Senior Project
My project idea is to research the topic of Art Therapy, to learn the benefits of doing art therapy and how helpful it can be for your well being. I’ll first do the research on the topic, what is it, what is it used for, then search for some of art therapy exercises. When I get an idea of what it is, write what those activities should be doing for you. If possible, I would make a list of possible activities people could do with art therapy, like making a teaching guide. A reference for people to use.
My project was a research base project in the beginning, having a basic understanding of what Art Therapy is before getting too far into the project. I read articles on what the definitions of it were.
Art Therapy is a form of psychotherapy involving the encouragement of free self-expression through painting, drawing, or modeling, used as a remedial activity. The use of artistic methods to treat psychological disorders and help heal.
Once understanding what it was to an extent, I created slides to present a class, an elementary school class, they were nicer and easier to speak too. My goal was to introduce them to the world of creating art to relax, to understand yourself better and to mainly create an art piece they would love to do in the future, later on in their life. I'd love the idea of learning a new form of art and being able to tell others about, being able to practice my skills to present and communicate to people about my interests along with being able showing them this art practice could be beneficial for them now, or later on in life, they just have to give it a try like many other things. I enjoyed the fact that art could be used to help improve your mental health, in ways where you create a piece that you think resonate with you, either with paint, a pencil, or paper cut outs, anything form of art is a form a healing and improving yourself. I loved the idea and chose this as my project, I want to learn and grow from what I know and do not know, learning no things and introducing it to people who are willing to learn.
My project was a research base project in the beginning, having a basic understanding of what Art Therapy is before getting too far into the project. I read articles on what the definitions of it were.
Art Therapy is a form of psychotherapy involving the encouragement of free self-expression through painting, drawing, or modeling, used as a remedial activity. The use of artistic methods to treat psychological disorders and help heal.
Once understanding what it was to an extent, I created slides to present a class, an elementary school class, they were nicer and easier to speak too. My goal was to introduce them to the world of creating art to relax, to understand yourself better and to mainly create an art piece they would love to do in the future, later on in their life. I'd love the idea of learning a new form of art and being able to tell others about, being able to practice my skills to present and communicate to people about my interests along with being able showing them this art practice could be beneficial for them now, or later on in life, they just have to give it a try like many other things. I enjoyed the fact that art could be used to help improve your mental health, in ways where you create a piece that you think resonate with you, either with paint, a pencil, or paper cut outs, anything form of art is a form a healing and improving yourself. I loved the idea and chose this as my project, I want to learn and grow from what I know and do not know, learning no things and introducing it to people who are willing to learn.
Proposal
The paper Proposal |
Started off with the project proposal, giving a summary to the class on what I wanted my project to look and be like. Then they give us the approval that our project is good for a senior project, to be able to graduate. My proposal to the class was simple, I read and do a little writing on what Art Therapy was, then in the end I'll enter a class and introduce them to the world of Art, a world where your work will always have meaning to you. Though it would not be a class if you did not have assignments nearly everyday to help develop your project. Finding a mentor was the first, then finding your people you want to have impact on, and then the impact you want to have on those people, you want to connect to their communities of course.
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What I did
I created the slides below for myself to be able to remember what it is that I learned about the topic of Art Therapy, found a mentor and met up to get what it is they are involved with. I found my mentor through my art teacher, when we met up they asked why I was interested in Art Therapy, my answer was simple, I enjoy art and the fact that there are ways to meet art into some form of a healing journey is something that peaked my interest. My mentor explained their story, how they needed and wanted help and how they found that Art Therapy was their form of help, how they slowly am learning to accept themselves and how the form of Art Therapy they were taught about was something they enjoy and is easy to teach to other. Then they told me about SoulCollage, just a simple form of creating a deck of cards, similar to tarot cards but you create your own and decide what it will look like. My mentor showed me their whole sketch book of their collages, it could be in a sketchbook or create a deck of cards, the choice is yours.
After meeting with my mentor, our senior classes did have assignments for us to do relating to our project, like going out into our respective communities to ask questions in person, like personal questions relating to our project, example, relating questions to my project I would ask, "Do you like creating art?", the questions could take them down a road if you ask the right thing. That class assignment was for us to speak to our communities in person to see how they respond to things, to see they body language and all the things you see when speaking to in person, though even if we were asking questions it should be more of a conversation than a interview. After that I think we just had to get out in the our project to continue and do them, I just worked on my slides for presenting and introducing myself and what I was there for, though the classes do have presentations you need to do to show your progress, progress presentations. I did all that and continue to work with my project, working on slides and finding more Art therapy activities for the students I would be teaching to do, introducing more than one so they could know there are all more things to create, not just collages. After that, I just had to find a class, luckily for me a teacher gave me some names and the emails of teacher who do not mind when students come into do their projects, so I had names and emailed them.
Then when a teacher accepted my proposal to come into their class to teach my lesson, I got ready by getting the magazines for the first part of my project, which was introducing them to Soul Collage. Then after, the next week I would introduce them to a different activity, "dual-face portrait was another one I told the students about, a simple form of just drawing your face, one side is your real face (what you look like), then on the other side of the face you draw what you feel like on the inside. Just a simple way of drawing who you are, what you are on the inside, are you someone that enjoy the life outside, then you would draw the outdoor on the other side of the face to show that. Then I told them about making post cards that you will never sent, the purpose of the post card is to write something to someone you want to say something to, or in the students case, I told them it was alright to write about an event that left an impression on them, happy or sad just write. Once they have their little message written out, then they would have to draw an image to represent that message.
After meeting with my mentor, our senior classes did have assignments for us to do relating to our project, like going out into our respective communities to ask questions in person, like personal questions relating to our project, example, relating questions to my project I would ask, "Do you like creating art?", the questions could take them down a road if you ask the right thing. That class assignment was for us to speak to our communities in person to see how they respond to things, to see they body language and all the things you see when speaking to in person, though even if we were asking questions it should be more of a conversation than a interview. After that I think we just had to get out in the our project to continue and do them, I just worked on my slides for presenting and introducing myself and what I was there for, though the classes do have presentations you need to do to show your progress, progress presentations. I did all that and continue to work with my project, working on slides and finding more Art therapy activities for the students I would be teaching to do, introducing more than one so they could know there are all more things to create, not just collages. After that, I just had to find a class, luckily for me a teacher gave me some names and the emails of teacher who do not mind when students come into do their projects, so I had names and emailed them.
Then when a teacher accepted my proposal to come into their class to teach my lesson, I got ready by getting the magazines for the first part of my project, which was introducing them to Soul Collage. Then after, the next week I would introduce them to a different activity, "dual-face portrait was another one I told the students about, a simple form of just drawing your face, one side is your real face (what you look like), then on the other side of the face you draw what you feel like on the inside. Just a simple way of drawing who you are, what you are on the inside, are you someone that enjoy the life outside, then you would draw the outdoor on the other side of the face to show that. Then I told them about making post cards that you will never sent, the purpose of the post card is to write something to someone you want to say something to, or in the students case, I told them it was alright to write about an event that left an impression on them, happy or sad just write. Once they have their little message written out, then they would have to draw an image to represent that message.
The Presentation Intro/Activities
Photos from SoulCollage activity
This activity is called SoulCollage, SoulCollage is a collage process, in which someone makes a personal deck of cards, one card at a time. In SoulCollage, create our own cards (in the class we did on big paper) however we see fit, cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing them on our cards. They can decide how to lay out their images, first they will look through the books and magazines to see which photo speaks out to them, what stands out. They will pick a background and a main piece of the card, like say a person, or an animal, or even an object, just anything that could be the main piece of the card. After that, they can decide to put as little or as many images as they please, and lay it out however they see fit.
They had free will to make the card to their liking, a lot of the students in the class did great at following the directions that were given to them. The class I went into was very respectful to me and asked some great questions, like how much can I put on the piece or can it look like anything I want, the answer was obvious, Yes! A lot of students in the class made some great pieces out of the magazines I gave them, and even when I use the same ones, I could be compared to them, they created such great pieces.
They had free will to make the card to their liking, a lot of the students in the class did great at following the directions that were given to them. The class I went into was very respectful to me and asked some great questions, like how much can I put on the piece or can it look like anything I want, the answer was obvious, Yes! A lot of students in the class made some great pieces out of the magazines I gave them, and even when I use the same ones, I could be compared to them, they created such great pieces.
Photos from Dual-Face Portrait
Dual-Face portrait was also simple and fun, students just had to think about who they are on the inside, who are you, an easy person to get along with, or are you shy. Students would think about that, then draw their faces on a paper, drawing a line down the middle of the face and pick which side will be the side that shows their outer face and which the inner face. I picked this activity because it was close to drawing, I thought the students would enjoy drawing for a change and because I thought that this activity would make you have think about who you are on the inside, reflect on yourself a bit and see what you really like about yourself, inside and out. This activity of drawing "Dual Self Portrait" helps us to build awareness of our true self, keep a tab on our goals. You could use color or maybe even cut out somethings you need for your drawing, thought that would be because you do not know how to draw the things you wanted to add to your drawing, aside from that you would create a portrait that is you on the outside and the inside.
Photos from Post Cards
This activity was also very simple, it was for the students to think about a time someone did something to you and you wanted to say something about but not to them. So this activity was a time for them to vent those thoughts, if you wanted to say something to someone but not really you would write a message to them in a post card form. They would just write it as if they were going to really sent the card, but, this one is were they do not sent it, just only for them to vent their thoughts. Also, when the message is written, on the other side of the card the students would draw an image that would represent the message. Once they have their message to a person or to anything that want to write about and an image, it is just for them to keep, not for anyone but them, because the message is person and it would not be right to ask for them to share, some of the students did share but it was to one of their classmates they like or trust.
Growth from me
Being able to bring something I thought was fun and educational to a class at first was scary to me, i thought the students would dislike the fact that I was there and trying to teach them something they did not want to know about, but the students were very respectful and enthusiastic about the activities. Growing through learning new informations online and through mentor, by speaking to them and listening to their story, their journey and so on.