Unfocused - In a good way

This session was the least successful for me to date, when i came in first the guys were having a committee meeting trying to establish their goals and objectives for the rest of the year, it was great to hear some of these youths were so motivated and dedicated to the work they do as a group through the center, there is an obvious want there for accomplishment, success, progressive learning and moving forward. Absolutely great to see.
The only thing about this was that the group focus was dwelling on other things- and in my opinion more important issues. So i struggled to hold the attention of few this week, but although i struggled for the attention of the group it was good to see that their minds were focused on other positive aspects of group work and motivation. I did do some work with the few that stayed with me, just helping further develop their 'tags', getting them to practice and practice because as hard as it is to draw on paper, its 10 times harder to spray on a wall.
Also we have a possible piece site and a practice wall, the gable end of the center itself and the long wall up to the center.
So overall this week was kind of a standstill as far as the graffiti project goes but at least the work ethic was concentrated on other positive things, hopefully things will get back to normal next week...
Keep ya posted,
Ste

Somethin' Different

This week there wasn't a great turnout, which just happens sometimes even in college so instead of moving on with the graffiti project we decided to start on a project me and a co-ordinator had previously discussed. It was creating a poster with the group to advertise the FRC (Family Resource Center) for the AIB Better Ireland Programme. The guys have already qualified into the final three in the competition and now need text votes and online votes to win the 5,000 Prize so please vote, the details will be on the poster when I put some up.
So for the class, the group that were there began drawing up some drafts of how they wanted the poster to look and I designed on photoshop, just another good way to incorporate collaboration. The poster I have posted is only a rough draft because we have to make some changes to match the AIB template, I have blurred the faces 'cos some of the lads are under 18,
Anyway i'll let you know how it goes, no class next week the lads are doin a trip so it will be the week after...
Keep ya posted,
Ste

Potential

Had my second session with the lads last night and it was absolutly brilliant, it was pissin rain and a good crowd still came and showed interest. Kinda did individual tutorials this time showing different ways to do 3D effects and insert fill effects, it took a little while but the majority of the lads cracked it. Also showed some of my own recent work with some of the differnt styles just to give the guys some options to play around with.
A good few of 'em are showin' real potential, there doin sketches and practicing outside of class which is fantastic, so I mentioned getting a sketch pad and creating a graffiti 'blackbook' (experiment book) and have some fun with that. Theres a lot of ambiton in this group to learn and be part of something important to them, and I just feel lucky to be one of the people thats part of it. Hopefully I can keep it going for the whole term.

Also I want to make a correction to last weeks blog about a higher committe telling the youths that if they didn't do the class they wouldn't get to do the trip, it was my missunderstanding, the committee is actually made up of some of the lads form the class, so its all about motivation, helping them by giving them something to work towards, to help and create a work ethic, which I totally agree with, its not that the guys are being held to ransom by some higher authoritative figure, they actually govern there own learning which is definatly better than being told what to do. So sorry for the missunderstanding,
Keep ya posted,
Ste