Specialist High Skills Major

Merivale HS offers a Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) program in Communication & Design

DESERRES & MERIVALE SHSM COLLABORATION 2023

Merivale SHSM students apply their design skills in a real world context to give back to the community.

With the support of Curtis Van de Ligt, the SHSM coordinator, DeSerres was able to collaborate with the Merivale Graphic Design students on a special SPE project that provided students with the opportunity to learn new printmaking techniques and apply their design skills to create products to be sold by a community group to raise money for their programs.

To facilitate this project, Merivale's Graphic Design class was pleased to welcome

Thomas Baribault - DeSerres Art Store Manager

Max Black - Professional Artist

Merivale SHSM program has a long history of collaboration with DeSerres. Many of our past students have attended workshops at the store located at St. Laurent, co-op placements and a number of other special design collaboration projects such as this one!!!

THE CLIENT: The Bereaved Families of Ontario - Ottawa Region

The mission of the BFO Ottawa is to inspire hope and healing in people who are grieving the death of a loved one.

Since 1978, BFO Ottawa has been supporting people through the grieving process following the loss of a loved one. Grief can be incredibly isolating. It is the aim of BFO to bring people together to promote healing through connection, support and friendship. Today they run more than 120 peer support programs each year, which are attended by more than 1500 participants.

THE TASK: The BFO Ottawa holds an annual Butterfly Memorial Event, in which participants listen to distinguished guest speakers and then release live butterflies in Beechwood`s Botanical Gardens in memory of those they lost. This can be a transformative experience for many of those who attend. Students designed custom bags to contain butterfly kits sold to raise money for the BFO memorial event.

PART ONE: BLOCK PRINTING TECHNIQUE - Students began the project learning the block printing technique using speedy carve block, ideal for printing on fabric . They printed first on paper and then moved to canvas aprons. The technique of printing on fabric is a little different and requires practice to get a good quality print. The canvas apron design allowed student to experiment with their blocks, stamping with different colours to create interesting patterns.

1. Sketching and design stage

2. Carving the design into the block

3. Testing the block/stamp

4. Creative design/pattern on the bag

PART TWO: CYANOTYPE PRINTING TECHNIQUE - Cyanotype is a photographic printing processes discovered by scientist Sir John Herschel in 1842. The distinctive feature of the print is its shade of cyan blue, which results when the light sensitive cyanotype solution is exposure to ultraviolet light/sunlight.

Students prime paper and canvas with the cyanotype chemical.

2. Students place their illustration transparency on top of their treated paper and expose it to ultraviolet light.

3. Wash the paper/canvas in the water tray until the solution rinses off the paper.

Max demonstrating the technique to the students.

PART THREE: FABRIC PAINTING TECHNIQUE - Students learned how to apply fabric paint to their designs to enhance the printing techniques already applied or to use as a stand alone design technique. The final stage of this project was to take all the skill and printing techniques acquired to design three tote bags. Students were given the choice to design one pattern that could be reused on all three tote bags, or they could design two or three different designs for each bag. They were given lots of creative freedom on this final task as they had previously demonstrated and practiced the required skills.

Max demonstrating fabric paint application to the class.

Leanna

Chase

Rosalie

PART FOUR: THE PRESENTATION - Students displayed their finished tote bag designs. They shared their design concept and explained their design process to the client and special guests.

The completed tote bags were presented to Mrs. Jane Davey (Program Manager at BFO) and Curtis Van De Ligt (OCDSB SHSM Coordinator).

From this very rich Experiential Learning task, SHSM students received certificates from Speedball, a personalized thank you letter and pin from the BFO, as well as SHSM certifications in Training in a Technique, Training in an Artform, and the completion of their Sector Partner Experience and ICE.

From this very rich Experiential Learning task, SHSM students received certificates from Speedball, as well as SHSM certifications in Training in a Technique, Training in an Artform, and the completion of their Sector Partner Experience and ICE.

Max and Thomas presenting to the class.

THANK YOU!

Thank you Thomas Baribault (DeSerres Manager), Max Black (professional artist) and Curtis Van de Ligt (OCDSB SHSM Coordinator) for all your work organizing and delivering these wonderful workshops and Sector Partner Experience to the Merivale design class. It was a pleasure working with you all.

Jaclyn CañasGraphic Design TeacherMerivale SHSM Coordinator

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