Workshops

Landscape Painting

As artists we all carry instinctive response to our surrounds and with the right tools and knowledge base we can explore such responses and appreciation through the medium of paint.

It is one thing responding to a subject and longing to express it in paint yet another executing it in an artwork. For this we require an accumulation of painting techniques which the workshop aims to equip the artist with.

Landscapes are very personal subjects, which we experience first-hand on a regular basis and with which we often have very sensory and emotional connections.
One is so often disappointed by photographs we take of landscapes as they carry very little of the beauty and power of our state of mind when immersed by its magnitude. But through painting one can help recapture such emotions and intrigue once we have an understanding of the medium of paint.

Painting with mark

I am running a three day painting workshop which explores the dynamic art of mark making. This is an area in an artist’s process that often inhibits the painter’s development.

Once one is aware of the complexities of applying mark, the process of painting is a far easier and more expansive experience. Ultimately every painter has the ability to apply eloquent marks, all one needs are the “tools” with which to do so.  This three day course attempts to aid the painter in ways with which to access and execute one’s individual rhythms of applying paint.

Exploring the nature of paint

This is a four day workshop that stretches over two weekends. It investigates the physical nature of paint which holds such diverse, poetic and malleable qualities. The workshop will investigate how the importance of “the image” is so often overstated to the detriment of the painting. If the artist does not allow him/herself to gain a sensual and visual knowledge of the nature of paint, a painting so often remains a picture rather than an exciting art work. The workshop is celebration in the sumptuous nature of paint as a tool for communication and its possibilities for the artist.

Abstract artists as well as figurative artist will be catered for during these four days. I strongly believe that to truly embrace the nature of paint when working in both genres, one has to learn to down the barriers of pedantic adulthood, learn to take risks, get dirty and “play”. Play may be seen as a fickle attitude but I believe it holds great gravity if one is to grow as a painter. With serious play come’s discovery and the accidental which reveals both the materials and the ones own potential. These are two areas where we put great restrictions.

Figure/portrait workshop

This is a four day workshop that stretches over two weekends. It  investigates the human form looking at how the artist can view and interpret it from a personal point of view. Such as the choice of subject, chosen posture, cropping of image, mark making, tone etc.

We are all unique beings and as artists are confronted by the constant battle of finding the courage, voice and insight to take ownership of this. In order to explore ones vision with freedom one not only has to respect and trust ones vision but learn the “trade” of seeing and applying ones material with fluidity.  Such issues will be addressed through the practical basis of image making throughout the course.

We will be doing some drawing but the workshop predominantly examines the relationship between artist, the human form and paint.