Past-workshops – Page 2

Thursday December 14, 2023

Favourite Photos Make Fun Paintings

In this workshop, students will use the pursuit of pleasure to create FUN artwork. Bring one or two printed or online photographs that you like, art supplies that you like to use, and a childlike wonder about making art for an exciting fun filled, friendly weekend at MISSA this summer.

Barry will guide you step by step through a fun & easy creation of your project.

Using their own preferred art materials, students will learn how to quickly and easily make CONTOUR DRAWINGS and paintings from their photos. Students will learn how to express their feelings (pleasure) about their photo subject matter. (Learn to express with Content, Value, Color). Students will learn how to make artwork that is fun, easy and enjoyable rather than a stressful, difficult task. (Use a Childlike Awe Now approach).

Expect to go home with artwork you had lots of fun creating.

Thursday December 14, 2023

Pinched Buns and other Critters

Bring your favourite mammals, birds or reptiles to life! You could also create a likeness of your pet, and all with simple techniques and minimal tools. We will learn to build critters with attitude and personality.

Charmian will demonstrate how to create the basics and then we’ll put them together to create unique creatures that come to life as we progress.

There will be discussions about using an armature for taller standing pieces or adding some mixed media elements to add interest such as legs, horns or antlers and even making eyes that look at you! For skin, fur or feathers, you will be shown ways to add surface texture and pattern. Creating attitude with different gestures or with just slight changes to facial expressions will add dimension to your creation. Pieces can either be realistic or stylized depending on your desired outcome.

This course is designed to give you skills to start creating pieces that are both fun and full of personality.

Thursday December 14, 2023

Writing with Tenderness

A tenderness practice can change the way you interact with your own writing. It can change the way you relate to your personal stories, your past, your trauma, and your lineage.

In this workshop, Heather Plett will draw on wisdom from her new book, Where Tenderness Lives: On healing, liberation, and holding space for oneself, to guide writers in developing more tender relationships with their writing (and with themselves). Participants will do a variety of writing exercises, embodiment practices, and group processes that will support them in diving deeper into their own narratives and finding the nuggets of wisdom within.

Heather will teach about the revolutionary nature of Tenderness as a practice. She’ll invite an exploration into the ways that our relationships with ourselves (and with others) have been informed by a culture shaped by capitalism and patriarchy – a culture addicted to the 5 Ps (Performance, Productivity, Punishment, Policing, and Purity). By practicing Tenderness in their writing, participants will have an opportunity to disrupt those patterns and find a new way of being.

Whether you are writing with the intent of getting published or writing in your journal for your own self-reflection and healing, this workshop will support you in more authentic truth-telling and tenderness.

Thursday December 14, 2023

Mixed Media Art Cards

Make a selection of expressive hand-made mini artworks during this workshop which explores functional and playful approaches to both 2 and 3-D mixed-media card making.

Victoria will draw on her experience with printmaking, paper arts and design to teach ways of wrapping, enfolding and binding cards and their envelopes. Embossing and playful ways of using collage and found objects, poetry and text will also be presented.

Thursday December 14, 2023

Urban Sketching with Ink & Watercolour

The Urban Sketching movement is catching on, and for good reason! In this workshop you will learn to create quick and loose watercolour sketches that capture the mood and essence of a place. We will investigate and practice the choice of subject and composition while learning a systematic approach to sketch your environment. We will complete our works with a series of watercolour washes. Weather permitting, we will also work outdoors. Have fun and join the movement!

Thursday December 14, 2023

Eco-Printing on Paper

Work with paper using the non-toxic process of eco-print to explore remembering, honouring, and letting go, while creating a unique accordion book or alternate book.

In the pot go tightly bound packages of materials with personal meaning, such as copies of old letters, photos, memorabilia, along with local plant material, both fresh and dried, and oxidized bits of metal. In the kitchen alchemy of eco-print, the original paper is altered or destroyed. Some essence remains, surprising new images emerge, and an integration can occur within oneself. It can be an analogy to and a ritual for the grieving process and becomes a joyous moving forward.

Celebrate the domestic rhythms of generations, manipulating paper by folding, tying, cooking, drying, ironing, stitching, collaging, refolding.

Experiment with this ecologically gentle form of printmaking while using everyday materials that come easily to hand.

Thursday December 14, 2023

Throwing with Intention

This weekend workshop is about cultivating a habit of intention and applying this to your throwing practice. When one sits down at the wheel, we often allow the clay to decide what it wants to reveal. This can be a productive place to initiate inspiration, but where do you go once you find a form you want to cultivate?

Throwing with intention enables you to produce consistent forms, to which you can add your individual, creative voice. Over two days, this workshop will focus on exploring the elements of clay that permits us to mold and shape it; the mechanics of the wheel and how it enables our bodies to become instruments of design; and how to bring these technical practices together with the less tangible: your creativity.

These concepts will be addressed through techniques in wedging, centering and throwing foundational shapes. An introduction to journaling as a method to facilitate the creative flow will also be incorporated.

Thursday December 14, 2023

Landscape Painting in Oils Using Reference Photos

From the Degas to the American realist painters such as Estes, to present day, photographs have been used for decades as both a resource material from which to launch from and as a direct source from which to replicate from.

The intention of this workshop is to enable the student to gain a clearer understanding as to how to use this resource material, by helping landscape painters working in oil, to compose, abstract, and how to simplify their painting as they work. Traditional methods and materials will both be demonstrated and taught throughout this course such as site size and comparative measuring and the nature of oil paint. Mark making and the specific use of brushes will also be addressed. The class will begin by a demonstration using a photograph as a resource material and various methods and approaches will be discussed and demonstrated. The instructor will provide attentive direction and a hands-on approach.

Wednesday December 13, 2023

Historical Tintype Photographic Process

Dive into the past to explore the world of wet plate collodion photography, a process right out of the 1850’s! In this immersive two-day workshop, participants will learn the secrets of this historic photographic process, exploring the techniques of creating unique tintype photographs.

Ken Miner, a seasoned practitioner with over 10 years of wet plate photography experience, will guide students through the entire process—from preparing plates and chemistry to exposing, developing, and varnishing plates. Participants will gain hands-on experience in creating captivating images using vintage cameras and portable darkroom procedures. The workshop also delves into artistic considerations, exploring the intersection of creativity and craftsmanship in wet plate collodion photography.

Whether you’re a novice or experienced photographer, or have never picked up a camera, this course oﬀers a unique opportunity to expand your skills and contribute to the revival of this historic art form.

Thursday December 7, 2023

Papier Mache Sculpture

Canines! Felines! Creatures and More!

The use of paper mache often encourages a more whimsical approach to form making. And similarly the focus on dogs, for example, with their distinctive energy, provides a clear invitation to play, explore and discover new possibilities in this medium.

During this week long workshop, students will develop a sculpture based on a specific dog or one purely of their own imagining. Participants will be encouraged to expand the creative possibilities in line with the emotional attachment associated with the subject matter.

Through surface gesture and surface treatment we will discover ways to amplify the characteristics that make them so endearing; articulating those very qualities that distinguish their individuality. At every stage the use of drawings in a workbook will be a useful reference in visualizing adjustments and expanding the expressive possibilities.

Some aspects of anatomy and underlying structure will be explored as well as various approaches to surface finish including, texture, colour, the use of paint, collage materials and the possible incorporation of found objects.