Gallery Show

We held an exhibit of the class's work at the Hidden Garden Gallery during the last weekend of May. Everything looked so beautiful mounted and hung in the gallery space!

We had over a hundred visitors to the gallery over the weekend, and everyone was very appreciative.

Sessions 6 & 7: Block printing on paper

The last two sessions focused mostly on the large block prints. The organization and design of these had been started in previous sessions. Families brainstormed together to generate words inspired by our community and the natural world surrounding us that started with all the letters of the alphabet. Particular letters were assigned to children based on their interests and affinities. We hoped to be able to complete the entire alphabet amongst the group.

After coming up with a block design in their sketchbooks, the kids traced the design onto 6" blocks of safety-cut material. Similar to lino blocks, this material is softer and much easier to work with. Smaller simple letter blocks were also created in order to spell words on the colourful pieces of alphabetical artwork that were painted.

There were more letters of the alphabet than their were children. Some children did several letters, and their parents helped out with the last few letters. It took a long time to carve out the large blocks! Once they had all been carved, it was time to print.

There is a knack to printing, so several test prints were done to perfect the process. Then a final print was done on archival quality paper.

All the alphabetical pieces of art were posted together at our final gallery exhibit.

Warming up with lines

Before the field trips or workshops, the kids took time to warm up the artistic parts of their minds by painting with India ink. Different exercises focused on lines, dots, shapes, textures and text. 

Session 5: Shibori Workshop

Shibori is a traditional Japanese method of dyeing patterns on fabric. Each student worked on a rectangle of cotton muslin. They were shown how to tie thread around small beads to pinch circular bits of fabric together. They were also shown two different ways to sew and gather the fabric to create a variety of textures once dyed.

This was time-consuming work, so the hand-sewing and tying were completed at home.

Once the sewing and tying were completed, the gathered fabric was vat-dyed an ocean blue colour using Procion MX Fibre-Reactive dye. The areas that had been gathered and pinched did not take up the dye as completely and were left various shades of white and light blue.

Session 5: Nikkei Centre Field Trip

On a beautiful spring day the group headed to the Nikkei centre for a tour and some explorations of Japanese heritage, local history and textures. 

Session 4: Papier maché

Today's technique was papier maché, being used to make three-dimensional letters. An armature was created first out of pliable rolls of chicken wire about 36" long. These were bent to form the letter shapes. Next a preliminary layer of papier maché was applied. We used newspaper strips and a mixture of white (PVA) glue and water. These were left to dry, and then a second layer of newspaper was applied.

The 3-D letters were then given decorative treatments. Some were primed, to be painted later.

Some students came up with very creative ways to decorate their letters.

The idea was to create letters that in some way illustrated a word that was connected in some way with our community and natural surroundings. This project was completed over several sessions due to the drying time involved.

Session 4: Silverton Field Trip

Today's field trip was to Silverton. We spent our time at the mining musuem, at the Fingland Cabin and on the lakeshore at the Day Park. While at the mining museum the children explored the machinery, looking for shapes which could be viewed as letters of the alphabet. They also spent some time indoors at the museum exploring local history.

On the beach they had some spontaneous fun posing their bodies in the shapes of various letters of the alphabet.