Monday, September 7, 2009

Hi, my name is Dayanara and this is my first time blogging....













As much as I like reading what others do, I'm a pretty private person and don't care to share too much about myself. Well, to heck with it now!



This is what you will find here when you come to visit:





  1. Pictures and writing about my work and work in progress before it goes into my etsy shop http://www.dayanra.etsy.com/


  2. Events and projects that I will be involved with around town.



  3. Pictures and writing about my dog, my friends, my family, but mostly about my dog Chata (it means chubby in spanish)


  4. Pictures and writing about the work of my online friends and artists



  5. miss-spelled words and bad grammar



  6. Complaining --art, politics, people, whatever might piss me off at the moment. Maybe not too much complaining, I'm a pretty upbeat, positive person, but a little obsessive at times when I see something fishy. Hmmmm. OK, no complaining but don't hold me to it.



This is what you will not find here when you come to visit:





  1. Pictures of my feet. When I read other people's blogs I always see that and don't get it. I don't want to see your feet and you sure don't want to see mine. I don't do my nails, hands or feet. Scary.



  2. Swearing



  3. Mean stuff about others on line.



OK! so now that out of the way lets start! Ive been dieing to show pictures of the Mural Project I did last month. It totally drained me, but i loved doing it. i am the community outreach person for my church. It works out for me because i do this anyway on my own, so 2 birds, 1 stone. It turned out pretty good considering that most of the work was done by kids. my idea was, how can one group of kids learn about service by helping another group of kids? I knew that it would be impossible to get 20 little children (from age 3 to 11) to the school, which is far from their neighborhood. I also didn't want to let them loose with paint on the school grounds. So with the help of my friend Kathleen Hardy (her work is very cool. She does fantasy drawings and paintings) we came up with a plan.








She was going to work on a mural project in Rogers Park (where i live,here in Chicago) but it fell through. But she had learned from someone that if you paint on Pelon or interfacing fiber you can then attach it to a wall with thick artist medium. So I went and bought some and in one afternoon the children gathered at the church parking lot and traced each other and painted and so on. One small delay was that the Pelon I bought was so thin that it stuck to the cardboard when they painted on it. I then cut the silhouettes out and used them as stencils. I ripped the pellon off as much as i could save, but just in case i bought more and since i don't have kids I called my friend Kim and asked if I could come over and trace her kids and have them paint and draw on the Pelon. They loved it and she as always saw it as a good opportunity to do errands around town with out 5 kids bugging her.




The next Saturday i with the help of 3 other people went to put up the artwork. It took 4 hours which i thought was pretty fast considering that when i got there the wall was larger than I thought. While I stuck the pellon on to the wall the others traced and painted into the silhouettes. They did a good job for not being artists. They were so funny, 2 of them were a missionary couple, brother and sister Taylor, they said this was the first time out of their comfort zone while on their mission. I told brother Taylor, just let go! Stop using the left side of your brain!



I was nervous that the school faculty would not like it, but as we were painting people from the neighborhood would pop by and give us words of encouragement. when the director saw it she gave me a hug and said it was perfect. That really made me feel better. I felt even better when the actual children that attend the school held my hands and told me that they loved it. When I got home I cried. I always do that after a big stressful project. I am all business during the process then let it out at home or in the car once its over. I guess this time it was also because the kids were so happy, that it made me happy and emotional. Since I hit my 30"s, when children hug or hold my hand or smile at me i get emotional. I think its hormones.











6 comments:

  1. Great start looking forward to more!

    Beccijo
    http://www.beccijo.com
    http://www.theenchantedcupboard.etsy.com
    http://www.theenchantedcupboard.1000markets.comhttp://thereluctantcitydweller.blogspot.com

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  2. What a wonderful community project, well done!!

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  3. Welcome to Blogland!

    What a great idea about Pelon murals! Crayon colors it fabulously, you can even iron it to "set" the colors. Might be less sticky than paint and I bet the artist medium you use to make it stick would really make the colors pop.

    The one drawback is that crayons aren't nearly as much fun as paint.

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  4. Welcome!Great first post! :0)
    Wow, what a great project! I love it!
    Have a wonderful day!
    Sue

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  5. Good job with your very first blog entry! Now comes the fun part...remembering to post often!

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  6. *Note to self no foot pictures*
    I love it. Your project sounds wonderful! Thanks for sharing, I do a lot of volunteer art projects with kids so please share more. It keeps me inspired to read about others ideas.
    Mel

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