Finishing up my journey at The ZACC...

The   Well, yesterday was my final day as an intern at The ZACC, and it was absolutely wonderful!

We continued out watercolor paintings as some of the kiddos needed to finish up their works or even start them up because they had missed the previous week; and, these paintings are looking absolutely amazing! They have been loving this unit so far, and are even more excited to see what they will do with this unit of painting in the weeks to come. 

As some of the students finished their pieces sooner than others, we did have different activities available for them which included free draw and working on some signs for a contest that The ZACC was recently entered in! 

Missoula Federal Credit Union is currently hosting a contest amongst seven nonprofit organizations in the Missoula area, and the organization that is voted the winner will be receiving a huge donation from Missoula Federal Credit Union! When we told the kiddos about this opportunity, it's safe to say they were incredibly excited to hear about this, and we asked them if they would like to help with promoting The ZACC by making some "Vote For The ZACC" signs and posters, which they were more than happy to do. So, using a crayon melter, they all made some incredible signs! 

They had so much fun posing for the camera, which is pretty obvious from the photos; so we took different pictures of them displaying their signs and posters and will be using them to help promote The ZACC in this competition! 

As this journey is coming to an end for me, I truly couldn't have been happier with this experience as a whole. I learned so much from working with the kids, working with my work supervisor Linds, and working with my cooperating teacher, Karlene. 

They all have taught me so much in so many different ways. Working with all these kids taught me how to work with students in a different environment and on a different level than what you would usually expect in an art classroom, they taught me that no matter the age, children will always surprise you with the amount of knowledge they have and can obtain from learning. 

Each of these kids took to learning these art techniques differently, and each and everyone of them rose to the occasion in such an amazing way, I'm incredibly proud of them. While working with my work supervisor, I learned how to work in a new environment and further develop my skills of communication, diligence, time management and so much more! Working with Linds was so much fun, she was an incredibly woman to help and intern for, and I enjoyed every minute I had at The ZACC because she gave me this opportunity. And finally, working with Karlene was great! I felt that we worked really well together and truly utilized the co-teaching method. Even though she was the lead teacher in the classroom, she made me feel like her equal, not just an assistant to her, which made me feel even so much more comfortable throughout this entire experience! 

I have loved working at The ZACC so much, that I plan on continuing as a volunteer this summer with their different summer camps and with other opportunities available to me through them. I'm excited to continue my work as a volunteer with them, I feel that I will continue to only enhance my learning and teaching skills with this, and that this experience as a whole is something that I will truly never forget and always be thankful for! 

I will be continuing with this after school program until our student work show on June 10th, just as a volunteer rather than an intern, but I'm so excited to finish this unit with the kids, they all have incredible potential in the art world and I'm so happy I get to work with them just a little bit longer at least. With that being said, I know it will be hard to finally say goodbye to them when I do, but even with that goodbye, I can still be very thankful for such a wonderful and enlightening experience I have had whole working with all of them! 

Beginning to wrap things up at The ZACC...

With this week's experience at The ZACC as an intern, we began our new unit of Painting Explosion with our students! With this unit we have a smaller group of students, only about 7 in this unit rather than the 12-14 we have had periously, but everyone that is in this unit has worked with us previously so they are all familiar faces for us! Which makes it even more enjoyable for everyone! 

After talking with Karleen before our after school program actually started, she informed me how after the previous drawing unit, a critique that was given by many of the parents was using more technical aspects with what their children are learning in our class. Their parents would like to see them utilizing different techniques and skills they are being taught through their child's artwork, although they love seeing their students utilize their creativity in their art works, they also want to make sure they are learning new lessons, which is very understandable. With all that, I just want to make sure they students still feel that they are being creative freedom in certain aspects because in my opinion, as an art educator, creative freedom is incredibly important in the classroom. 

With all that being said, we began a new project that surrounds the idea of watercolor paintings. This particular project will be displayed at the End of the School Year show, which the students participating in both Tuesday's and Thursday's after school programs will be displaying different works from their units at The ZACC for an entire month! The opening night will be on June 10th and our students are so incredibly excited for this opportunity! 

They are currently in the process of doing a collaborative work with a partner where one of them is creating the upper part of a figure and the other is creating the lower half of the same figure and putting them together to make a whole. We partnered our students up instead of having them choose their own partners, and it is turning out to be a great experience for them so far. They learned the introductory techniques of watercolor painting, how to create a wash of a color by utilizing more water than paint in their works and developing a big idea by working together to decide the best plan of action for their paintings. 

As of today, they sketched out their ideas and have begun their backgrounds, some are a little further than others with their paintings, but we will be continuing this project onto next week. We want our students to work incredibly hard with these pieces since these are the ones that have been chosen to be displayed at the end of the year show, and we cannot wait to see how they all turn out! 

Stay tuned for next week, and see the finished products! 

A little bit of catching up...

Well, as you saw in my last blog post, I was helping with The ZACC's mini show that was coming up just before I went on Spring Break. Well, to give a little update, I actually haven't been able to be back at The ZACC since my last blog post... But, the reason for that is I had to deal with the very sudden death of my cousin, Hanna, basically right after my Spring Break was finished. So, these past few weeks have been very difficult to say the least, but even with that, I discovered even more how great it is to work with this organization. They were incredibly understanding of me needing to take time to deal with everything that comes with a sudden death, and I will be forever grateful for that.

I currently am planning on making up my time I have missed by going in two additional days this week, and I cannot wait to be back there. I have truly missed it, I've missed working with the kids, the teacher, and everyone that is apart of The ZACC family. My first day back will be tomorrow, and I can't wait to update everyone on me continuing my adventures with The ZACC.

Updates coming soon!!

Week 7... Spending a Saturday at The ZACC

This week was a bit different for me. Because I knew I would miss working my internship this Tuesday and I will be missing two Tuesdays because of Spring Break, I thought going in for an extended time on a Saturday could help make up for lost hours; and I'm so very glad that I did! 

My work this weekend was very different from the work that I normally do during my internship hours. Instead of working with the kiddos like I normally do, my time was spent helping my supervisor, Linds, with preparations for The ZACC's Mini Show, and helping with some set up for two different Birthday parties The ZACC was hosting yesterday.

My assistance with helping with the setup for the birthday parties was fairly brief, as my supervisor had already accomplished most of the setup before I had gotten there, so my next task was to finish up painting the signs for the Mini Show that is happening next weekend at The Wilma. The Mini Show is The ZACC's largest event of the year and a very big deal for the center. This show allows for great publicity and fundraising for the center as well. Unfortunately, due to the holiday weekend next weekend, I am unable to attend the show, which I am very disappointed about! The show sounds like a great event to me, and I would have very much liked to attend it, but at least now I can be happy with knowing I helped out with the preparations for it.

 Linds asked me to finish painting these signs and I didn't think it would take me that long, but it took me the remaining time I had planned on spending for my hours of volunteering yesterday, which totaled spending about 5 hours at The ZACC yesterday. The signs that I worked on were hand painted on large canvas and were very fun to work on, but took so much time! I hadn't painted in awhile, so my hand was pretty sore from the whole process due to my arthritis and my recent hand surgery I had, but it felt so incredibly amazing to get back painting; even if the painting wasn't technically my own original piece, I forgot how much I missed it. 

I spent this time painting putting down the base coat for one sign, and working on some of the finishing touches for the other since one of the signs was practically finished it just needed some touch ups where the other sign needed most of the base color painted on it still. I'm planning on going to my internship on Tuesday early to finish up the final touches one them so that they will be totally finished for this weekend's show! I wish I had thought of taking some before shots of the canvases before I had finished the base coats so you could have seen what the ketches looked like, but the after photos do it justice I believe. The only draw back to this painting process was that it was a long and tedious process because of the small details needed within the piece and the fact that the sizes of the brushes that were available to me we night incredibly large, so it was even more time consuming due to that. But, regardless of the long process it took, I really enjoyed spending most of my Saturday painting. It made me miss painting and want to get back into it! And, I think I will do that, as I start to free up more time in my life, I'd really like to start painting and drawing more often. So, with that we will see what all happens. 

Week 6 in Potter's Paradise...

Well, this week was our final session for Potter's Paradise at The ZACC! As I wrote in my previous entry, we weren't able to create any wet work this week because the students who were not continuing into the next session wouldn't be able to collect or even finish their latest wet works, so we opted to have a bit of a party this week instead. 

In celebration of our last day of Potter's Paradise, we worked with the kiddos on catching them up on any last minute painting they maybe needed to complete on their works still (instead of glazing any works we had them paint them with acrylic paint instead) and then we gave them a multitude of options to choose from on how they wanted to spend their time with the time we had for the remainder of class. 

We had some students choose to work on their free drawing, some worked on "bean art" which was creating different designs using beans, and others worked with oil pastels to take up the opportunity to work with a new medium. It was pretty clear that everyone was really enjoying the last day, especially because it was more of a laid back day for them, as compared to previous sessions. It also gave us, the instructors a chance to really listen to the kiddos and what they talked about with each other whether it was regarding art or even current events. It's always very entertaining to listen to kids give their opinions or talk about current events; but, let me tell you, it is incredibly entertaining to listen to a group of 6 to 11 year olds talk about the current presidential election. I found out they we have some very opinionated kids on our hands. 

With that being said, even though we only worked with the kids for 6 weeks, I really so a great development in their maturity during our time of working with them, and I'm really excited for the fact that most of the kids from Potter's Paradise will be joining us in our next session which is all about drawing! It will be exciting to see how their creative processes transition from working with 3-D works to working in 2-D... I can't wait to see the results! 

Weeks 4 and 5 in Potter's Paradise...

Unfortunately, last week I was unable to attend my internship due to being sick, but I was able to make up for it this week by spending a bit extra time with the kiddos! But, before I get into the adventures of this week, let me briefly mention what all occurred last week during my absence. 

Last week, the kids were taught how to make ceramic rattles! I am so bummed that I missed out on an awesome opportunity of watching their creativity show through their work because when I was able to see the nearly finished products this week, I was truly amazed! Each of the kids participating in this after school program have truly excelled beyond any expectations I may have had for them during the beginning stages of this exciting adventure! For their rattles, I noticed that not one rattle looked similar to another! Everyone truly made their rattle their own and did a wonderful job with them! Unfortunately, there were some students who did fall a bit behind because their rattles ended up not quite working out for them, but they were able to catch up this past week, and make some new rattles! It's a good thing they were able to too, because this past week was our last week of creating wet works through the Potter's Paradise Session, because after this next week we will begin a new session and won't be able to load anything else into the Kiln. 

With that being said, this last week was spent finishing up any wet works the kiddos were still working on or wanting to create and finalizing any glazing or finishing up any glazing that some of the kiddos were still working on. By the end of class, everyone was fully caught up on all their glazing and became super excited to see what they all will turn out looking like once they are out of the kiln next week. 

To give you an idea of how this week went exactly for us all, here are a few pictures! 

As you can see from the pictures, everyone was working incredibly hard to finish their pieces. For myself, I could see that each of them were incredibly proud of themselves for all that they have accomplished so far in this class, as they should be. It honestly is a bit sad that after this week we will be finished with our Potter's Paradise session, but it is also equally exciting that we will be starting up our drawing session in just two weeks!! Unfortunately, not all of our students are continuing on into our drawing session, but we still have quite the handful of kids that are carrying over into that session. I'm really thankful for that because I have really been enjoying working with them, and would love to see what they can do with a new medium to work with. 

This week, since we won't be able to fire anything in the kiln, we will be having a little Potter's Paradise Party for the kids with it being their last week, and I hope they all enjoy it. We are going to watch different potter and ceramic videos and bring some fun snacks for the kids to enjoy, so I really hope they have as much fun as all us teachers think they will!! 

Until next time... See you next week for another report on my adventure so far!! 

Weeks 2 and 3 in Potters' Paradise...

Last week, our students participating in the Potters' Paradise worked on making cups and mugs out of slabs. This ended up being an incredibly well received project for the students and enticed their creativity even more than the first week had.

As the students worked on their mugs last week, this week was spent working on catching up on all of our glazing and creating coiled plates, bowls and even cups. In the above image, you are able to see the latest works that were fired and read to either continue glazing or finish with the final clear coat glaze to add the finishing touches to the pieces.

Before most the students started on their glazing, we gave them three different options to choose from on how they wanted to start out their day with us. They had the choice of continuing glazing, working on some new free draw projects, or starting up on the latest coil process. Most of the students decided to work on their glazing before they would start their newest project, but there were still some students who decided to work on their free draw first instead.

During their free draw exercise, we allowed some students to work with crayons on a hotplate to create different drawings rather than solely relying on makers and pencils like they have in the past few weeks.

Throughout the class, to was clear that the students were very much enjoying the new coil technique they were learning. It seemed that everyone made different shapes with their coils from stars and hearts to circles and squares; along with shapes varying, sizes also varied greatly among each of the students' works. One of my favorite parts of this experience is watching their faces light up as they are diving into the entire creative process. To see such young minds being exposed to art and throughly enjoying their experience with it is truly refreshing! Along with this, one thing that made this week particularly special for me was the fact that one of my students made a special pottery piece just for me. 

As a teacher, one of the greatest feelings is knowing you've made an impact on your students' lives, so for them to give you a work of art that they are so incredibly proud of is one of the greatest feelings in the world.

We have three more weeks of enjoying Potters' Paradise, and then we will be diving into a six week drawing experience that I am so excited to be apart of! Seeing how much these students are growing with these art lessons is so exciting, I can't wait to see how much they grow with the up coming weeks!!

The above images are of the finished glazed pieces that need to be fired so they can be taken home next week and are also the finished coiled pieces that need to be fired before they can be glazed next week as well. As you can see, styles and creativity are nothing short of a wide range in our classroom, and it's incredibly exciting to see our students think outside the box like they do. I personally cannot wait to see what next week has in store for us. 

The Beginning of My Adventure...

On Tuesday, I began my adventure at The ZACC, and I am so excited that I am having this experience, so let me explain how my time at The ZACC is going to be spent!! I am going to be interning here this semester to fill my final studio class credits before I graduate this spring. My time here is going to be spent working with kids ages 4-11 on different art projects throughout the semester. On Tuesday, we began a brand new unit with a new class called Pottery Paradise! Some of the children had already taken classes at The ZACC and are returning students and others were experiencing The ZACC.

At the beginning of the lesson, the kids were a bit apprehensive about it, but the moment they were given some artistic freedom, their attitudes changed completely. The lesson was all about creating clay spoons. The younger children did have some difficulties with it the different steps to create a spoon, but the older children really excelled. By allowing them to create any type of spoon and to decorate it and make it their own, they felt more comfortable with the entire process and much more confident in themselves as well.

Sometimes, art can be a scary thing to students, when they are exposed to new things that they have never done before or even heard of before. But, when we allow them to have some freedom to express and display their creativity the results are endless and wonderful to see.

When I saw the excitement in these kids' eyes, I saw how creativity and artistic starts at such a young age and can only progress; this program at The ZACC allows for that expression to take place.