The Calendar
The main bread & butter of this book. Calendar templates will be provided for each person to fill out their days as needed. Sticker sheets with the key icons will be included, as well as blank stickers to leave room for everyone to add any additional things that helped them cope. The calendar starts from diagnosis and goes through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. It is also designed to teach the user how to continue to cope with difficult emotions through art therapy long after treatment ends.
Laying out the first calendar
Finalized Color Palette
Sticker Icon Process
Day to day filling in my icons during chemotherapy treatments. Notice my dark nail polish! Check out the recommended products page for why that was key during chemo!
March 3rd 2021 - Working on the final color palette first started with matching shades to the color pencils I was using for the original sticker icons I was drawing.
Scrapbook Pages: A portion of the book will be dedicated to all of the beautiful cards and gifts I received from those who were thinking of me during treatment.
Thinking about the book cover. I love the idea of some bright geometric shapes. I showed my therapist during one of our sessions and she loved this idea too - saying it reminded her of "where science meets art" And I thought that that was just perfect! And exactly what where my head was during the creation of this book. All of a sudden I had to learn about the science of our bodies as it relates to cancer and the more I learned the more fascinated I became with how amazing the human body truly is!
Photo Shoot Day: In March 2021 I decided it was time to take some more professional photos! I booked a 3 hour session at a photo studio and I had so much fun shooting all of the work I've done since last year.
Almost done with Chemo - Calendar is SO full of ideas and progress and milestones.
Staring the radiation calendar 9.22.20
Finalizing the sticker icons
Working on the color palette. This is the hardest part. Color is so important. Here I was trying to see if I could match the color pencils I had been using to create the calendar icons.
Filling out the last few weeks of 2020
Every calendar page I have created since May 2020. Along with post its of little tidbits/quotes/reminders I would hear throughout my day when listening to podcasts.