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!!