For a college class the professor gave us all the prompt/topic of "a lifechanging moment" to work from. We had to figure out and decide on what our personal life changing moment was/is, and use it as a starting point for each week's pieces. I wasn't sure at all at first what to do, until I thought of how my life changed once I was put on a medicine called Humira. Now, I have Crohn's Disease, an auto-immune chronic illness, and I've had it since I was 11. I've had years of medicines and health problems, and I've always been very private about my disease. I figured it was about time to be more open about it. And there were and are  so many different ways I could/can go...

So I started with the reality of dealing with Crohns and Humira for me - that is, I have to remind myself of which days to do the pen (the medicine comes in a pen-injector form), which necesitates notes left on the calendar and on post-its. So I started with drawing a calendar, with realistic pencil shading and perfectly straight lines using a ruler and all. Added some post its after that, and then I added the notes in with pens and markers, as I would normally. The paper and pen in the bottom right were added afterwards, when I realized that the balance of the piece was off, that it was missing something composition-wise.

detail of the top of the calendar. 

detail of the lower right portion of the piece.

The little symbol on the curled up edge of the paper is the logo from the Crohns and Colitis Foundation.

early sketches that inspired later pieces

 

The second piece I decided to focus more on the post its... and I started moving a little more abstract. I was still using a ruler, but after pencilling in all of the squares so they looked layered thickly on top of each other, I started inking. By the Professor's suggestion I let it fade from heavy ink lines down to light pencil, and I like the effect.

I also shaded in some areas in pencil

After I finished the second piece, I wasn't sure where to go. I sketched for a long while, thought and re-thought... and somewhere along the lines the idea of interlocking 'post its' happened.

A digital test piece I did. I ended up liking this a lot.

sketch on the cardboard I was using underneath my pieces I did at home. 

This was the next piece, post-its with the insides cut out/missing, and interlocked, but still curling and twisting like actual pieces of paper. I also started relaxing more into my ideas, and chose to work in acryllics for some bright colors.

Above: A sketch for the next piece. I decided to go with a self-portrait, because yes there is a lot of remembering to do, and a lot of notes on post-its, but I'm also a lot happier nowadays than I was before I went on Humira, in general. I also still love the chains of post its, so that was included too.

The final self portrait piece! I left me in dark pencil, no shading, and only had one chain of interlocked post-its. Professor commented it looked like a logo, which I find amusing. This piece might be my favorite, honestly, and not just because it's me, but because there's a lot of feeling in this. And this piece and the one prior to it look nice side by side.

I don't have a photo of the finished one on the right  next to the one on the left unfortunately, but you get the point.

I went a different direction with this one, more realistic post its falling into the distance, and I limited the vibrancy of the colors and the number of colors I used.

 

Next piece is a work in progress, an abstracted piece that is crumpled up post its.

This series is technically a work in progress only because I'm going to likely continue making more pieces for it, but everything but one piece is finished.
 

And the last few photos are sketches for future pieces. There's loads of crumpled post its that're overflowing out of the recycling pail and cartoon!me attempts to get rid of them....