Michelle Sirois-Silver inspired journey acrylic paintings

While creating art projects for Seymour Art Gallery's art camp inspired by the exhibition Regeneratus with artist Katherine Soucie and Michelle Sirois-Silver, I had to keep in mind that although the artwork was textile focused the kids would expect the opportunity to do more traditional art projects such as painting.

So how to create a painting project inspired by textile artwork? Well when the curator toured me through the exhibition, we discussed doing an acrylic painting where the kids would fracture the image using shapes they found in Michelle Sirois-Silver's work.

Every time the shape lines intersected with a drawing line, the kids would change colors. It does make for some beautiful artwork when you apply this challenge.

artwork by Michelle Sirois-Silver

Seemed like a good idea however after Michelle Sirois-Silver toured the teens through the exhibition and discussed her work with them on the first day, the project went from a good idea to great! She spoke about how this artwork was about journeys and vessels. The artwork above even has her old street address in it!

And so I decided to add another prompt to the acrylic painting that the curator and I had already discussed, "What journey would you like to take?"

The elementary camp came up with the most marvelous ideas, however they had very little interest in fracturing their artwork prior to painting and so we nixed that part of the idea.

These are very large paintings. Kids don't get a lot of opportunity to paint large and so when I have the chance to introduce paper almost the size of them, I do. When presented with a very large piece of paper I find not only do they think it is very special, the paper size also encourages them to paint loosely.

The other part of the challenge that I offered was to create a painting in monochromatic colors. I am always trying to introduce some principles of art in each and every project. I love giving kids the opportunity to discover just how many shades of one color they can create.

Even when they began to add color other than the one shade, they did so sparingly and thoughtfully. 

I find this one particularly interesting as the child is color blind and does not see the color red. So imagine the picture as he sees it, with the reds as grey. Amazing, yes?

Every elementary class I teach has at least one child who just wants to paint cats and this one was no different. My philosophy is always to allow the child to create what it is they are interested in as who wants to spend a lot of time painting something they don't really care about? She nailed monochromatic colors.

OK. I wish I had thought of this, breakfast. Who in their right mind would start a journey without a good breakfast? Brilliant interpretation of the prompt in my humble opinion.

I changed the prompt a bit for the afternoon teen camp. Instead of taking a literal journey, I brought in a bunch of knick knacks that over the years have caught my eye in the thrift stores. I always wonder what journey they have taken through this world as they pass through different hands over the decades. At some point they were cherished possessions of someone and yet over time found themselves on a shelf for 99 cents at the neighborhood thrift.

I let each teen go through the variety of things I brought to pick something that interested them. This parrot was actually part of my grandmother's things that I found packed in a box in the garage one summer. In the 40's she collected china figurines made in occupied Japan and I have several of them on display around my home.

We kept to monochromatic colors and several of the teens took me up on the challenge of fracturing their drawings by adding large shapes from Michelle Sirois-Silvers' artwork.

I think you can begin to get a sense of the scale of these paintings in relation to the kids, just imagine how big they were to the younger kids if they are this big in relation to the teens.

In the end I was quite pleased with how these artworks were inspired by artist Michelle Sirois-Silver even though we were not working in the same medium. It just goes to show that there are many ways to create projects out of a gallery exhibition, one of them being using just the idea that sparked the artwork. 

mixed media with rust dyed fabric inspired by artist Michelle Sirois-Silver

installation by Katherine Soucie

One of the projects I created for Seymour Art Gallery's Summer art camp was with rust dye. The assistant that worked with me is a beautiful textile artist in her own right and was kind enough to share this technique with me and the kids. She even gave me the bag of rusted objects we used at the end of camp so I could do rust dying in the studio during the school year with the kids!

You should of seen the look of puzzlement on my husband's face as I excitedly showed it to him when I got home. I believe he thought I was certifiable.

Creating hand dyed fabric to use in an art project was a perfect match to pair with the exhibition, as all the waste hosiery material was hand dyed that was used by both artists in their works of art. We even used discarded shirts picked up at the thrift store in both silk and cotton for the project!

Each child was given a piece of silk and cotton to work with for this project.

They each chose a couple of very rusted objects that were found on the beach shore near the gallery to wrap their fabric around and then tie up tightly with string. 

The gallery is situated near an old saw mill from days gone by and there are lots of rusted "treasures" you can find still marking it's existence.

Each child then placed both of their wrapped fabric pieces in a plastic zip-locked bag with their names on it and put it aside for two days.

Then came the fun part, opening up the bags

and unwrapping the fabrics

I was very glad we had used one piece of silk and one piece of cotton because the results were very different in how the rust reacted with the textile. Each child had a definite favorite and although my first thought was we would collage both pieces into their mixed media, they decided they wanted to keep their favorite one "as is" and use just the least favorite in their mixed media.

I can't say I blamed them as they looked stunning and were beautiful when hung as tapestries in the gallery show on the last day of camp. 

if only my one and only picture of them was equally as stunning....

artwork by Michelle Sirois-Silver

The least favorite piece of hand dyed rust fabric was then placed on canvas using a matte gel medium. While it dried, we went into the gallery exhibition and looked at the work of Michelle Sirois-Silver. The afternoon teen camp had been treated to a tour of the exhibition with the artist and during it she had told them how these artworks were about journeys. For the morning elementary camp, we focused on her use of shapes.

The morning camp then embarked on a mixed media project using paints, inks, and graphite to create a mark making abstract painting inspired by the shapes they found within their rust dyed fabric. 

They were quite arresting when finished and the campers were very excited to share the process with their parents during the art show on the last day.

The teen camp focused on a mixed media project inspired by journeys. The curator had collected some old photographs of Deep Cove and Vancouver that she then photocopied for me. I shared with the teens the process of image transfer that they tried on top of the rust dyed fabric they had already adhered to the canvas. Then using paint, inks, and graphite, they drew back into the picture to create their very own journey.

Some of the drawings stayed true to the photograph used while others, like the one above and below changed drastically from the original image transfer.

I thought they turned out beautiful and what a treat for the teens to share their artworks with artist Michelle Sirois-Silver at their art show on the last day! Things came full circle as they now toured and shared their process with the artist after she shared hers on the first day.

I enjoyed sharing with all the children an unusual way to inspire a creation using textile. It was fun to share with them a process that involved hand dying and then using the results in an interesting way on canvas and in my opinion the results were simply breathtaking.

blind contour self portraits

In March I had the honor of being asked to work with Seymour Art Gallery in Deep Cove on an outreach program they were running with Hollyburn Family Services. Together we created a project we thought the group would find engaging, blind contour self portraits.

A group of young adults showed up at the gallery where the curator gave them a guided tour, then we all sat down in front of some two sided mirrors I had brought and had some fun.

We started by just experimenting with the process using a pencil in hopes of getting everyone comfortable, but what I discovered was there was no need. There were some amazing sketches that were just stunning!

I was so excited by some of the pencil sketches, but even more excited at how quickly everyone embraced this technique and were having fun! One young man, who likes to draw comics, was so taken with his creations that he mentioned he might use this form of drawing in his new works.

I couldn't ask for much more than that kind of endorsement!

Here's a few more of their "practice" sketches which turned out to be lovely finished works in themselves. Supplies for this are so simple, a paper plate with a hole in the middle to stick the drawing tool of your choice through and a mirror. The only instruction I give them is to not lift up their pencil while drawing.

The first ones they did in pencil and then we started working with a permanent marker.

Aren't they fascinating? 

I then gave each of them a water-soluble pencil and a piece of watercolor paper. Once again they did a self portrait drawing using the paper plate with the pencil stuck through it (so they couldn't cheat and look) and studied their reflection in the mirror.

I then put out some liquid watercolors so they could fill in some of the shapes within the image they created.

I love how each persons unique personality is conveyed on the paper. And it was wonderful to be part of the camaraderie in the room. It was a very special group of young people to get to share some time with .

I was completely taken with this particular work where they artist added some words. How poetic, "this is me. in life. with love."

I would love to see some of these compositions explored in larger works. There was lots of laughter and talking while artists created their works and the time went very quickly. 

Some artists completed more than one work they enjoyed it so much and before we knew it, time was up! And no one was really ready to leave. Thanks to the supportive curator at the gallery, they didn't have too and everyone ended up staying another half hour after we were suppose to be finished.

There were some gifted young people in this group. Artists who I hope continue to pursue their obvious talents. It was a truly enjoyable couple of hours spent at the gallery and I hope to have the opportunity to work with them again in the future.

We had covered the tables in butcher paper to protect them from paint and one artist left this "doodle" behind. I asked her if she wanted it and she shrugged but I was so taken with it, I asked if it was OK if I kept it and she agreed. 

It now hangs in my studio on the wall. A lovely keepsake for me to remember some remarkable young adults I was lucky enough to work with for an afternoon.