Caponi Art Park

Design, Photography

This is the poster for my June photo outing with Kristin. We both had very busy months, so we had to get together on a weeknight and had less photo time than we usually do. For this adventure, we went to Caponi Art Park in Eagan. Neither of us had been there before, and I had only caught a glimpse of it while taking a walk.

We started out of the parking lot on a trail that went to the South. After wandering around the trails for awhile, we started to wonder where the art was. Everything was just nature paths through the woods. It was nice, but not as art-filled as we had been expecting. So we back-tracked to the parking lot and went North instead. (I knew there were sculptures to the north, since that was near where I had walked previously.)

When I’m in a new place, there is so much to take in, that I sometimes miss obvious things. So there is a potential that we missed it, but I didn’t see anything that explained the art. I can’t remember for sure, but I think there may have been something to tell what the name of the piece was and who created it, but nothing about what they were trying to say. For some of the art, that was ok. For others, I really feel like I needed an explanation.

Because of this, I tried to mimick the feelings of not really clearly knowing what is going on in my poster. Some of the photos are easy to see and some blend into the others more. I also chose to hand write the name of the poster, rather than pick a font. Because I get the Caponi Art Park newsletter, and I see the snake sculpture all the time, I chose to make my text mirror the snake a little with curves. I realized after I finished the text, that the triangle on the end makes it more dragon-like, but I like it better when it tapered off.

So that was Caponi Art Park. I hope my poster inspires you to check it out!

In the Wild

Miscellaneous

Recently, I was at Southdale Center in Edina. While passing by Games by James, I asked my friend if she would mind stopping to see if End of the Line was on the shelf there, and she obliged. I knew it was at the Mall of America store, but I wasn’t sure if it would also be at Southdale. And it was! Not only was it on the shelf, it was prominently displayed and at eye level. Good job Seppy! I think it really stood out among the other games on the shelf, but I’m also biased, and I was purposely looking for it. It’s so exciting to see something that you’ve worked on out in the wild!

Meadowlark Media Design

Design

I recently did a logo design for Meadowlark Media Design. I was introduced to Heidi, the owner, through a mutual friend. I was a little hesitant to take on a freelance project, since I was training for my half marathon, working on items for Fight in a Box, working full-time, and my social life has gone crazy! (Ok, probably just crazy in my eyes. I have plans on school nights! Multiple school nights!) But I’m glad that I did it. It turned out better than I had imagined.

Heidi knew exactly what she wanted, which made it easy to schedule her into my already busy schedule. She sent me samples of what she was looking for and what she liked. She also gave me screen shots of her website, her color swatches, and the font that was being used for the text of the logo. After her initial email and samples, I got to sketching out some ideas.

Then I took those ideas to the computer:

I’ve found that starting out a design in color tends to be really distracting to me. I spend too much time thinking about what color everything should be and less time on the actual design. So while I may start out doing some designs in color, I tend to shift back to black and white and then add color in afterwards. It’s funny, because for this project, the Meadowlark already has really distinct colors, and I didn’t need to make many decisions about what color would go where, but it was easier for me to focus on drawing the shape in black and white and then cutting everything apart to color it afterwards.

After showing Heidi my initial ideas, she was pleased, but wanted more. She asked to see a few of them with tweaks, and then sent me some new variations that were different from anything I’d ever done before. I was a little nervous, since I didn’t know if I could transform them and still make them look like my style. But I was excited to challenge myself and see what I could do.

Honestly, my favorite part about the finished bird is the eye. For the other designs, the eye was just a black dot, but for the final choice, the black dot got lost in all of the geometric shapes, so I had to do something to make it stand out. I like it because it brings the focal point to the bird and gives it a bit of personality.

Half-Marathon Run

Miscellaneous

For the third year in a row, my bestie, Sakura, and I ran in Grandma’s Half Marathon (It’s actually the Gary Bjorkland Half Marathon, but not many people are familiar with it by that name). I have been training more this year than in the past years, and I had hoped to get my time down to under 2 hours. And my official time for this year was 1:53:36! Goal Accomplished! And now I can retire…

I was thinking back to when I first started running, and how I struggled to run even one mile. I spent a lot of time alternating between running and walking, with more time spent on the walking side of things. When Sakura first suggested that I sign up for a 5k, I was excited by the idea, but not sure that I would be able to run for that long. Even in high school, I never ran that far. But I chose a 5k and started training. I would like to tell you that every run I did better and better, but it doesn’t work like that for me. Over time I got better, but some runs were amazing, and I felt like I could keep going, and some runs were horrible, and I couldn’t wait for them to be finished. And that’s still true for me today. This time around training, almost all of my runs over 8 miles were a struggle, and sadly, I ended up walking a lot more than I had wanted to. Oddly, my final two runs before the race were also extremely difficult. And they were both only around two miles!

What I’ve learned from running is that it’s mostly mental. It’s so easy to just give up, walk, and never do any actual running. But if you really want to run, you just have to stick with it and keep going, even when you really want to quit. Nick, my husband, is a great example of this. He HATES running…with a PASSION. (He’s not shy about telling people this when they ask him how his run went.) But he wants to stay fit, and he sees running as a good option for that end goal. While I do enjoy most of my runs, I think every one is painful for him. I think he tackles running like he would tackle a chore. It needs to get done, so he just does it. Some days when I really don’t want to get out of bed, I look to him for inspiration, suck it up, and go run!

I think almost anything in life can be tackled in that same way. Set up a schedule, stick to it, make it a habit, and then, eventually, it will just become something that you do. Now I just need to learn to rein myself in and limit that to about three things. I can’t do everything, but I want to!

May Photo Outing

Design, Photography

On Memorial Day Weekend Kristin and I went out for another photo adventure! This time we went to the Japanese Garden at Normandale, the Lyndale Rose Gardens, the Peace Garden, and the Lakewood Cemetery. It was a fun day filled with brunch, photos, and conversation.

Our adventure included trees full of hammocks, a baby bunny munching on grass, an accidental unflattering photo of a stranger, and a security guard stopping us in the Lakewood Cemetery. (Turns out I am still a 17-year old in my head, and I assumed we were going to be scolded in some way for being there with cameras, but he had stopped us to let us know about their app. So it is true…there is an app for everything!) And of course, flowers, flowers, flowers!

For my poster this month, I focused on the Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden. My plan was to have photos in the background of the Rose garden that were flowery and had blurry backgrounds. In the foreground would be multiple photos cropped to mimic the pagoda in the Japanese Garden. It didn’t turn out exactly as I had hoped. I think it would have been better to have one image in the background or foreground and then multiple images for the opposite one. It got a little busy, and the pagoda didn’t stick out as much as I had hoped without an outline and drop shadow. Since I had so many photos to showcase, I opted to stick with the original design. Maybe I will revisit the idea in an upcoming poster.