Gabrielle Cosco shares love of art with artists of all ages during Blueberry Festival

Tim Brody - Editor

Children and adults got a chance to indulge their creativity and hone their artistic skills through two events held during the Blueberry Festival by Sioux Lookout artist Gabrielle Cosco.
On August 8, Cosco led a group of 13 painters in creating works of art featuring turtles under the sea.
The following day, she taught a group of children and teenagers how to draw circus animals.
Cosco said both events went very well, “There were great turnouts to both the paint night and the drawing lessons. The blueberry festival usually asks me every year to put on both events and I am happy to oblige. It is great fun and I always have a good time trying to come up with ideas for what to draw and paint.”
Commenting on paint night she shared, “For paint nights I like to do something that all skill levels can tackle and also something you would actually want to hang in your home. It's always a bit of a challenge for me switching from digital art to traditional painting with acrylics or watercolours. Digital painting gives you so much more room for experimentation and layering concepts. I decided on the turtle this year because the background could be very interpretive and then the turtle just went on top. Everyone did a really good job at the paint night and they all turned out so very different. It's very cool to see the end result of each individual.”
She said of her drawing lessons with the youth, “I stuck with the blueberry festival theme this year which was the circus. So we drew some circus animals, lions, elephants, seals, show ponies and performing bears. I created a little book for the kids to follow along, which is available through Kwayaciiwin Education Resource Centre (KERC, where Cosco is the Print Production and Publishing Coordinator) now -- How to Draw Circus Animals. I have been wanting to do a serious of how to draw books for a few years now so it was great to have an event to do it for. We will be expanding on the concept and creating a line of how to draw books at Kwayaciiwin that feature animals, community activities and such that are more relevant to the area.”