Courtyard Chalk

   On the 22nd of August, all three e9 classes met in the Raven's Nest to begin a collaborative project, minus me. I was already occupied that morning bailing water out of my over flowing sump pump. You just got to love the rain. Anyway, while I was wishing for the end of the power outage, e9 proceeded with begin the assignment. The next class period I came in very confused, promptly sitting in the wrong seat, I was quickly ushered away by a friend. Soon enough a teacher lead me to a group (not before accidentally introducing me as a new student to every , but hey, it's all good.)

Collaborative Design

   This was the run down of the project, groups of four got together and each person created a self reflective symbol, the group was then to combine the symbols into one sort of emblem. It was a surprisingly easy transition into my group of five. When we finished designing we would draw our emblem with chalk on the pavement. We wasted no time getting to work. The four members of the group had already designed their personal symbols; a dolphin, a pegasus, a rope, and a rhino. The main theme was animals, so trying to incorporate that and music I chose a songbird for my symbol. As a group we had several ideas of combining the symbols. We wanted to stray from just making a family seal sort of design. What we settled on was a sort of scene with the dolphin in water, the rhino on land, the songbird in a tree, the pegasus in the sky, and the rope acting as the unifying border.

Creating the Piece

   In a few minutes, it was time to head outside. Once we were in the courtyard we chose a secluded, shady square. Which was nice while we working on it, but wasn't great for trying to get quality pictures of the result.  We went right ahead spreading out and working on our different sections of the piece. We weren't able to add significant details since we were using chalk, so we finished up quickly. We spent a good amount of our time rubbing the chalk into the concrete, making it more opaque.

What I Learned

   -How to better collaborate in a group

   -How to combine ideas into one design

   -Chalk techniques for an opaque look

What I Would Change

   -Our final emblem (I wish it was less of a scene, was fully colored, and presented each symbol equally)

   -Empty Space (I would have preferred there to be less negative space)

What I Would Keep the Same

-My individual design

-My group members' individual designs

-My group members

The Overall Experience

   I really enjoyed working with my group. They were all really great with communication and contribution in this project.  I think this assignment was a really good idea to get us in the mode of creative thinking and collaboration.

Conclusion

As I hinted earlier, the lighting doesn't do it justice. Although I feel like we could have better executed another idea, I'm pretty happy with how it came out.