MISSA Day 3

Day 3 at MISSA I started another course. Photographer/designer/artist, Tony Bounsall, offered an irresistible course, 'Altered Imagery'.
Within the 1st hour he had us up on the photocopier rolling our faces over the glass after he had explained it was actually a slit camera. You can imagine the laughter coming form the copier room as 7 strangers produced distorted images of their faces. It was a perfect ice breaker for the new class, which showed Tony's skill and experience as a teacher.
We then went on to college these photocopies onto a board and worked them up with other media.
Here is my 'Grotesque Portrait'.

.

Time for a quiet cup of tea in my favourite spot.

The next exercise was to transfer photocopied images onto paper. This is as far as i got with this one but it has potential.

I liked this technique so stayed behind after everyone else had left (I always work better when on my own) to continue working on this transferred collage.
I was playing around trying a few of the many options Tony had suggested, when i remembered the bottle of waterproof ink on our supply list. i had been impressed with Tony's demo so decided to try it. i opened my new bottle...squirt... it splashed out and flooded the center of the piece. Did i stop and wipe it up? No! I continued to spread the ink over the whole thing, making it all black. By the time i remembered i was to wipe it back it was drying fast. So then i got out a blade and started scrapping it back until I was gouging the original paper.
Hmmm... time to leave the room.

I decided to name this effort 'Unsupervised Play'.

MISSA End of Day 2

Another close up of the layers built up on the white silk with wax, dyes and screen printing, in Shannon Wardroper's class.

Cutting up the length of silk to put it back together again.

My first go at using the silk to make a wall hanging

While building up the layers on the silk, I was thinking of diving down deep in the sea. It was probably inspired by the floating classroom we were in.

MISSA

I have just spent the day out at Lester Pearson College. It is an International Baccalaureate High school, with students from 100 different countries, during the school year. Over the summer, it turns into MISSA -Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts.

Today I started a 2-day class, with Shannon Wardroper, where we learnt how to paint and resist layer upon layer of colour and design onto silk yardage.

Our classroom in the best one on the campus - the floating marine science lab. After each application of dye we stood out on the dock in the sun and breeze to 'shoot the breeze' while our cloths dried. Such a idyllic way to spend a summer's day.

Shannon has been wonderful taking us through the fundamentals were we practiced all sorts of techniques and methods for colour building.

Here is part of my yardage. It is getting very busy but I have been able to try lots of different things. I was a bit too heavy handed with the wax in the first few layers.

Here the wax is still on the silk. Tomorrow we iron off the wax, iron on interfacing, then cut it up.

I'll show tomorrow's progress next post.

Teaching Fibre Art to High School Students

For the past few weeks I have been working with a grades 11 & 12 art class as they learn how to dye and paint fabric. They random-dyed and painted backgrounds then thickened the dyes to paint, print, stencil and stamp for the 2nd & 3rd layers.

This student is cutting out letters from a random-dyed background and is going to applique them onto the pink & blue piece above.
This past week we worked on stitching using straight stitch to add texture, develop a focal point, emphasise line or shape and to balance the composition.
They are a great group to work with. I am looking forward to seeing their stitching progress when I visit again in April.