About the Workshop: In this workshop we will be combining music and drawing. We will be taking inspiration from a song that speaks to us and draw ourselves through that song. This exercise invites us to use lyrics as prompts to create narratives from our own experiences. The goal is to start a zine that combines the elements of a song (lyrics, title, beat, genre) with different elements of ourselves. While songs can be oddly specific or general, we will be taking aspects from our lives to re-imagine the song and make it specific to our own context.

This workshop is welcome to all levels. We will prioritize expressing our emotions and experiences over technique. We encourage abstract, fictional and imperfect self-portraits!

Supplies: You need access to paper and any drawing tools (pencils, pens, markers, charcoal, etc). Please bring a song you like to use for the workshop!

Bio: semillites hernández velasco (he/they) is a trans and brown visual artist and printmaker based in “vancouver”, on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations. semillites was born in mexico city in 1995, at the age of nineteen he immigrated north. semillites comes from a family of campesinos (peasants) in central méxico and he tries to put his ancestors’ teachings in his artworks. semillites’ artwork aims to be imperfect, brown, trans, sincere, with a deep love for colors and collective work. semillites’ mediums range from drawing to textile art, music and animated gifs. his artworks are love letters to himself, his ancestors and every person, flower and grasshopper that has ever crossed his path.

Accessibility: Live transcription/auto-generated text captions will be available during the workshop, and a transcript of the artists’ instructions will be made available afterwards upon request. For privacy reasons, we will not be including participant feedback in the transcript.