Archives: Past-workshops

Wednesday January 3, 2018

Coloured Pencil & Mixed Media Techniques

In this course students will explore, practice and learn coloured pencil drawing in combination with non-traditional media and methods.   A variety of subjects including still life, botanical and portraits will be explored. Students will learn techniques for accuracy in rendering, building on and developing observational drawing skills and compositional perspective. We’ll push into areas not traditionally used with coloured pencils such as: scratching on paper, incorporating writing, using markers and chalk/oil pastels. Understanding balance, colour, form and visual movement will be an important focus as we work to give voice to students compositions using single and multi-drawing images through diptychs and triptychs. All skill levels are welcome.

Course cost: $285     Supply fee: $12    STUDENT SUPPLY LIST
Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks and all applicable taxes. 

 

JEANNETTE SIROIS is an award-winning artist working with coloured pencils in the creation of large-scale works focused on exploring the human condition and her connection to nature through a shoreline series and large format botanicals. Her work, often described as hyper realistic, is meant to investigate the journeys we go on throughout our lives and how this journey guides us towards decision making. Her work attempts to create dialogue around issues of destruction vs. healing, mindfulness and the possibilities of the unknown.  She has been creating and teaching art for over 30 years and has been a finalist in top portrait competitions such as the Kingston Prize.  Her works can be found in private collections, museum permanent collections and public art collections.

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

The Contemplative Brush

This workshop explores the power and tradition of the brush as a tool for contemplation. We will be inspired by the remarkable and enduring legacy of the Northwest Coast Calligraphic artists. These artists held deep affinities for Asian brush techniques and materials as they developed their very personal brush language.  Our focus will also be on creating a very personal brush language as we explore using the breath to support the brush in spontaneous mark-making.  A series of experimental ink exercises will combine with innovative brush-making and an investigation of hand-made papers. More structured practices will consider the mandala and the insights gained by the esteemed MISSA instructor, the late Jack Wise. Individual exploration will allow for numerous possibilities. There will be time devoted to the basics of artist’s books and we will also visit mandalas, boxes, mobiles, collages and finished works on paper.

All classes run 9 – 4 pm each day. Studios are also open after hours.

Course cost: $285   Course fee:  $35

Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks and is inclusive of all applicable taxes. 

 

ROBERTA PYX SUTHERLAND was born and raised on the west coast of Canada, and resided in Britain, Hawaii, Spain, Malawi, Scotland and Pender, Thetis and Hornby Islands. She attended Emily Carr College of Art and Design, received a BFA(Hon.) University of Victoria with printmaking training at the Hallam University in Sheffiend U.K. with residencies at the Banff Centre, and others in Europe including the BAU Institute. She studied Vajrayana Mandala painting in Katmandu, Nepal and zen calligraphy with Shinzan Roshi  Gyokuryuji Temple, Japan.

Pyx was the chosen artist for Cercle des Amis of 2012 by Geneva’s Editart Gallery to work with master printer Masafumi Yamamoto.  She was the mentor for MISSA Artist in Residence program. Frequent exhibitions in Canada, Mexico, and Switzerland (including United Nations’ Women’s Expo). Her work is  represented in numerous private collections, the Canada Council Art Bank, Bronfman Collection, public galleries in Victoria, Burnaby, Kamloops, Vernon, Universities of Concordia, British Columbia, Alberta, Puget Sound, Victoria and the public libraries of Toronto, and Geneva including various public art installations, particularly the Hornby Island Soup Can (Warhol tribute).

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Nature Tradition: Cultivating Inspirations in Clay

In this 5-day workshop Adam Field will demonstrate his methods for carving intricate pattern on a variety of wheel-thrown porcelain forms.  He will also demonstrate traditional Korean Onggi coil and paddle pottery techniques. From ancient Korean techniques, to innovative solutions for timeless problems, participants will develop a new perspective on creating and decorating functional pottery.  Participants will learn new skills for mapping out and carving geometric patterns in clay.  Generous discussions about studio practice, aesthetics, materials, ceramic history, and promotion and marketing strategies for the studio potter are certain to encourage individual discovery, growth, and development of fresh ideas.  Participants will gain the skills and confidence to create and decorate work in their own voice.

Course cost: $685       Supply fee:  TBD    STUDENT SUPPLY LIST

All prices are in Canadian Dollars, are inclusive of applicable taxes and include daily lunch and snacks.

 

ADAM FIELD, born and raised in Colorado, Adam earned his BA in art from Fort Lewis College. For two years, he immersed himself in the culturally rich art scene of the San Francisco Bay Area, where he began his full-time studio practice. From there, he relocated to Maui, where he established a thriving studio business. He spent most of 2008 in Icheon, South Korea, studying traditional Korean pottery making techniques under 6th generation Onggi master Kim Ill Maan. In 2013 he created and premiered HIDE-N-SEEKAH at the NCECA conference in Houston, TX. After maintaining his studio in Durango, CO for 5 years, Adam moved to Helena, MT in 2013 where he was a long-term resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts. Adam is now a full-time studio potter in Helena, MT. His Works are included in private collections and kitchen cabinets internationally.

 

 

The waitlist for this workshop has been closed.

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Ceramic Design: Working with Templates

Learn how templates can help you to improve the design of your pieces and enhance your efficiency. Participants in this hand building workshop will learn how to create templates for a variety of projects including making a set of matching cups, a vase, and lidded jars. We will also create some plaster texture templates using found objects and our own clay creations. A significant aspect of the workshop includes in-depth experimentation with surface decoration techniques using under glazes, and drawing through wax. Participants will also spend time creating their own stencils and carving stamps.

Course cost: $665          Supply fee:  $7      STUDENT SUPPLY LIST

Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks and is inclusive of all applicable taxes.
2018_Clay_Order_Form_for_MISSA

 

MARNEY McDIARMID is a self-taught potter with an MA in Oral History and an “all but dissertation” PhD in Cultural Studies. Since the mid 1990s she has been creating densely patterned handbuilt pieces out of porcelain, renowned for their grace and whimsy. Marney maintains an active studio practice and enjoys teaching at guilds, colleges, and for private workshops. In addition to her ceramic practice, Marney is actively engaged in social justice issues and is also a founding member of the Kingston Stilting Troupe.

She has exhibited work at Wall Space, the Ontario Craft Gallery, the View Gallery, Jonathan Bancroft-Snell and has been featured in the National Post and in Lark Books’ 500 Prints on Clay. She recently was awarded “Best In Show” at the 2017 FUSION Clay and Glass exhibit. You can find her work at galleries in Ottawa, Toronto, Almonte, and Kingston and online at makeanddo.

 

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Ceramic Tiles: Seascape/Landscape/Cityscape

This weekend course focuses on making 3-dimensional clay wall tiles, with the natural beauty of the West Coast shoreline/majestic forest as the source of our inspiration as well as a source of our tools.  An interpretation of the environment in which each student lives, and how to express that particular place through similar methods with clay will be explored.

Each morning the class will go on short walks through the forests and shoreline collecting natural treasures such as bark, twigs, shells, rocks, ferns.  These found “tools” can be used to texture and decorate the wall tiles.   Students will explore ways to enhance and finish the pieces with “store bought” and “homemade” under glazes, recipes to be supplied.

Course cost: $285   Supply fees: $10  – slips and underglazes for use during class

Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks and is inclusive of all applicable taxes.



SANDRA DOLPH obtained a BS in Art Education from New York State University College. After graduation, she taught Ceramics at the Adirondack Center for the Arts as well as owned and operated a gallery in upstate New York. After immigrating to the Canadian Rockies in 1974 and establishing a homestead, Sandra taught part-time in the public schools and ran a clay studio specializing in salt/wood fired pottery. In 1989 she relocated to Galiano Island, British Columbia, where she has spent the past twenty-plus years making a home for her small family and establishing her studio and gallery set among the beautiful cedars of B.C.  She has hosted and run ceramic workshops from her studio on Galiano, as well as given numerous workshops in the lower mainland, Victoria, Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico.  In 1998 Sandra started making many annual visits to Japan, where she would study, make pots and meditate in a Zen Buddhist temple.

The waitlist for this workshop has been closed.

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Surface Decoration & Coloured Slips

Students in this workshop will construct pots from thrown parts using red earthenware clay and decorate with colored clay slips on leather hard clay. Victoria will demonstrate a variety of application techniques for surface decoration: flat areas of color to loose needle carved drawing to delicate brushwork.  Students with an interest in exploring form construction and decoration techniques will enhance their sense of the relationship between form and surface in functional pottery. Open to all skill levels. Please note: work in the class will not be fired.

Course cost:  $285      Supply fee:  $20  STUDENT SUPPLY LIST

2018_Clay_Order_Form_for_MISSA

Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks. All prices are listed in Canadian Dollars and are inclusive of all applicable taxes.

VICTORIA CHRISTEN, MFA, lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is a full-time studio potter.  She has been a resident artist at Guldagaard, the International Ceramics Research Center in Denmark and the Archie Bray Foundation, in Montana. She has given many workshops across the United States. Victoria has been the recipient of an NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship Award, two Minnesota Arts Board Grants, and a travel grant to Japan.

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Visual Writing: Reading the Emotional and Physical Landscape

French screen literature says that the un-said or “le non-dit” is just as significant as dialogue when reading a visual text. Alberta screenwriter and filmmaker Adam Bentley will facilitate a two-day writing intensive to help emerging and experienced writers read and interpret the emotional and physical landscape with the goal of honing their skills at saying a lot in their writing without saying very much. While this course is geared towards screenwriters, those wishing to improve other types of writing such as short narrative, play-writing, and poetry are welcome to join us.

Course exercises will include group-sharing, intense individual writing assignments, field observation, and one-on-one writing tasks set amidst MISSA’s idyllic natural setting. By course’s end, participants will have developed their own creative skills and tricks to write for visual mediums. Writers will be more comfortable writing dialogue through facial expressions, motivation through body language, and feelings through outcomes. Materials need only be your preferred writing surface such as a notebook, mobile phone, or laptop.

Course fee: $285  Supply fee: $0

Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks and is inclusive of all applicable taxes. 

ADAM BENTLEY is a mid-career Canadian filmmaker who produces films based on jarring personal experiences that occur in spaces within which we may have seemed comfortable such as the body, the home, the community, the institution, and the nation. His short films have been featured at film festivals across Canada, the United States, Europe, on Air Canada and CBC, and as part of educational DVD compilations. He is the recipient of the Edmonton Arts Council’s 2016 Cultural Diversity in the Arts grant; and two-time recipient of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts’ Cultural Relations Grant. He is also the producer of #yegfilm where he facilitates public screenplay table readings and writing workshops, and founder of the International Festival of Winter Cinema. @yegfilm

 

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Bookbinding 123

This course is the fundamentals of bookbinding.  Participants will first spend a morning creating their own paste papers for use as they progress through a series of increasingly involved book forms.  Starting with single section pamphlets, then 2 and 3 section bindings, students will have learned the techniques and the many potentials of each structure for shaping and containing their creative ideas.  Whether the focus is on journals, sketchbooks or unique and beautiful notebooks for impressing friends, working in this ancient and very contemporary craft will be a deeply satisfying experience.

Course fee:  $665             Supply fee: $40  STUDENT SUPPLY LIST

Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks and is inclusive of all applicable taxes. 

 

DON TAYLOR has been working as a bookbinder and book artist since 1980. He has 35 years’ experience teachMaterials fee $40ing a wide variety of book arts related courses for schools across Canada, including The Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, MISSA, Red Deer College and The Haliburton School of the Arts.  Don’s design bindings and other book works have been shown in exhibitions and are found in collections in Canada, the UK, and Japan.

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Low-Tech Screen Printing

Screen printing can be used to make fine art prints, cards, posters, shirts, signs, banners or stickers – just about anything that’s flat! This hands-on course will introduce a variety of techniques using water based inks and low-tech stencils such as hand-cut wax paper, resists, and sunlight-exposed photo emulsion.

Print runs will be short and in small formats in order to maximize the available time and to try out multi-colour registration methods. Participants will print in pairs for efficiency and the focus will be on simple methods that one can use in a home studio, without an expensive investment in equipment.

In order to present the widest possible range of methods, the learning process will be more important than attempts to produce flawless finished editions. Experimentation can lead to creative insights, so participants can expect to discover new imagery, compositions and transformations.

Classes run 9 – 4 pm each day. Students are welcome to work in the studio after hours.

Fewer solvents and toxic chemicals are used in water based printing than with oil based inks. However, if anyone is pregnant or has severe allergies, please let MISSA know.

Course cost:  $665         Supply fee: $15

Tuition includes lunches and daily snacks and is inclusive of all applicable taxes. 

 

Video: Music courtesy of Art Napoleon from “Creeland Covers”

BILL HORNE was born in Vancouver and studied painting and drawing at the Banff Centre, and film animation at UBC. He works primarily in silkscreen, as well as Painter®, sculpture and photography. He taught screen printing for five years at the Vancouver Native Education Centre and switched to water based inks from solvent systems in 1991. He has printed on a wide range of materials such as marble, moose hide and X-rays.

Bill has exhibited his work across Canada and has attended residencies at the Banff Centre, Engramme in Québec and El Hacedor in Spain. He was the recipient of CARFAC’s National Advocacy Award in 2015 (Canadian Artists’ Representation ~ le front des artistes canadiens) and was a Founding Director of Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre West. He and his partner, Claire Kujundzic have lived in Wells for over 20 years and are eventually moving to Victoria.

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Wednesday January 3, 2018

Pushing the Boundaries of Watercolour

Participants will cover the process of creating a painting in watercolour and demystify the medium so that they will be able to build a composition with big bold loose brush strokes. Learn how to create highly impactful beautiful colourful watercolours that virtually paint themselves, responding intuitively to the medium with confidence as you paint.

Classes run from 9 – 4 pm each day. Studios are open after hours. 

Course cost: $665     Course fee: TBD

Tuition includes lunch and daily snacks. Prices are in Canadian Dollars and are inclusive of all applicable taxes.

 

CURTIS GOLOMB’ s paintings are best known for his bold use of expressive colour, while anchored compositions firmly with strong design. Years of experience now give way to his painting of a unique vision of the landscape. His watercolours are known for their vibrant colours and high contrast – not typical of what watercolour paintings have been known for. They are created on archival watercolour board and then finished with varnish in such a way that no glass is required so that they are framed like any work produced on canvas!

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