For Sister Harris's Historical Architecture and Furniture class we were assigned to complete a "display window." Because she loves us so much, she allowed us to choose our own groups and, if no contention arose, whatever time period we desired. My group, Arianne, Jessica, and I, chose Ancient Greek. Before class on Monday we sketched out a few options and decided on one that we liked the best. Our three designs were 1. Hang column along the side of the wall that got shorter so they looked like they were being foreshortened, and then hang a statue of Athena in the back ... so it looked like and Ancient Greek temple. 2. Use the Klismos chair (a typical piece of Ancient Greek furniture) and accessorize. Drape linen over it, find some vases, paint something turquoisy blue, etc. AND 3. ... I don't remember three. Oh, it was to build pedestals at different heights in which we would display many Greek vases. The only problem being we didn't have any vases. I handed our sketches over to Arianne and Jessica and assigned them to run our ideas by Sister Harris to make sure they looked good. We had decided on idea #2 because it sounded easiest. And I headed off to work.
Once I got onto my computer at work I decided to look up Ancient Greek images just to make sure we were headed on the right track. How embarrassing would that be if we were totally off on the time period! After looking at a few interiors I looked up vases and came across the following images:
Instantly I had an idea. What if we divide the window into three sections, paint the top and bottom black, then the middle section we would leave open and paint a mural on the back of the wall that is an image taken from a vase. Cool or what? I certainly thought it was cool! So I emailed it to the girls then went back to work and forgot all about it. I left work a little early and headed back to the Clarke to see what they found out from Sister Harris. They hadn't talked to her yet, so I asked Arianne what she thought about the latest idea. She didn't think it would work so I said ok and we settled on the Klismos chair idea. She left for an appointment and I went in another room and started working on a 3D model for another project.
While working, Sister Harris came in the room and I asked her if we could talk to her for a bit about our ideas. She hadn't eaten lunch yet so she went off to do so and I kept working. Half hour later or so she came and I quickly sketched out our ideas for her and described each of them. Naturally, I put in my vase idea last because I still secretly loved it! ;)
And guess what! So did Sister Harris! She said #1 wouldn't work (I agreed), #2 was very predictable (I agreed) #3 was also impossible (obviously) and the new idea was cool and unique ... if we could pull it off. What was cool, though, was that when I was describing it to her it evolved. Instead of painting the images on the back wall as a mural, I thought maybe we could hang them in layers so as to fill the depth of the space. Once getting the approval I ran around and found Jessica and told her all that went down. After explaining the idea to her, with the development, she understood it and agreed that it would be cool. I went back to my model and an hour later both Jessica and Arianne came in and told me we should definitely do that idea and they had gotten a few ideas an suggestions from the professors. Such as using matte board instead of paper (genious!) and ... well, yeah, I'm sure there were more suggestions. Oh yeah, hanging them with eye hooks instead of taping them. So they won't fall down.
We immediately got to work. Arianne and I went and picked out some paint then later that night we put on our first coat of paint. This is all Monday. Yesterday, Tuesday, we put another coat of paint on and spent the entire night working on it. We chose and image we wanted to use and we were trying to scale out to fit on the matte board (we pulled it up on the computer and projected it onto the white board which had our matte board taped to it where we could trace it.) when Brother Parson told us that our image was way too small. So we went back to square 1 ... we found some more optional images, chose one we liked, and then showed them to Sister Harris. She wasn't impressed with any because we didn't know the stories behind any of them. SO we went to the library, checked out some books on Ancient Greek art, and flipped through them till we finally chose an image that we liked. ... AND it happened to be THE inspiration image! (the picture on top) How cool was that! Kind of ironic, though, that it took us so long to figure that out. Naja, anyway, I used a dry erase marker and drew the vase on the window. We painted that and we traced our people onto the matte board and drew the details on them. We went home by 1 am.
This morning we met before our classes started and cut our men out, touched up the paint ... by now it noon ... we painted our men, touched up the vase, painted the detailed strip on the vase, hung our men up, and adjusted the lighting. We finished at 5:30.
AND IT LOOKS AWESOME!!!!!
We covered the window with a piece of butcher paper, brought Sister Harris out, and had a grand unveiling. It blew her away! She told us that it is the best Greek window she has ever had, and she's been doing these windows for 17 years. AHH!!!!
Brother McRae came out, looked at it, and said it's the best window they've had ever. EVER. period. AHH!!!!!
Brother Parson said it was a solid B window. Bahahaha! He was just kidding. seriously. :D
Here are some rough pictures of it. We are going to take some professional ones tomorrow to put on our portfolio page.
And after at least 17 hours, we are done.
Oh yeah, I did get one wound. While cutting out heroes out, I was changing my blade on my utility knife ... sharp blades make it a world easier to cut ... I just dipped my knife into my thumb. I don't really know how it happened because I was holding the knife in my right hand, just holding it, and I guess I had my left hand up in midair, not sure why, and suddenly I had a muscle spasm and my knife went into my thumb ... not the tip of my knife, the whole blade. And it was brand new so it went into my thumb like it was clay.
Arianne came in to show me something just after I had grabbed a paper towel and was holding it, so I listened to her and then told her what I did so she said, oh gosh, and took me to the first aid kit. We put this ' stop bleeding instantly' stuff on it and then put a butterfly style band-aid on it. While doing that Brother Julander came in and told us (I'm quoting and I wish you could hear the tone cause the combo is pretty good), "that kit isn't even 24-hours old and it's already being used." ... hmm .. maybe that a had-to-be-there/have-to-know-him kind of quote. BUT I think it's hilarious.
And just for the record, that's the first time I've EVER wounded myself up in the Interior Design department. :)
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