Three new entries

First, my calendar. I thought about things I took away from my class experience as well as what was happening in my life and, of course, with my pregnancy.












Next, I pursued last week's proposal a bit more. Part of that proposal was to dig deeper into my feelings about the pregnancy and my changing life. To that this week, I read Birthing From Within, which I finally got my hands on this month. That book prompted me to consider the fears that I have about the experience of giving birth in a hospital, so I created an entry documenting those fears, using acrylic paint and Photoshop. I hope that I can begin to address the fears in the coming months by calling them out (and talking to the doctors and my husband and etc). I did redact a couple of them because they were a little too personal to share here.









After my "fears" entry I needed to do something lighter. I switched to watercolor, graphite, and ink, and did a few cute little things that reflect some of the maternal and domestic feelings that seem to just keep getting more intense as the months go by.

Scrawl

As part of my proposal for the remainder of the semester, I said I would write for at least two hours about my experience being pregnant (so far), in order to document some things I don't want to forget, but also to go a little further in exploring my feelings and thoughts during this unique time of my life.

I did write for 2+ hours, and am so glad I did. The long-ish time period compelled me to dig deep for material. When I slowed down, I found myself exploring some ideas that were more difficult and personal. As a result, I felt that the writing was really too personal and special (almost... sacred) to share on the internet (no offense, comrades). So I created this entry that both presents and obscures what I wrote, by superimposing the ten pages of handwritten text. After considering bringing out some words or phrases that I was willing to share, I decided to allow the whole thing to remain sort of veiled and coded, and to exist as one big, shrouded visual form. That is how I feel about the experience of pregnancy, sometimes -- that it is really too special to explain, document, or translate. But everyone always tries anyway, me included.

For the other two entries, I extracted a couple of phrases that are less intimate, but still significant to me. I made some quick (less than 30 min. each) sketches from those, and that's what the other two entries are about.

Pits!

Landscape and narrative seemed like fitting elements for a two-page spread dealing with visual flow. Since I did most of my writing for this week's entries under an oak tree at Lake of Isles, I went ahead and sketched a little version of that scene, taking some text from the writing I did. Sketchy graphite, ink, and marker.

Feet

With this entry I kind of lost the thread of what I was doing aesthetically and stylistically, but it's part of the "raw sketch" series of entries intended to help me continue to loosen up with my visual journal. It turned out kind of dumb and I probably didn't put enough thought into it. But the text and subject matter came from the writing element of my process this week.

Two free entries

These spreads are the first two entries I've created in pursuing what I laid out in my proposal, inspired by some of the work in this week's readings. Observational sketches of my crazy environment during this crazy time of packing, house-buying, and pregnancy!

How he feels about it

The other challenge I received was to create a journal entry about how my husband feels about all of this. I really struggled here, because I know how he feels -- happy, excited, nervous, a little scared -- but I didn't know how to represent these things. It occurred to me to have Ben create the entry himself, but that just didn't seem like the right solution somehow. What I ended up creating is a sketch of something that I think encapsulates how happy, excited, and involved he is. It's just a graphite sketch of him reading the old Winnie-the-Pooh stories to me (and the baby), something he's been doing each night. Those stories are so wonderful, funny, and un-Disney, with awesome illustrations by Ernest Shepard. And our baby can now has functional ears, so she can hear her dad reading to her -- and me laughing at the funny turns of phrase in these stories. I love the part where we learn that Pooh once lived in the forest under the name of Sanders.

36 textures

Candace challenged me to incorporate texture into my journal. Since my journal is a blog (so, digital but with handmade elements), I created a digital entry by documenting 36 things I associate with my pregnancy so far. The array of textures is kind of interesting. It's not exactly in the "pat the bunny" vein that I think Candace had in mind, but it's me!

Some of the textures are secret and mysterious, but some I am happy to share! For example, some are foods that I've been eating a lot of (fig bars, edamame, tortillas), some are things to which I've had aversions or am not allowed to use during pregnancy (coffee, Listerine), and many are items made of cloth (favorite maternity clothes, a belly band, a shirt of my husband's that I've hijacked, two pillows given to me by my grandmother before she died and which I use to achieve a tolerably comfortable sleeping position at night). Other textures I documented include the basil plants I planted when I found out I was pregnant -- a sun hat I need to wear outside -- the bike helmet I won't be putting on again until next summer -- a lawn chair I've been chillaxin' in on the deck -- a shoulder bag that looks really cute over a pregnant belly -- a flowering plant Ben gave me for our wedding anniversary -- and a certain record I listen to almost every day).

Tantrum

This image is blowing my mind right now and I had to share it because it is just so wild. I had an ultrasound this week and the technician captured this image of our baby looking like she is screaming in anguish!! (Fortunately they said she was likely just yawning.) There are also plenty of her looking like the most angelic thing on the face of the earth, but obviously those aren't as haunting.