Digital Documentation

This video is the digital documentation of process it took to complete our senior project, Painting Smiles.

Final Presentation

So we had our final presentation on Friday, April 8th. It was pretty successful! Considering it was in Bay city (2 hours away), we actually had classmates come and support us. Thank you Massita, Tamar, Lore, Cesar, Eduardo,and Luis for coming to our presentation. Also we actually had three teachers show up; Susan, Dorothy, and Jeremy. Thank you for taking the time to drive all the way over there. Hopefully the snacks were worth it.
But yeah Rebecca and I did a pretty good job in dividing equally all the points we had to cover so each talked for the same amount and we didn't have any necessary repetition. I think we did a pretty good job at it. We covered all that we wanted. Well we did forget to mention one fun fact about the mural. We spent a total of 32 hours on the actual making of it!! Overall i would say it turned out to be pretty awesome and the feeling of being done in great. It feels amazing to know that we are officially done with the actual project. Now we just need to work on the digital documentation.

We are Famous!

Well, last week that we were at Bay City two local newspaper came over to the Boys and Girls Club and interviewed us. The newspaper Matagorda Advocate came on Tuesday and The Tribune came on Thursday. Adriana Acosta, from Matagorda Advocate, seemed very excited to do an article on us because she used to be involved with the Boys and Girls Club. She was a teacher there so whenever something happens at the club she likes to write about. I think we gave her a pretty good story. :)

These are the links
Matagorda Advocate

The Tribune

We are Done!!

Our mural is now done and signed!!

I would be lying if I said this process was easy. It required a lot of work and time outside of class. To begin with, finding a place was the hardest part because without this we couldn't make our senior project happen. Once that was done our challenge became coming up with a design. We had to paint something that had meaning but that also made the people that looked at it smile! Fortunately we got the inspiration from another mural and got our idea. Now it was time to actually paint the mural. We had to make 3 trips prior to creativity week so that we would be ready to just get there and start painting. We also had to make a trip to Sherwin Williams to buy the 14 water-based colors we used. On Wednesday(Feb.16), time really began to be a pressure so we had to work from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. That day we were exhausted but we still had to go back to Janet's house and cut out start for an activity. Then the next day we worked at full speed so we could have enough time to do touch-ups.

We worked very hard last week but we enjoyed every moment of it. Painting was a challenge at times but it was regarding to, at the end of the day, look back and see all the progress we had done. The Boys and Girls Club now has an awesome, permanent mural of little children chasing their dreams. So whenever Rebecca and I go back to see it, all the memories of the good times spent there will rush back into our heads.

Girls, girls, girls!!!

"Girls, girls, girls!!" That was the first reaction we got when the little kids at the Boys and Girls club saw us. It was on Tuesday and we had been working on the mural all day, when the kids finally started arriving. Since on the past occasions they had not seen us working - the had only seen the progress on the wall - they were curious to know who "the painters" were. "The painters" would become our new nickname.At first they were a little shy but eventually they warm-up to.

Whenever they were in the computer room and we were working on the mural, they get easily distracted with what we were doing. At one point, we decided to give a little girl and boy the chance to actually paint. Epic fail! They painted outside the marked lines, which we later had to go back and fix, and one of them kept jumping with the paintbrush in his hand. (This made us really nervous cause there was carpet on the floor and the paint didn't come out easily.) After that small experience we realized we needed another way of getting them involved.

On Thursday, we got to take over an art class(from 5:45 to 6:30) in which we allowed them to decorate a star. The plan is to later laminate it and put them on the wall. The children really enjoyed the activity and went all out by putting a lot of paint on those stars.

Overall the experience with the kids was very rewarding because we enjoyed spending time with them and hearing their good feedback about the mural!

So far, we have been talking a lot about the sketches we've been doing but here is the actual picture so that y'all can get an idea of what we have been talking about. This design is our original idea. The left side is the night and the right side is the day. On the left, the stars represent dreams children might have and on the right we have example of those wishes. (Playing sports, reading, and the all time favorite FLYING!!)

This design here is our second one. The same concept still applies; the left is the day, the right is the night, and the children are just doing things they enjoy. The main difference on this second one is that the stars aren't there. So instead of having the children's dreams we have some of their favorite hobbies.

We already presented these two designs to Janet and David, from the Boys and Girls Club and they already picked one. It might not be exactly like the ones y'all see here but it will definitely be better! :)

Trip to Bay City!

The trip to Bay City was a success! Well, it actually didn't start that way. Vicente DeLeon, a member of our panel, took us there on Wednesday. Neither him or us had been there before so we had to mapquest the address and follow them step by step. As you can imagine, something went wrong. Mr.DeLeon trusted that we would tel him exactly what to do and he would just drive. Well apperantly, Big Mistake! We accidently told him to exit 288 way too early and we ended up driving in the dirrection where we were coming from for about 30 minutes. This is only because at one point Rebecca and I had an inkling that something was wrong. We just kept looking at each other wondering who would have the guts to tell Mr.DeLeon. Eventually I did and - as expected - he didn't trust us anymore so he took the directions away from us. :( This made us really behind.

But just because we had a bad start doesn't mean it ended bad. Eventually, we got there and I finally got the chance to met Janet Peden. She is such a nice lady that made us feel welcomed and seemed very enthusiastic about the project. She invited us to the room where our wall is located. It is Big! (We have a lot of work ahead of us.) There we sat down with Janet, the director of the Boys and Girls club, and also a teacher of the kids. We showed them both of our sketches, of the potential mural designs, and their reaction were priceless. The liked them a lot! But they were instantly drawn to a particular one. They gave some suggestions and we agreed to come back on that Sunday (February 6) to project and trace the outline of it. The time for creativity week is getting closer by the minute so there's no time to waste.

So there it goes. We now have an official sketch of the mural and its Amazing! We really can't wait to get started on it! :)