Grab a spoon and a paintbrush! Magenta House is thrilled to welcome Gizelle Faye back on Sunday 6 July for an interactive workshop on how to make, paint and eat Halo-Halo!
Halo-Halo is a nostalgic Filipino dessert that translates to ‘mix-mix’ in Tagalog. Imagine a stack-worthy layering of seasonal fruits, sweet beans, jellies, toasted rice puffs, wafers, ice cream, shaved ice, and plant-based and dairy milks!
In this class, you get to build your own dessert according to your taste and dietary preferences - choosing from a smorgasbord of ingredients prepared by Mariam from Magenta House. Guided by Gizelle, you'll learn how to paint the edible anatomy of this hyper-colour dessert using vibrant watercolours and creative techniques.
What you'll take home from the workshop:
Watercolour kit
Paintbrushes in a pencil-case container
Clipboard with watercolour paper
Watercolour basics manual
Glass jar for you to paint watercolours at home
Back by popular demand, this session is open to beginners and intermediate students. No prior painting experience needed - simply show up to Magenta House and come away with your own artwork and a sweet tongue! Connect with fellow participants and gain insights into Filipino culture through food, art, and chikahan (conversations).
Halo-Halo ingredients will include:
Polvoron (short-bread candy)
Ube halaya (purple yam jam)
Jackfruit
Sweet beans
Pinipig (toasted rice puffs)
Ube ice cream
Vegan corn, coconut and mango ice cream
Milks (evaporated milk, vegan condensed milk)
Seasonal fruits
Tapioca pearls
Kaong (palm nut)
Nata de coco (coconut jelly)
Macapuno (coconut strings)
Sweet corn
Chocolate Waffles
Shaved ice and more
We use Holbien paints and offer vegan, nut-free, and gluten-free ingredients. Pls contact Mariam on housekeeper@magentahouse.com.au for any queries or access info.
Team
Halo-halo maker / Event Organiser: Mariam Ella Arcilla
Watercolour teacher / Event Organiser: Gizelle Faye
Photography: Anna Hay
Bios 🐣
Gizelle Faye is an artist, florist, stylist, calligrapher, letterer, mum and wife to Harry. She is a kindred spirit, a risk-taker and a perfectionist who ironically thrives in beautiful chaos. Her undying love for books, fascination with art & pop culture and obsession with music allows her to escape from reality and pool inspiration for her art style. She has long believed there’s more to life than a cubicle in an office so she went Cuckoo and left her corporate job to pursue her dreams in 2012 and founded Cuckoo Cuckoo Concepts. For a decade, she was the creative director of the event styling and floral design company, dreaming up unforgettable and picture-perfect moments from a tropical island called Cebu. It was during the pandemic that Gizelle picked up her paints and brushes and rediscovered her love for painting amidst the dark times. The universe proved a lot more cuckoo than her and sent her & her family on a journey that will find them in Camden, NSW. But Gizelle vows to always bloom where she is planted so today, in this new country, she continues to paint, hosts art workshops and creative experiences, and offers social media content styling and creation, and other creative services for small businesses. Instagram
Mariam Ella Arcilla is a Filipina-Singaporean creative who works across producing, arts admin, writing, marketing, and community-building. She runs Magenta House, which supports emerging artists, experimental practices, and equitable arts ecologies. Mariam has managed artist-run initiatives, social justice projects, galleries, and indie publications since 2006. For Mariam, the meaning of tahanan (home) is a reworlding and co-nurturing exercise. She grew up in a household of artists and chefs in Quezon City and spent her childhood selling snacks, making zines, and turning waste into recycled art. She was raised by her headstrong creatrix Lola (grandmother), who passed on life disciplines to help Mariam spiritually self-anchor during a time of family separation and turbulence, which saw her ping-pong through foster homes for a decade before immigrating to Australia at 16. All this time, Mariam remained hopeful that she'd one day find her way back to her Lola’s kitchen–the place she felt most safe. As an adult, she eventually returned to the Philippines to reunite with her family, savouring her Lola's final years on this Earth. Today, Mariam lives on Gadigal Country and maintains a multimodal practice that translates knowledge-relay, communal feeding and domestic hospitality into creative acts of service. Mariam strives to carry her Lola's legacy by making Magenta House an artistic safehouse for kindreds to congregate, learn, rest, nurture and seed together. Instagram
1pm – 4pm
