Introduction

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so welcome hello and thanks for joining us today my name is lindsay sharman i am the

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curator of the art gallery of alberta and today we’re going to be doing a drawing activity with john and emma

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coffey um sean was selected to be in the upcoming exhibition borderline the 2020 by

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anniela contemporary art the biennial is an exhibition that happens about every two years and

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looks or looked at contemporary art in alberta this year the exhibition has been

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curated by me uh along with felicia k francesca hebert spence and sandra frazier

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up until this year the biennial looked only at alberta and artists that were working within

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alberta’s provincial borders this year rather than looking at that

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strict geographic boundary uh the biennial instead focused on the territorial borders of

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the treaty regions 4 6 7 8 10.

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to also open a conceptual conversation around borders which are prioritized what it means to

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cross them challenge them or be it or be in proximity to them

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so the treaty region that we are in here in alberta is 2d6 as is our partner

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institution the reigning modern we’re also in edmonton right now the traditional land

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meeting place of diverse indigenous people including the cree blackfoot metis

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iroquois jenae and ojibwe solto and shinabe one of the many sub-themes

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that has emerged in the biennial is that of the relationship between generations

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and one of the things that sean is interested in is the world that he leads to his daughter emma and the legacies uh that we all

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leave to generations that come after us so sean um is a centennial professor in

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the department of art and design at the university of alberta and lives and works on 3d6 territory

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he has exhibited his prints drawings and installations and artist books extensively throughout

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canada the united states europe and japan uh coffield has received

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numerous awards france um in canada and the us and in 2017 he was elected to the arts

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division of the academy of the arts and humanities of the royal society of canada

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emma caulfield was born on july 10 2013 and currently lives and goes to

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school in edmonton located on 2v6 territory emma is currently in the second grade uh

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she enjoys drawing and making crafts and currently her favorite subject uh for drawing is

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history um so before i hand it over to sean and emma just some housekeeping

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things uh if you’re joining us live um you’ll see in your webinar

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window there is a rejoin button so if you’re ever experiencing any technical difficulties if

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uh something freezes uh or if you you see there’s a little bit of a leg just click that and it should clear

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everything up for you as well if you’re joining us live there is a chat function um and

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sophia who’s helping us out with our tech things today is going to be monitoring that um and so she’ll be kind of looking at

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your questions and answering them as best she can if there are any questions that she

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uh cannot answer for you uh we will follow up um later um there are templates that you

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can join along uh so if you’re watching us live you should be able to see

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on your screen a link to be able to download those pdfs and if you’re watching us uh later on

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youtube uh the links will just be in the description below so without further ado um welcome

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shawn and emma uh i’m shauna i’ll just hand things over to you uh and i’m really excited for you to

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lead us through this drawing activity okay so uh thanks for that introduction

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and i just want to start with um saying thanks to aja uh it’s great to be here and we’re

History

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really looking forward to having some fun drawing are we yes we are actually yeah okay great

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so today we’re going to do a really simple uh and i think interesting drawing game

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that looks at chance and looks like collaboration and it’s a game that was originally sort

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of developed by the surrealists and it is based on earlier games

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that use language and text and they sort of adapted it to drawing and it’s a lot of fun i think

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and very simple to do it goes by a lot of names but we’re going to call it the exquisite

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body drawing because that’s more family-friendly and

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it’s also called the exquisite course it is called that too but we’re going to say that it’s

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physical so i’ll show you how to do it and you know you can follow along at home

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and it’s really simple but again i think it’s a lot of fun before i uh show you practically how to do it

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though i do have a little powerpoint and i won’t go on too long don’t worry we’ll get to the fun part of drawing

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but i thought it might be interesting to see a few examples and talk a little bit about the history so as i mentioned um the

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this this drawing game called the exquisite body was sort of uh invented by the

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surrealists and here’s just a shot of this a surrealist group in 1936

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and they as you many of you may know we’re a group of artists who are really interested in

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what i call the subconscious or unconscious dreams chants automatic drawing ways to kind of

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generate art in unexpected ways and so they look to those sorts of things

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to generate our practice and this game came out of that exercise okay next so here’s an

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uh kind of early example of a serious exquisite body drawing and the principle

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is really simple you start a drawing one person starts a drawing and they fold the paper in such

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a way that the next person can’t see that the last person draw drew and then you sort of pass it along i think this

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is a great example you can see these really whimsical and unexpected things emerge from this kind of exchange next

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drawing uh we’re going to do it through drawing today but you can do it through all

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sorts of ways and here’s an example where where collage is used so you could collage things down

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fold the paper and then extend the drawing through your collage

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uh next joint so this you know the serialists were

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historic you know it’s from history mark but it’s a practice that’s carried on today this is a contemporary

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example from the chapman brothers and that’s pretty interesting

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we are going to do in a second but the one thing i wanted to mention is there’s an exhibition right now at

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the agl called nests and it’s a great show and there’s a wonderful piece by

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wayne martino called the knitting woman and it’s a sculpture but i think in many ways it feels like a piece that’s

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speaking of this tradition of the exquisite body and the serious movement so it’s a if you i think the

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show comes down today but it was a great show and hopefully some of you saw that piece okay next slide

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so here’s an example that we did that was a lot of fun and then i

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draw the middle part yeah

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okay all right let’s go to the next slide so uh this is one of my uh etchings and

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i just wanted to share because uh this idea of bringing things together this idea of hybridity

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is something that keeps it’s something i’m interested in my own practice and this wasn’t done through an exclusive

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course but i think you can see i’m sort of on that tradition of looking at the unexpected

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and then the next one is a far better drawing and this one’s by me right

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yeah and i think we can see the tradition of surrealism

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exactly i think that’s the last image yeah okay so you can we’ll switch over

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and let’s get to the fun part and um as was mentioned

Getting started

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um i did send out some pdfs where you can you can use those to start if you want to join along with us

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but uh to get started it’s super simple uh if if you want to join along at home

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and do this right now just grab an eight and a half sheet of paper eight half by eleven

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and however many people you might be drawing with or if you’re you know just drawing on your own just grab one

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and of course you could carry on and collaborate later so all you have to do is just

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break your paper into thirds and i think with an eight half piece of paper that’s

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roughly nine and nine point three centimeters like mark that out and we

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just fold it super simple hold it right now

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okay any other advice there okay so yeah my

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dad’s gonna work on this um and basically i’m gonna go in the middle but basically i’m not so who

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knows and also like like you know what i’m saying i do so

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here we go we’ve got our paper uh in three parts and you can see how this might start to

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unfold you draw here you fold this over and then pass it to

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your collaborator i think we’re both going to start so

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that’s how you get started so again if you want to draw along with us you can start that way or

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again if you download i have some some heads started already so one of the first things you want to

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do once you’ve started though is to ask yourself do you want to make a body in which case

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you draw this way maybe vertically and so your your group of collaborators can decide

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that and the body was traditionally often used because it’s easy to say okay that’s going to be the head that’s going

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to be the torso about you but you can also do kind of anything like

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i did you could work and do a landscape as well right so

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decide the orientation and decide maybe the theme could be a good first way to start

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one of the things about this exercise that’s great is of course it could happen really quickly you can

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do this you know very short exercise and exchange you get lots of drawings done or you can do it over time and it can be

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extended kind of more slowly the other thing to say is of course we were just doing it with a short piece of paper a small piece of

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paper in half 11 but you could of course work as big as you wanted and again

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extend it over a long three at a time so very simple let’s kind of get started

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now the one trick to this is once you’ve done let’s say these these

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are started and they’ll have the head parts begun and once you fold it over you have

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to give your partner the next person just enough information about where you can all see that where

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are they going to start their next drawing right and that can be a fun part because you can sort of direct the next person about

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what you know get them to imagine what maybe is on that other side of that drawing

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so this one’s mine yeah this one is yours so we’re gonna

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just go ahead and start drawing you got your two in it

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oh yeah and then you’ve got to make sure your collaborators know that this is going to be the middle part of the body you’re going to be the

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middle this is the middle the torso yeah that’s it so you decide what you’re

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going to do i’m going to choose my tool here i’m going to choose this black pen

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i like this reaction okay let’s start to draw

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now emma you haven’t given me a lot to go on here but thank you

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i’ve got some ideas here so let’s start with that

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how to do this anyways just say no my mom’s watching

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yeah

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so one thing that uh for people that might be teachers or working institutions that

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teach art this can be a really interesting exercise for a number of students

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because what you can do is you can have 10 15 20 students and they all get a

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sort of section to draw right and so you can extend this project out again over

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a short period of class and that can be kind of exciting or you can extend over a long food and have this kind of

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project unfold over time and i’ve done some projects actually a colleague of mine patrick mann

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organized one of these around the theme of water and the idea was to make a river and uh

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so he passed these across the country and we ended up in one with this

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artist book and it unfolded but we didn’t see it to the very end so it can be a project that can kind of

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grow and get and get big and happy

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okay emma says i need to be quiet because we have to focus okay sorry my dad’s a little bit

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of a crazy kind of guy right now because he’s he’s sometimes grumpy in

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the morning so don’t blame me i need my coffee in the morning

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oh that’s another important thing thank you i know i’m not supposed to talk but i have to talk um it’s very tempting to

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cheat and look at that drawing underneath but you can’t do that right you got to keep it

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keep it secret so if you are doing a big project and it’s over time and as many people

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sometimes what you can do is actually cut the drawing scan it and then reassemble it digitally

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later or just reassemble it you know from the old-fashioned collage mesh method

Drawing

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don’t be embarrassing right in front of your daughter it’s hard for me

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you’re crazy right okay i’m uh how’s your drawing going

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actually that’s another thing it’s good to maybe be in this set we’re a little close in this exercise

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it’s hard not to look oh i hope you

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so as you start to finish your section what you want to start to think about is how you want to direct

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the next section right the next person but so the next person knows how to kind of carry on the drawing

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so i’m starting to think about that

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there’s going to be another section that’s kind of weird kind of like the bottom but it’s gonna

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be the middle section just so you know okay so my middle section is starting to

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come together how’s yours

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so one of the things i think that’s great about this exercise i mean it’s a lot of fun it’s a game and

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being playful and art is good but i think it speaks well to speaks effectively to how

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chance is an important part of making art isn’t it basically um yes

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good to have some surprises when you make that right but at the same time you need a little

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bit of structure right okay okay so we don’t want to go on too long here

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how’s your drawing going you’re going to be ready to switch soon

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um

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okay all right i’m almost ready are you ready

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the other thing that’s great about this drawing dream is of course it talks

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about collaboration right now it’s good for collaborating right yeah

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don’t have to own everything right okay you ready

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all right i’m starting to think about how i’m going to pass this on to you i guess

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you kind of are seeing what i’m doing now aren’t you

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you ready okay so next step you’re going to do is you have to think

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about how you want to direct me so i’m just going to draw a little bit over the edge here

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so you kind of tell me

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so the tricky part here now is you want to fold in such a way that the person can’t see

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well obviously m and i are close right now so this is a little bit tricky but in a perfect world we wouldn’t see anything

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and it would be a surprise right yeah i know you’re kind of doing the perfect plan

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okay so i’m gonna fold that for you can you kind of see what’s happening but that’s okay all right that’s where you want me to

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start so so emma’s again i’ve given emma an

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indication where to start her drawing i don’t i’m okay and then she’s told me

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where to start okay there you go so this is the bottom now we’re at the feet we’re doing the

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feet all right

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so again we’re doing i was kind of thinking about a body today but if you do this drawing game you can

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think of all sorts of things it could be animals it could be monsters

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what else could it be okay landscapes yeah maybe landscapes

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whatever you robots dad why are you into roblox right now

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robots are cool

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and of course the other thing that can be interesting we’re kind of doing this today a little

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bit is what at what pace you do this game is that we’ve got a drawing exercise that’s

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really quick we’d like to put a time limit on and say each section you only got five minutes

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five months yeah and you’re drawing really fast and you’re forcing your brain not to

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think because you’re drawing so fast or would you make it a really slow game

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over months later whatever yeah

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i think i’m kind of falling back on something i’ve drawn

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okay are you done

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positive negative [Music]

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remember you are on youtube i know but you you gotta think about taking ground the way you can’t just

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let’s go a few more minutes

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you know what this is

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okay you think you’re ready okay you guys ready for the big reveal

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you kind of have seen it already but it’ll still be exciting here we go

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the big reveal

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can you see it so you can see how exciting that is right yeah let’s what do you what is yours

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remind you my really nice like history

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but not quite history and you see as the bottom what do you think that looks like right

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is that an egyptian fahrenheit from the ancient egypt yeah and what do you think the middle looks

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like it’s like a bird body

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yeah what kind of you know

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uh

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[Music] yeah it’s pretty cool right how about

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this

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um so that’s pretty exciting so

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what are we gonna do next [Music]

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you know what we’re gonna do next time what date is it today i don’t know but today

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today we’re going to be talking about halloween

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it’s decorations 5th today and it’s never too soon to be thinking about

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halloween that’s just around the corner so this game is a great way to make

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of what you can use this as your front window that’s right how do we direct

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decorations right yeah this is part of what the workshop is yeah so should we cut these out okay so

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never too soon to start thinking about halloween and this is a great way to make some

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decorations for your front window and on halloween what is it about i guess almost two

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months away october 31st um i think we should all try to plaster

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our entire front window with hello window decorations what do you think

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so we can’t even see out of our front windows right

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i get the cool of this game actually yeah it actually actually helped me you know

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relax no not that silly dad it kind of makes me think of

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history starting to get a little bit embarrassing today there you go look at that hey so that’s

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basically it it’s pretty simple um maybe we could do one more quickly and then wrap up okay anyways

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i’m gonna explore one more pm okay

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there we go we’re just holding another one here

Seans Drawing

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and of course after you open it up you can keep drawing on it absolutely

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absolutely okay we’re gonna do one more

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you guys can join along at home right now [Music]

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uh that’s the middle again

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okay

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can you think of some creatures from mythology that maybe kind of feel like this

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i feel like they’re made up of different

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things okay i i can think of some like maybe

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from greek mythology creatures that were part animals yeah

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sorry my dad’s a little embarrassing

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[Music]

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[Music] today

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well you know that’s the problem with artisanal sometimes we give them a rut you just sort of do

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the same thing over and over and again maybe this is a good example of how you can

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sort of break break that and be something more expected right collaborate with someone take some

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chances make a drawing where you don’t know where it’s going right

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but don’t keep it on too loud okay

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okay now we’re doing drawings that are mostly

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lined here but of course you could do more tonal drawings and problems with color

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and this is just sort of because we’re working a bit quickly

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or of course as emma was starting to do with this one which is a great one um you could go back and

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draw into it with color

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all right you ready to switch see now you already know

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tell me where to go there

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now we’re just passing this back and forth but again we can have a large group with lots of people

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and that can be really interesting

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so this is the pink one okay yeah i’m gonna be kind of similar to this

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but not really

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[Music]

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robert from

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um

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okay how are we doing are you done oh what am i looking for you almost

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are you hungry

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[Music]

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these things are great too but drawing is pretty awesome dad don’t be too embarrassing i told you

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many times

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all right are you ready to exchange your game you’re good you’re done

The Reveal

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and we’re done yeah okay the big reveal number two here we go

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you see that all right that looks pretty good let’s see here

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it’s kind of like i know what to say i kind of repeated

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and then there’s your myself head again and then let’s look at mine quickly

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what do you think the head looks like it looks like um some kind of tree with the two rounds

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and what about the middle there you a tree too right now

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big shoes

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so maybe we’ll cut this one out and then we’ll just wrap up does that sound right

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okay so again remember great way to get halloween decoration

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started and i think it’s september 5th now so it’s never too early to get going right

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and i think you and i should commit to what 10 drawings a day

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all right just gonna finish cutting this one out john and emma thank you so much

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i hope that was fun for others those are amazing drawings and i think that the

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two of you might become youtube stars

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it might be a career change those look really amazing

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um so thanks so much and thank you everybody for joining us um again john will have uh

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work up in the 2020 biennial of contemporary art um so that’s an exhibition that is part

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of the exhibition is at the apa in edmonton and part of the exhibition is at the rainy modern in saskatoon

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and they are both open to the public on saturday september 26th

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um so you’ll be able to see sean’s work um and emma’s influence so thank you so

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much for joining us thank you everyone bye yes i

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know bye

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