This past Saturday I had the pleasure of spending the day with a room of lovely people all drawing jellyfish with ink at the Vancouver Island School of Art! I enjoy instructing this workshop because it brings together so many things that I love: ink, water, natural processes, control verses chance and a heartfelt curiosity towards the magical and strange creatures that live in the ocean.

We started the day by making colour swatches. This included creating a catalogue of colours and practicing making gradients in a variety of ways. We also experimented with drawing and writing with a dip pen and absorbed ourselves in paying attention to what was happening on the page. Believe me, when you allow ink to come into contact with water… magic happens! You really can get lost in the patterns as they swirl around!

During the rest of the day we discovered a variety of ink and water techniques as well as approaches to drawing imaginative jellyfish. I never intended the projects to necessarily lead to a point of completion in the classroom (as one could easily spend all day on a single drawing), but the work that was created over these 6 hours was remarkable! My heartfelt thanks to each student for participating in this workshop.

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I hope you will enjoy this collection of images from the workshop. This is just a small taste of the work that was created on Saturday. Many of the works are in progress. 🙂

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Upcoming Workshops

• Drawing Whales with Ink: a two-hour fundraising workshop for the Marine Education & Research Society taking place at the MERS office in Port McNeill March 15. Click here for more details.

• Imaginative Nature Drawing: a weekend MISSA workshop at Brentwood Bay School July 12 & 13. Click here for more details.

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If you would like to be notified about my upcoming workshops, send me an email (tasha_van_netten@hotmail.com) or a message through my contact form.