Probably not. I’ll need lots of help and guidance, but I’ll do what I can. This is the place to follow my progress. At work that is… Just click the images below, and it'll lead you to a comic strip of my work progress in the selected month. I update them monthly. If you'd like to follow my progress and thoughts more closely take a look at Twitter @Ditte_Engholm.
If you're curious about my original planning, you'll find it at the bottom of the page
This was my first official month working on the visual review project. It’s been great, busy, and even frustrating at times – just take a look of the stick-updates by clicking the image to the left. I was supposed to complete the things listed to the left. Let’s start with the easy one – the website. Obviously, this went okay (if I may say so). After a frustrating start, I’m quite happy with the result and I now even like to update it. I also (sort-of) finished my list of proteins. I didn’t have any luck finding a quantitative proteome for the pneumococcus so my list isn’t finished yet. However, I expect it to be almost finished. The list now counts 247 different proteins (of a genome encoding roughly 22000 genes). For all of these listed proteins, I arranged with SWISS-MODEL to run them through their automated modeling program for me. Some didn’t give an output model, but most did (some good ones and some not quite so good ones). All in all, I think February went quite okay!
March didn't really go as planned. I was supposed to draw all the individual proteins. And I didn't. However, I'm ready to get the program PyMOL to do it for me. Just before the Easter holidays, I tried out the commands in PyMOL and I'm sure it'll be great. I still need to finish my list of proteins. It's been difficult to figure out how to handle the proteome data but I hope that we've found an expert who'll help. I was also supposed to link my excel workbook to the drawings of each protein. I've become quite fond of this website-making and I've decided to present the data in a different way. I'll make a drop-down menu for each heading in my "pneumococcal cast"-list: For instance, I'll make a drop-down menu for the heading "Energy" and in the menu you'll be able to choose from "glycolysis" "pentose phosphate pathway" etc. And each choice will link to a pdf of the data for that heading. I think it'll be great. I've spent some days trying to prepare my presentation at the More Than Pretty Pictures Conference in April. I'll be using the first week of April to prepare as well. To get the full story of March you just have to click the image to the left.
Good things first: I did give a talk at the More Than Pretty Pictures conference. It went very well, and all the participants were so interested and gave me all sorts of input and nice comments. Apparently I should take leave and go to art school to refine my skills and even use social media (which I hadn't thought of at all). Those were just a few of the comments. Lots of nice people and lots of nice experiences!
Regarding the target journal. We did concider. And we decided. But I'm not telling.
And then the drawing... I'm looking very much forward to it. Yes, I didn't do it. Didn't even start it... But hey! I did a tiny sketch and it was great summarizing my thoughts in a sketch for a single narrative. David Goodsell will be here in the beginning of May so we'll be working with that sketch. Yay! In fact I'm liking the idea so much that I think I'll do small sketches for all of the narratives before I do the big painting. In the process I'll try to explain it in writing. I also (with loads of help from Bjørn) did a catalogue of all the pneumococcal cast - when printed the proteins are in the correct scale. So I'm on my way towards the big painting. Slowly though :)
May was all about drawing, painting and reading. Yes, I did a painting. Only 25x25cm, but I'm very proud of it. At the conference in April I was adviced to create my own style and so I did. I used the style of David Goodsell, but with my own touch to it and in different colors. It was a wonderful experience working with him. I never did a watercolor painting before so I had to learn much.
Now that the test painting is done I have to evaluate the style of it - colors etc. They have to be effective in communicating the narratives but also in showing the "nature" of the cell.
So test painting took me almost 2 weeks. A 1,6m x 1,6m big painting would take me forever - or at least ther rest of my PhD. David suggested that I just painted the narratives. That's my plan now, and then I'll place them on a rough sketch of the entire cell to give an impression of the size of it.
At the moment I'm finishing some reading in order to get ready to draw the small sketches. I was supposed to do so this month but everything takes much longer than I thought. Rather do it right that fast, eh? I'm a bit nervous about it but I'll start June by giving myself a rough idea of what to include in the different sketches. More paintings here I come!
And btw. I got myself a twitter profile @Ditte_Engholm. I've got (almost) no followers at the moment, but you'll be able to follow my comic strip there.
June was supposed to be about writing the stories to be told in my paintings. And it actually was. However, I imagined that it would be much faster but apparently I'm a rather slow writer. I finished 6 out of 8 narratives (1 semi-boring and 1 very-difficult left) and I think they're a good starting point for at discussion with the expert. If I'm lucky he'll ask other experts that he knows to give feedback. Everything is so complex, and I might have misunderstood or simply not read a single very specific article.
Because everything takes much more time, than I can predict, it's also great that it was confirmed that I finished my teaching duties: This should "free" 140h/semester for my project! wee :)
With more time on my hands, my lovely supervisor (un)officially asked me to write a book chapter for a conference-themed book. It wasn't really a question, but I'm looking forward to it.
July is going to be busy, but I hope to get things done before the summer holidays
July means times for 14 days off. But before that a lot of things had to be done!
I've been reading about colors. I finished my narratives and receiced (rather positive) feedback on them from my pneumococcal expert. After finishing my narratives I wanted to check with the proteomic data, that I had mentioned the most highly expressed proteins. I hadn't... So that kept me busy for a while. But rather slow than sloppy, eh?
I'll be writing a chapter for a book (an anthology), so I've made an outline for the chapter and will start writing after the holidays :)
I finished all of my models! Yay! That is, if the pneumococcal experts has only subtle changes to my narratives that doesn't not include new actors...
I wrote 8 short popular scientific stories about my narratives. They're supposed to be easily understood and more fun to read for the general population. They include crazy analogies. I've discovered that I find it much more fun to write popular scientific texts than the traditional strict (sometimes boringly precise) scientific texts. I like the idea of people understanding what I'm working with - not just communicating for the sake of a few hundred other scientists.
My sweet supervisor liked both my long narratives and the short ones. She suggested that I should write a book after my PhD. That made me fear the post-uni after-life but also had me dreaming of a real job.
How wonderful! September was a month, where I acutally did (almost) everything on my list! I made a nice litlle document called "PhD thesis structure". I already edited it once. But that's okay. I went through a whole heap of old dissertations at the library to get some inspiration for the structure. And the structure was approved by both my supervisor and my formal supervisor. With a comment that of course it should be subject to change if necessary.
While deciding on a structure for my dissertation I also made a timeplan. I put 3 weeks for most of the eight paintings. Some of them I know will take 4 weeks, so they were assigned extra time. I put in everything like deadlines for the book chapter review and small stuff like that.
Talking about the book chapter. I didn't quite finish that yet. But I've been taking a course in popular scientific communication. It takes about 2 whole days each week. So I've been busy... But happy :)
I was supposed to really actually finish my book chapter. And I sort of did. But then I began to receive feedback from co-authors, and that required a lot of work. I'm previledged that they will actually spend time reading my text and help me get better. But it's a frustrating process. When I finish, I will have to make a comparison between my orginal text and the final one, to see if there is anything left of me :) Following the feedback I also did some adjustments on my cartoon analogies. I think they turned out nicely!
At my dissemination course I met some intersting and talented people. Including journalists. Hanne Kokkegaard from the national Danish news site DR was interested in writing a story about my project - both painting and cartoons. My supervisor accepted that I could show her my test paitning and make it public!
I made myself an Instagram profile similar to my twitter account @ditte_engholm. But of course I started out without followers...
I did not do the transformation painting. Decided to not start the paintings before next year. I'll finish loose ends, write some of my thesis first (which I did do)
I did edit the narratives in to prepare them for my thesis (it's sooo nice to be able to delete something from my list!)
In the beginning of November I planned a trip to Copenhagen. To visit my supervisor, who lives there now, and the Danish science news site videnskab.dk. I had a nice discussion of my project with my supervisor, and at videnskab.dk I'll be starting a blog (hopefully in the new year) to make my project more accessible to the public.
I tried to plan my paintings with my supervisor. Calculated that I have to make approximately half a square meter of painting. That's nearly 4 square centimeters per workday according to my time schedule. Hopefully it'll go brilliantly, but it takes a lot more work than can be seen from the painting.
Regarding the paintings: I decided on a colour scheme for them. I'll still be using my favorite colours but also some warm earth colors and violet. Might sound horrible, but I think it'll be brilliant.
I've been working om the book chapter forever now. And it's still not finished... But I sent it to the last co-author for comments. Hopefully I don't have to change too much...
I took a photoshop course, and my supervisor approved for me to take illustrator courses as well. I'll be doing that in december :)
How nice to start the holidays with a checklist on which I can cross out every single line!
I did the Photoshop course. And also two Illustrator courses. I'm not yet an expert, but practices makes perfect, right? I'm getting good with the pen tool in Illustrator, but I'll stick to my wacky drawings with the brush tool using my wacom tablet. It's more me.
The writing workshop was great. Very nice people and lots of great discussion. Both writing-realted and just fun (scientific) discussions. My chapter is nearly done. Got some chapter feedback, carree advice, general advice about writing, and I'll try using a proposed color analyzer for the colors of my "real" paintings. I'm looking forward to that!
The editors of the book (where my chapter is the first) has been accepted for publication. This secured me the first (of three) publications required for my PhD. I've also made a proposal to write a visual review for a journal. I'm hoping for a positive response in the new year, but my (otherwise always positive) superviser warned me about 17 possible rejections before a journal will accept the review.
If (or when) the review will be accepted, that'll leave only one required article. My aim is to make a partition study with high-school students to analyze the effect of my paitnings in understanding the process of pneumococcal transformation.
With lots of happy holiday wishes
Ditte
First of all, January didn't go according to the plan. It didn't go wrong either. I just didn't follow my plan: Make one painting.
In stead I finished three sketches for the final paintings and made four sketches that are ready for approval by supervisor. That's pretty okay, I think! But I also did spend all evenings working except for the weekends... But I'm in a hurry if I must finish on time. And I must!
I've also prepared the participation-study to test the effectiveness of my painting compared to ordinary text book illustrations. So.. Although I'm not sticking completely to my plan, I'm doing okay - but I'm looking forward to start painting soon (curious to see what will happen in my new office when they find out that I day the water colors with a blow dryer...)
February came and went very fast. But I did do everything that I wanted to. And more! Yes, more :)
Here goes: I did three paitnings! One of them my supervisor didn't like (because she didn't like dark brown... some sort of corduroy trousers trauma from her childhood...). She tried to convince me to paint the cytoplasm red. Didn't want to, so I sticked to my green and brown colours but omitted the darkest brown. And then she approved it. So now I've don't two paintings.
Also, I did start on my method article. Didn't quite finish it, but I will. At some point (soon-ish), but first I have to re-write a lot of my book chapter, because it was suddenly too "molecular biological" - which isn't that odd, because that's me, the molecular biologist. But the revised chapter is due in the beginning of March, so I'm busy.
Bonus-info. My cartoons will be presented at the Danish science site videnskab.dk from now on:
videnskab.dk/bagsiden/en-phd-studerendes-bekendelser-de-forste-forskermoder
March was a great month. I sent the participation study to the high schools and they'll start doing the surveys in April. Also, I've finished five of the small paintings and I only need a little bit to finish the sixth sketch before I can transfer it - but that little bit I still need to do I've got no clue on how to do. Good people are tried to help me out, though :)
March was also a month with me in a radio feature in national radio. And I was also invited to do a talk at Forskningens Døgn (Day of the research).
Although my sweet colleagues tried to convince me that I actually do real research, my kids don't think I do nothing but play at work... I disagree although I really like my PhD project
I absolutely love it, when I can cross out everything on my to-do-list! I did both the big paintings and did the final small painting showing the cell division in the bacterium. Not much more to say than: Yay!
...that I'm not really sticking to. I keep getting new ideas and changing stuff. But here it is:
