Gala Painting: Day 2

This past Monday the fantastic students at Ecole Pauline Johnston’s gr. 6/7 class and I worked together again on their mixed media collage for the school’s gala fundraiser.

Since I’d left the painting at the school last week, but needed to prepare for this next session, I decided to make a quick mock-up to help guide the process. I started by bringing a photo of the work-in-progress painting into InDesign. Then I tested out colour schemes and layered various elements to give a sense of what the final may look like. By then a strong idea of the final was beginning to form in my mind. On the second photo posted here you can see the mock-up at the bottom of the frame — the paper with the word PLAY printed on it in yellow.

With that printout in front of us as a loose guide, we spent the afternoon adding on a few more magazine clippings (including words such a SPRING, GROW and J’ADORE), splattering and dripping a tinted acrylic glaze and transferring some photocopied images. 

One of the boys asked if they could use another word in place of PLAY. This awesome inquiry resulted in a lively brainstorming session followed by casting votes on the proposed options. It was a fun, collective way to conclude our creative time together.

In a couple of weeks, I will return the completed, varnished piece to the class in time for the gala preparations. In the meantime I will put the finishing touches on the painting such as the primary focal images and “the word”. Stay tuned to see how the final piece looks and what word the class voted to include!