Entries Tagged 'Yoga Series' ↓

Karyn called me at 7:30 p.m. last night to let me know that she thought she was having contractions. She was going to take it easy and had an assignment to report to her midwife (via phone) an hour later. At 8:07 p.m., she sent a text message stating that she was going to the hospital.

I arrived at the hospital around 9:30 p.m.—after all the scary excitement. Karyn’s contractions became really intense and painful really fast, so she and Bryan rushed to the hospital. The baby’s heart rate had dropped really quickly without cause. The women in my family are high-risk for needing Cesarean sections, and Karyn was no different.

I spent the night in the room with Karyn and Bryan, nurses coming in every half hour or so to check in. Progress was slow, but everything was looking okay. The midwife prescribed pitocine, but very slowly. Around 4 a.m. (I think), another scare with baby who was not reacting very well to the pitocine. The nurse stopped that and added an amnioinfusion to help cushion the baby and relieve some of its stress. That ran for about two hours until the midwife began pitocine again. This time baby was much more receptive to it!

There was still a bit of talk about performing a Cesarean, but the nurses and midwife seemed confident in the amnioinfusion and pitocine. Contractions were sporadic and did become more intense for Karyn, but both she and the baby managed just fine. Dilation was slow, but the extra time allowed Karyn and Bryan to rest up as best as they could.

Things started to look up around 1:00 p.m. and the nurse prepped Karyn’s room for natural delivery—Karyn was dilated 6cm. Karyn’s final check-in was around 4:00 p.m. and her midwife confirmed that she was dilated the full 10cm—time to start pushing!

Karyn took many breaks between pushing at first, but everything seemed to be going well. Baby wasn’t coming too fast or disagreeing with the pressure. Bryan was a rock and helped Karyn with counting and breathing when the midwife and nurses were busy prepping the room.

At 5:32 p.m., my first niece, Hannora Nicole Crouse*, was born in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. She weighed 7lbs 0oz. She had a full head of dark hair and was good at crying! I took many photos of Bryan and Karyn with their beautiful little girl, but they’re all on Karyn’s camera at the hospital. I’m hoping to return tomorrow to snap a couple more photos that I can share right away, but the photos on Karyn’s camera are worth the wait, too.

I’m so proud and so happy for my sister and brother-in-law. They were happy and comfortable when I left the hospital to let them rest, and I’m sure they are head-over-heels excited about the addition to their family! I can’t wait to spend more time with them.

* Hannora was my maternal great-great-grandmother’s name.

To be honest, I hit a creative wall with this assignment. Maybe there were too many other things happening at the same time, but as the due date neared, I couldn’t find the mental energy to focus on this project as closely as I wanted. My products tags suffered the most as they were my last priority. Ultimately, however, I am pleased with the results. I think my final designs speak to who I am and my illustrative style. The pieces I’ve created are simple and attractive and might appeal to a wide audience. I feel like I could pick this project up again in the future and complete mat designs for other specific poses.

I’m also happy that I tried to design for product development as this is something I think I’d like to practice more in the future. This would be a good project to use as a critique in the future—what I learned on my own and what I could improve with further training.

Product tags are in place! I just need to refine them before printing tomorrow…

I’m looking forward to mounting and finishing tomorrow night. It will feel so gratifying!

… if only it weren’t for those darn product tags, for which I can’t seem to find the brain power. Hopefully I will be smarter tomorrow!

This studio was photographed (with permission) at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis.

This is the last week I’ll be spending time with this assignment. Class critique and final, mounted designs are due next Tuesday. Hopefully I’ll be able to post my progress a couple more times this week because I have a lot of work ahead of me! Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

This past weekend I made some progress with putting my designs in context to yoga practice and retail display. My retail display contains two of my three major pieces for the series: the product tag and the display poster. The product tags (3 layouts for one specific pose/color to be developed this week) will contain the majority of my typographic design (health benefits, pose tips and, of course, pose name) and will be mounted on one board together. The display poster is important to show my pose illustration quality. I’m not sure if I should print this piece to scale or full size (24″x36″ like my original yoga poster), but this piece may also be mounted on its own board. The contextual retail display (with final tag and poster designs applied) will also be mounted on its own board.

My yoga mat design is the third major piece of this series, though it is possibly the most important. This is, after all, where my ideas for this assignment began. I will be focusing on the same pose that I develop for my product tags (Fire Log Pose might be the best pose to work with) to create a more artistic and interesting mat design. In the illustrations to the left, I’ve laid the texture of a yoga mat under each design in order to further influence the design. I’m not sure if this is necessary or if it detracts from the design. Ultimately, the graphic I work with will be mounted on it’s own board.

My last board will include my final mat design applied to a contextual image (as seen to the left) and perhaps my three other mats. I don’t know if I’ll develop them further, but perhaps they’re necessary to show the overall grid system of my mat designs.