art

4Cats Arts Studio

August 2015 marked a whole year of teaching at 4Cats Arts Studio! I can’t explain how much I have learned since beginning at the studio last August. From teaching late night adult workshops, to grasping the different ways in which people are able to learn, I am so happy for the variety of experience I have gained.


One of the most valuable things I have learned at 4Cats is how to break down concepts or ideas into their smallest parts so that they could be understood easily. I quickly discovered that many of the words I used while teaching and the concepts that I thought were common place or ‘known’ were in fact totally alien to students (adults and children). Tailoring my language use and slowing down to take time to understand the level my students were at really enabled me to simplify curriculum for students.

So far, working at 4Cats has been my favourite job. Helping students create masterpieces and watching them develop or become confident in their abilities is the best feeling. I look forward to my new schedule at 4Cats, working Monday and Wednesday nights!

The Crew

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Adult Studio Painting Classes

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Artist Focus Classes: Jean-Michel Basquiat

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Awesome Summer Camps

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Volunteering

While working at 4Cats I was lucky enough to volunteer at Flamborough Centre Public School in the mornings, only five minutes away from my house. I worked mostly with the grade eights learning how to use inquiry within lessons and projects. I also spent a month teaching a grade four art class. I had students use printmaking techniques and negative space to create artwork that conveyed a message. They looked awesome up on the bulletin board!

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Dry Media Workshop

Dry Media Workshop

We did another workshop at Bethlehem housing this Thursday focusing on drawing techniques with conte, charcoal, and pencil. After doing some drawing techniques, we did blind contours. They did three blind contours of their hand which they overlapped. This overlapping made for some interesting shapes which they then filled or added to with shading and pattern techniques. In the end we had some Kadinsky-esque abstract pieces that turned out quite lovely!

Braille/ Babel Babbles Opening

Braille/ Bable Babbles Opening

I had a good night with friends, peers, and colleagues at Rodman Hall yesterday for the  Polyglot: Braille / Babel Babbles. Let’s See show. It’s theme was communication and language and had a very cool grouping of art work. My collages are now published in ti<, an online journal available at:

http://brock.scholarsportal.info/journals/index.php/ti