages, genders, and races. Most people in Washington Square Park were young college students which made us feel much more comfortable coming up to. I saw a girl sitting on a bench with a book and dec...

Today is our first day of Senior Project. Starting the day, Claire, Jack, and I discussed several design ideas for our poster. After a bit of deciding and going back and forth, we finally agreed on a final design draft. From the draft and vision we came up with, we then made a list of necessary art supplies and headed to Blick Art Materials. At Blick, we got a canvas, decorative paper, colored markers, glue, and more. The art store was like a maze, and we felt like we were in heaven with all the colors that surrounded us. Claire and I got so excited seeing all the beautiful colored paper. After the art store, we went to a camera store to buy a microphone. After finishing our shopping for the day, we went back home and got started on the poster. Jack at check-out, our wallets hurting We decided that for today, we would prep the canvas by gluing on our base and letters. Our first obstacle was that we couldn't do spray-on glue inside the apartment because of its toxic fumes. We tried ...