Relay for Life -- May 21 to 22

Time spent: 20 hours
Total time: 48 hours
Actions: I painted people's faces with another girl from 2 to 4 at a booth, which attracted lots of kids and some teens. That was quite fun as I'd never face painted before, and it still gave me a chance to spread my art, just in a different way than I've been doing. The color of the walkers' faces made their parents smile and lifted the overall spirit of the group, which was my goal. I then worked on caricatures inside one of the tents, in between walking laps around the track, the fun activities that the Relay for Life committee had planned for us, and the symbolic ceremonies held in order to remember those lost.
Next action: Finish up my paper and tell Jon about the amazing experience I had at Relay! And of course to work on my presentation.
How am I doing?: Although I didn't get to pass them all out that day, I hope that my caricatures had a positive impact on the brave survivors (and their friends/family) that had the strength to go on with the cancer relay. My goal for that day was not only to bring about smiles through my art, but also to get others to appreciate art, in any form; the talented musical performers and dancers definitely achieved that.
Some of the research I did reiterated that cancer patients who were exposed to rich paintings required less medication and therapy than those who were exposed to none, and maybe my caricatures will have a similar, miniature affect on the people I encountered.

May 16 to 19

Time spent: 3 hours
Total time: 28 hours
Actions: I have contact with Allison H., The American Cancer Society Manager for this region, so I plan on having Relay for Life, a major fundraising event of ACS's, be my volunteer hours. I also have contact with the entertainment chair for the event, and I hear some people are doing face painting for free. Since this has to do with my paper's subject, I'll do both caricatures and face painting for cancer survivors and their friends/family at the event. To raise money beforehand, I started advertising my somewhat polished caricaturing skills with tweets, blogs, and statuses to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
Next action: Continue publicizing.
How am I doing?: Here's some examples of my advertising:

Want a cartoonified version of your beautiful face? If you donate, I can caricaturize you like I’ve caricaturized Makhijani, Martens, Panosian, etc.!  $7 b&w/color, +$3 for extra stuff. Lol this is seriously a great use of $ bc 100% of the proceeds go toward curing cancer. Taking requests until Saturday.email: christenw00t@gmail.comtwitter: @netsirhc 

I managed to get a lot of interested donors by doing this, students and nonstudents alike. Hopefully at Relay for Life, people will continue to want me to make more.

Teacher Appreciation Week May 9 to 13

These are some (but not all) of the many caricatures I did for Teacher Appreciation Week, when I used my newly-acquired skill for the good of our school as well as to get more practice. I split the work with 4 other people, so I only did about 25 of these, each of which required much insight into their interests/hobbies. Jon said they looked good! It takes much longer to color them than it is to simply make b&w ones, so hopefully at my volunteer event I can be more swift at getting them done. These were also much more time consuming because most of them were done on 8ft x 1.5ft pieces of paper.

Ms. Pascoe (counselor)

Ms. Berg (principal) 

Ms. Ravano (my physics teacher) 

Mr. Calac (my physics student teacher)

Mr. Makhijani (my AP bio teacher -- he loves Lady Gaga too!) 

Ms. Fiedler (my English teacher)

Ms. Lauderdale (English student teacher)

Ms. Elder (copyroom lady) 

Mr. Martens (math teacher & my calculus teacher)

Mr. Riskind (English teacher)

Ms. Panosian (my English teacher) 

Ms. Gron (AP government and my world history teacher) & Ms. Connery (math teacher)

My favorite part about this is that we did it to appreciate the awesome people at EC! I have so much respect for those that work in education, and these don't even express a tenth of the thanks I want to give them all. I had some fun because it was challenging to somehow incorporate something their interests in the background, which I've seen other caricaturists do at theme parks. It was extremely tiring to complete these in just a few days while studying for my three AP exams (maybe even as challenging as senior project as a whole), but it was awesome practice and it's really helped me polish my skills. I am very exhausted, and I truly hope the teachers appreciate them. I wish I could've made all of EC staffs' caricatures!

It's getting too hard to keep up with posts so I'll just type these up on word and post them later.

Read the title.

May 7

Time spent: 16 hours (not exaggerating! Ask Padilla if you don't believe me!)
Total time: 25 hours
Actions: As part of my practice, I used the skills I retained from reading the two books Jon gave me to caricaturize some teachers and staff members at EC for Teacher Appreciation Week. I spent many hours searching through all available resources, including yearbooks, Facebook, and taking candid pictures of them, all in order to get adequate reference pics. I wasn't able to draw everyone, however, since I split up the work with some other people. Yesterday and today I spent several consecutive, grueling hours trying to get all the drawings of the teachers in the academic building finished first. From the top of my head, I remember personally sketching, inking, and coloring Ms. Panosian, Ms. Elder, Ms. Gron, Ms. Connery, and Mr. Riskind, plus a few others just today. I even got to stretch my leadership skills by delegating the other artists that were helping me complete these caricatures. Although this is such hard work and it kept me at school on a Friday night and all of Saturday, I am happy to combine my senior project practice with appreciating my teachers. I told Jon about it and he gave me a few pointers on the few pics of my work that I was able to send to him.
Next action: I need to finish up these teacher caricatures. There are over 100 faculty members, only 30-something of which work in the academic building. This week is going to be a long week.
How am I doing?: I'd say I'm getting a great amount of practice, but I'm suffering a bit from not eating and not taking breaks. I can rest later.

Apr. 25

Time spent:
Total hours:
Next action:
How am I doing?:

Mar. 7

Time spent: ~3 hours
Total time: 9 hours
Actions: I haven't been blogging lately, but I've kept Senior Project in my mind where ever I go. I just bring the copic that Jon let me borrow, and I can practice everywhere! Through our emails, Jon has provided me with web resources like this one, which I found particularly useful. My volunteer places haven't responded... I even visited UCSF to inquire about their volunteer opening, but they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. :/
Next action: Find a nonprofit organization, buy another marker* (the model's name is Copic Sketch 100-S).
How am I doing?: I'm doing well, as my sketches have been improving. I practice as much as I can, bringing Jon's marker everywhere from Wingstop to Ikea and drawing on receipts and napkins. I try to use any downtime I have on improving my ability to recognize facial features. *The marker actually ran out of ink, so I have to buy another marker. D: Sorry Jon!