Stills and Thesis

I had my midterm review for my thesis last week, and everything seems to be going swimmingly. I'm leaning in the direction of a book of some sort, more illustration-heavy than text-heavy, about my experiences with lupus and acute transverse myelitis over the past nearly eleven months.
It is going to involve a lot of visual metaphor, as I don't want it to be overly reliant on narrative or a literal interpretation. I want it to be able to be read in any order. Rather than reiterate my story from beginning to present, I want each page as well as the entire book to leave a lasting impression, because lasting impressions are how all the memories have manifested themselves as my own experience.
I also want to create artwork that could be interpreted as a wide variety of human experiences with hardship. I don't want my book to be read as simply a self-obsessed memoir; rather I want to take what I've experienced and weave it into something that is more widely accessible. Although what has happened in my life indeed brings a unique perspective, which I plan on utilizing to further the goals of my artwork, I want the end product I come up with to speak of universality. As example, one does not have to have been in a crippling auto accident or in chronic pain to appreciate the art of Frida Kahlo.

I've also gotten to paint some more film stills for my illustration painting class. Here's one that took me hours and hours despite its smallish size (9"x12"), but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I took the color scheme from a still from Hedwig and the Angry Inch and applied it to Daisies. Here's the result:

("Fashion Parade," gouache, 2011 © Amanda Russel)