Art Therapy With Dana Harris

Photo Credit: Saffron

In mentorship on Saturday, the mentees relaxed with a bit of painting. Dana Harris, who has been painting for years, taught them that art can be therapeutic. She explained how art and painting can help with anxiety and calm nerves. She then guided them through painting beautiful cherry blossom trees. Dana also has a business of her own, Paint On Purpose, where she teaches art to people of all ages! Everyone had a blast creating and relaxing.

After their art session, our mentees moved on to website building with Lu’Cretia. In a previous workshop, they learned about website design and the different aspects of it. This time, they put that knowledge into action. Our mentees are at the beginning process of creating their own brands, so learning these steps of building a website are very important.

Photo Credit: Saffron

Art Meets Website Design

On Monday we welcomed Heather from Art Cures All to lead a workshop on collage art. Our mentees got to design their collage from magazines, as well as take a sneak peek of Heather’s artwork. Each table was set up with a stack of magazines, a pair of scissors, glue sticks, and finishing glue. It was exciting to see each person flip through pages and pages of magazines to find their favorite designs and photos to add to their collages.

Afterwards, Lu'Cretia, our Creative Project Manager, took over to lead a workshop on website design using Squarespace. We love that we can provide our mentees with this skill set as it will benefit them in the future. Lu'Cretia went over the basics of designing a website, what goes into designing one, and showed some amazing examples from some of our past mentees…Amanda Leon Calligraphy and Makeup By Mariah. Although designing a website is a process, we cannot wait to see what are mentees create!

Photo Credit: Mariah

Creating A Brand

Photo Credit: Mariah

On Saturday our mentees began with an ice breaker called “Guess that drawing”. It was hilarious to see all the shapes each person drew and to hear everyone’s guesses. We transitioned to the tables where our Mentorship Coordinator, Sandra, asked the mentees to visit her website and locate five words that helped them discover information about this brand. Each Mentee shared the words they found and what those words led them to believe was the the goal of Papelitos Lindos.

Our mentees then partnered up with one another to dream about how their brand will look and feel. We started with two groups. Group one developed the creative side of things when it comes to creating a brand such as: brand colors, fonts and styles. Group two started a conversation about the purpose of a mission statement and how to create one.

In the second set of groups, each mentee with a business idea was partnered up with another mentee who wanted to support their idea. The duo then designed a vision board for their brand. This board included: fonts, colors, brand names, and logos. Our mentees used iPads and Apple Pencils to sketch out their logos through Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, or hand drawing. We can’t wait to see all that our mentees design for their brands!

Photo Credit: Mariah

Restorative Economy

Photo Credit: Mariah

It was so exciting to welcome Xochitl and Gabriel of Co-op Ed Center to TFD this past Wednesday to lead a restorative economy workshop! Our mentees kicked it off with an ice breaker where they were given a question or statement and if they agreed to that statement, they moved to stand in the middle of the circle. It was fun to learn so many new things about our mentees! We love how involved our mentees were and how many new conversations were started around restorative economy.

Our mentees discussed how a cooperative works and made a list of what a cooperative means to them. One of the groups shared, “A group of people working together to accomplish or achieve a goal”. Afterwards, they came together to combine their ideas.

Photo Credit: Mariah

Amanda | One Year Later

Amanda began her journey at TFD in March of 2021. In the beginning, calligraphy began as a fun hobby, then when doing calligraphy work for some of her fellow mentees, the dream became more of a reality. Now a year later, she has a thriving calligraphy business! Amanda has now officially led two workshops at TFD for new mentees, which everyone really enjoyed! The TFD team is so proud of Amanda and how far she has come. We are happy to continue to support her dreams!

“The starving artist narrative is false, you can be successful while pursuing creative passions.”

- Amanda Spring 21’ Mentee

Photo Credit: Jocelyn, Terrance, Maya