Digital Documentation

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

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! :)

Loading the Scaffold!

So tomorrow Rebecca and I are finally going to go to Bay City and see our wall. Whoo hoo! I'm super excited. But we are not only going to go see our wall, we are also going to leave some materials over there so we can be ready for whenever we start painting (February 14-17). Our most important tool was the scaffold, which is what is going to help up reach the top of our 9.5 feet high wall. Rebecca and I had to load all the pieces of the scafold onto the Suburban on our own. This turned out to be an interesting experiance. First of all, it was painful because today happened to be one of the coldest days in Texas. (Seriously what is up with our wheather.) Well, escetially in the fifteen minutes or so that we spend loading the Suburban our hands got so cold that at one point I'm pretty sure they were numb. Also, Rebecca at one point got a splinter that I had to carefully take out. It felt like I was doing surgery on her finger cause I had to be careful not to make it worst - I was able to get it out in time for her basketball game. Yay!

This was just a little fun, yet painfully cold, experience that gets us one step closer to making our project a reality. I'm pretty sure we still have a lot more little stories that will come up. Like unloading the scaffold and picking the paint. Don't worry, I will keep yall posted on the progress of our project.

Full of Ideas!!

So at one point Rebecca and I could just not come up with what to paint, but we eventually settled on an idea. This idea is going great. We have already finished the sketch of it so that whenever we go to Bay City we can show Janet Peden or idea and see if she approves. Our fingers are crossed!!

Now we don't only have that idea to show her but we are currently working on another one. It still involves having the day and night but on this one we will have more going on in the background. This makes me so happy because it shows how much progress we are making. I'm so glad we are actually putting our ideas onto paper and each day we find new ways to make it better. I hope we keep up the good work because Creativity Week is getting closer - this is when we are actually going to go to Bay City to paint!

What to Paint!?

As I've mentioned before Rebecca and I found a place to paint. Let me remind you that it is a Boys and Girls Club in Bay City. When I found out we had a place, I thought to myself that our hard work had payed finally payed off and I got so excited. I remember thinking it would all get easier after this because having place plays such a huge role on our project.

Well now, reality has started to hit me. Yes, we have made a huge accomplishment but the rest is still to come. Now my biggest concern is what are we going to paint on our huge wall - 19 feet long. The last couple of weeks I had been a little anxious because, even though we had a lot of good ideas, we could never actually settle for one and go with it. It wasn't until this last week that Becca and I finally settled on an idea. We want half of our mural to be night and the other half to be day. And within each time we will paint different activities that kids like to do or that they dream of doing. The overall message we want to send out is to encourage little kids to dream big no matter what their dreams are. Little kids already do this but the problem is that as they are getting older they stop forgetting about these dreams and the creativity in them starts to die out. I can't change this but I do know that with this mural Becca and I can leave a little reminder for them.

Reflection

The process of getting ready to actually do our senior project has been a pretty exciting one, full of surprises. We got excited when though we had found a place but then it did not work out. Then somebody showed interest in us and we were offered a place in a Boys and Girls club in Bay City. We have a lot of people to thank for this, but most importantly each other. We were really able to step it up and find a place. This is one very crucial part of our project because without it our whole plan falls apart.

Now that we were able to find a place we are going to start concentrating on getting our review panel together. People we have in mind are;
Bicente DeLeon. His official title is the maintenance guy at my school, but he is way more than that to us. He mentors us and gives us good advice. Last year, Rebecca participated in a project were we painted our entire gym. It was an arduous process but the rewards were endless. Having people walk in and have their jaws drop was definitely worth. Mr.DeLeon guided us throughout the whole process so we think that he can really have some good input and suggestions for our mural.
Janet Peden. She is the lady that was able to help us find a place by offering her club. She does not only want to give us a wall but she is actually interested in seeing the progress of our project. She even offered to let us take over an art class one day. Since, she is the person that donated the money for the club to be built she probably spends some time with the kids and she could provide us with information. She could also be present when we are actually painting the mural.
Sarah Callahan Baker. Sarah is Rebecca's mentor and she is a member of the Chinquapin School board. She is willing to help us with any assistance we need dealing with the research. She even has kids of her that we can spend time with to better prepare us to the kids from the club.
Emmanuel Martinez. Emmanuel is actually a professional muralist. It would be an honor to be able to have him in our review panel. We have seen some of his work and it is truly amazing. If Emmanuel accepts to be in our panel he could really helps us with the idea of the actual mural itself. For example, what to paint or certain painting techniques. We would not make him do the work for us. We would present our idea and let him revise it.
David LaVassaur. David is the director of the Boys and Girls club in Bay City. We could us his help with the children. He spends most of the day with them so it would be really nice to get input about the attitudes of kids from somebody who actually knows the kids.

With regard to the research, we have two major components to making our project happen. One of them is painting the mural, the other is whether we can accomplish our goal of making children smile. This semester we made some really good progress with the actual mural. We were able to find a place, which required a lot of effort from our part. We had to make a lot of phone calls and e-mail a lot of people. This is definitely something that has helped me grow. I am not ussualy the type of person that is good with talking to strangers but I knew that I had to overcome that if I wanted to get anything done. With the second part of the research, I have to admit that we haven't really made a lot of progress. At the beginning of the year I was able to research facts that prove that smiling actually makes children happy. I also researched the type of colors that create an environment with a good mood. We are planning to incorporate these colors in our mural. So were we stand now we need to focus a little more on not just painting a mural but proving our point; it is important to make children smile.

We have a Place!!

Well, it is very exciting to know that we found a place! The Make-A-Wish foundation office didn't really work out but thanks to some connections we were able to get a place. It is a Boys and Girls Club located in Bay City. We are so excited to know somebody was actually interested in what our project ans was willing to help. The person that helped us is Janet Peden. She donated the money for this club to be built. When she heard about our project she got very excited with the idea of having teens painting a wall. Specially, since the purpose is making children happy. We are so thankful to her and we won't let you down Janet!

Make A Wish!!

So... One of the places we would really like to paint the mural in is the Make A Wish Houston Office. We even have a really good idea as to what we could paint. But before we can even think about what to paint we have to ask them if they will give us permission. We have actually tried to make contact with a lady that works there. Rebecca sent her an e-mail and the lady actually called Becca back and left her a voice mail. Last Friday, Becca actually went to Make A Wish but unfortunately she wasn't there. She did get to talk to another lady there that gave us some pretty good information. This lady suggested that we could help Make A Wish come true! She said that there are a lot of little kids that want themed rooms. For example, there is a little girl that wants a Paris themed room and there is also this little boy who wants a soccer themed room. Becca and I were really excited to hear this because if can't find a place to paint we can always help these kids with their wish. And in the end we would still be accomplishing our ultimate goal; painting a smile!

Why Smile..?

For this senior project, people keep asking me; why this is making children smile so important? I have really put a lot of time into finding the answer to this question, not just to give other people an answer but to really find a purpose for this project. That is why I have decided to give my Ted Talk on this topic. I want to show people why smiling is so important.

In order to find the answer to this question I have to do a little - well actually a lot - of research. While doing some of this research, I found 10 interesting facts about smiling. The are in the link located below,
Reasons to Smile

Jacek Utko Ted Talk

This Ted Talk was given by Jacek Utko. He is the designer for a small newspaper in Poland. After he started working for that newspaper the popularity increased up to 35% in only three years. The newspaper also recieved the award for the World's Best Designed Newspaper. But what really caught my attetion about this Ted Talk is the lessons he wants us to learn from his story, especially the second one. He states, "You can put your work to the highest possible level and anybody can do it. You just need Inspiration, Vision, and Determination. And you need to remember that good is not enough."

I find what he says really inspiring because I can relate to it. Rebecca and I want to accomplish something that to us seems like a really big and hard project. I know by experiance that painting a mural is not something simple. And especially not this one because we have the pressure that it is going to be seen by a lot of people. I think if we just keep in mind what Jacek said about having Inspiration, Vision and Determination we will be able to accomplish it. I get the inspiration from the kids. The vision that when im done it will have a small impact on somebody, or that somebody will have an impact on me. Also the determination that, at the end, we will be able to say "WE did it."