Participating in the Pittsburgh Fun-A-Day group, inspired by a group of Philadelphia artists in the early 2000's as a way to beat the dreary winter months while fostering creativity.
The premise: Pick a project and do it every day in January and in February host a gallery showing of all the participants' projects.
DAY 11 - Fun-A-Day 2018: 31 days of Unfinished Projects
Balloon Painting: Splattering paint on walls and canvases.
1/11 - Day 11: Balloon Painting
Splattering paint on walls and canvases.
An unseasonably warm day calls for an outdoor project. Quilting outside was lovely, but I have been waiting for such a day to try balloon painting.
There were a few trials and errors. The first error being the water balloon full of blue paint that exploded all over me when trying to fill it.
Balloons were hard to break, bouncing to the ground time and again, and the paint mixed with water was too runny and mostly ran off the canvas.
The second canvas I placed flat after inserting pushpins. Balloons popped instantly upon hitting the pins. The paint stayed on the canvas and swirled in beautiful patterns while wet.
Take a look at the balloons popping in slow motion:
The canvases lost a lot of that luster after drying, but overall a really fun day experimenting with Balloon Painting!
DAY 7 - Fun-A-Day 2018: 31 days of Unfinished Projects
Quilt: Resurrecting this geometric quilt circa 1995.
1/7 - DAY 7: Geometric Quilt circa 1995
Resurrecting this hand sewn quilt geometric quilt from 23 years ago.
DAY 6 - Fun-A-Day 2018: 31 days of Unfinished Projects
Collage: Creating a collage from a project started on a retreat in Mexico in January 2011.
1/6 DAY 6: Collage
Creating a collage from a project started on a retreat in Mexico in January 2011.
DAYS 4 & 5 - Fun-A-Day 2018: 31 days of Unfinished Projects
10K Steps: Creating a time lapse video of the 10,000 step selfies for year two of WATSOP, May 2016 - May 2017
1/4 - 1/5 DAYS FOUR and FIVE: 10,000 Steps Selfies
From May 2016 to May 2017 I would take a set of selfies - including one of my feet - every time my Fitbit buzzed at 10,000 steps. It was the start of year two of Walking all the Streets of Pittsburgh. The end goal was to create a time lapse showing all of the backgrounds as I hit 10,000 while walking or going about my day. Some times an animated conversation advanced my step count to 10,000. And some days I reached 20,000 steps taking a second set of pictures with a 20K sign!
I'm especially fond of the cameo appearances of family and friends that jumped into frame. Such good sports!!
DAYS 2 & 3 - Fun-A-Day 2018: 31 days of Unfinished Projects
Mosaics: Finishing mosaic pieces from late summer/early fall 2017.
1/2-1/3 DAYS TWO and THREE: Mosaics
1/2: To finish this piece from last fall I needed to grout and attach hanging wire.
BEFORE
AFTER
1/3: As I work on larger projects that cannot be completed in a day, I can call this piece from late last summer "done" after cleaning it up and attaching hanging wire too.
DAY 1 - Fun-A-Day 2018: 31 days of Unfinished Projects
Painted Rocks: Finishing painted rocks from the summer to be placed in and around the city for walkers and wanderers to discover.
1/1 DAY ONE: Painted Rocks
Finished painted rocks from the summer to be placed in and around the city for walkers and wanderers to discover.
Rocks painted over the summer.
Rocks labeled and ready to hide.
Rocks "in situ", planted January 2018.
Fun-A-Day PGH 2017: 31 Walks
31 Walks in 31 days in 31 different neighborhoods spelling out "31 Walks January 2017 FunADay PGH!"
Fun-A-Day, originally started by a group of Philly artists, is designed to start the year off right by committing to doing something fun and creative each and every day for one month in the dead of winter. The culmination of projects are then exhibited in an open gallery setting for all to marvel at and enjoy. The types of projects are only limited by the limits of our imaginations.
I've decided to incorporate WATSOP into this, my second Fun-A-Day project. Always fascinated by the resulting shapes when using the Map My Walk app, I decided to walk each day with a predetermined shape in mind.
Ultimately settling on creating letters and numbers, to further increase the challenge I imposed a few rules for the project: 1) All characters should orient north to south (ie: no rotating the resulting map).* 2) All walks should be at least one mile. 3) Each character should come from a different neighborhood. 4) Initially I would not allow any editing of the resulting map image, but there were a few instances where I needed to edit, such as when the phone battery died mid walk, or the cell signal failed me, or I tacked extra streets to the walk.
(*Due to the size of the "signature" on the beach I had to rotate to increase the walk to a viewable size.)
Using MapMyWalk app to create letters and numbers. Week 1.
Though I meant for this project to help me cross off Pittsburgh streets, a scheduled trip to Florida had me taking the walks "on the road". This provided additional challenge to the project. Travel days ate up the majority of the day and daylight, so I walked as best I could in the airports.
Airport walk in Charlotte, walking a "dog".
Sadly Jacksonville, FL is not an inspiring place to walk. The neighborhoods are uninteresting housing developments and strip malls, streets are sparse on the landscape and usually consist of offshoot dead-ends and cul-de-sacs. However, there is a beach!
Day 24: Jacksonville Beach, FL
So here I proudly present the results of my January 2017 Fun-A-Day project: 31 walks spanning 2 states and 31 neighborhoods, including one beach and two airports, in temperatures ranging from a windchill low of 2° to a high of 79° through rain, snow, sun, clouds, and wind. "31 Walks January 2017 FunADay"
And here is a better view of the accompanying photos from each day's walk.
