Douglas Coupland inspired family portrait sculptures

Another artist I included in the camps focused on British Columbian artist was Douglas Coupland. I love the fact that he is a great example that the word artist is not just defined by painting pretty pictures. Here is a man who is a writer, an inventor, a collector, a sculptor, printmaker, basically a jack of all trades.

I also knew the students would be familiar with his work even if they didn't know it. What child has not been thrilled by the giant pixel orca..otherwise known by the unofficial name, "lego killer whale" in Vancouver?

Douglas Coupland

We also discussed how he had just finished a large exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery that included a giant bust of his head outside the building for people to stick gum on.

Coupland placing gum on his bust

Gum! 

Boy that did get them talking. 

Why? WHY! Would someone want to stick chewed gum on a sculpture?  

I told them that while yes, it was kind of gross that people's chewed gum was on a sculpture, it was also in it's own way quite beautiful when all the colors were put together. 

After we exhausted all the "why", "ewwwww", and "gross" comments brought on by chewed gum, I presented the work by Douglas Coupland we would be focusing on for our inspiration.

The installation he created for Oshawa's Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

Coupland's artist sketch for "Group Portrait 1957"

Coupland's "Group Portrait 1957" installation at Robert McLaughlin Gallery

The project I created was inspired by the above work.  Each child brought a family portrait from home (photocopy was fine)

I then talked to them about how color could represent not only emotion but also people and asked them to come up with a color combination that would represent each of their family members.

(Douglas Coupland represented each artist in his work by the colors that were most predominant in their art)

If a student was stumped, I would help them along.

A mother who liked to hike, what colors in the forest could represent her?

A father who is always happy all the time could be represented by what colors?

Once each student had created a circle of color for each family member using chalk pastel on Bristol, I made sure they were set with fixative.

Once set, they cut their circles out with scissors and placed the circles over the faces on their photos. The circles were then connected with toothpicks and glued together.

Once dried, they had a family portrait inspired by Douglas Coupland.