Tuition
The Art Club
From 2022 - 2024 I launched and grew a weekly art club for adults of all abilities, running both an afternoon and an evening session. Work was experimental, in all different types of mediums and styles, covering numerous themes, from landscape to portrait, still life and abstract. I developed a method of collaborative creating whereby we often used the reverse side of a long strip of wallpaper, moving around a long table, with everyone sharing the space, working into each other's work. In addition there was also the opportunity to develop individual work. I encouraged a community spirit of encouragement and support for each other, moving away from self judgement towards play and the welcoming of mistakes as part of our creative journey.
This flower border was created by 11 members of the art club. It was inspired by the soft pastel technique of Richard Suckling. He does not blend the pastels but gently works pastels over pastels, moving around the paper, keeping his strokes loose, then the pastels start to blend themselves. This method worked well as a group where we could move around the table, changing position every couple of minutes which prevented overwork. Reference images from garden centre magazine cuttings were placed around the table for those that wanted to use them, although they were mostly there just to get people started before the imagination took over. We did not choose a colour scheme but this developed organically.
This rocky river scene was inspired by the technique of landscape artist Robert Dutton explained in his book 'Drawing Dramatic Landscapes'. It began with mark making as I directed the club members to make dashes for the leaves, lines for the water, shadows for the rocks, then organic lines for the branches. The picture then becomes apparent in just the final stages of the making (to the delight of everyone involved) which is a great lesson for learning to 'trust the process'. The mediums were mixed: oil and soft pastels as well as watercolour and acrylic paints (the acrylic paints just added a little at the end to bring out the highlights in the water and darker branches). The colour scheme was chosen in advance, for the warm browns and the cool grey blues, and only those materials that matched the colour scheme were made available to use. Masking tape was used to divide the image into three panes. once the tape was removed. This work was created by 6 people of differing abilities, in approximately 90 minutes.
Over the two years, the club made over 60 collaborative large artworks and hundreds of individual pieces, many of which were displayed at our community 'Art & Mind' exhibition in November 2023.
In preparation for my relocation to Bristol in Summer of 2024, the club transitioned to a self-run model, with members taking it in turns to lead sessions or choosing themes which are worked on together. There are now two self-led art groups which continue to meet weekly at The Art House in South Brent, an evening group on a Monday and an afternoon group on a Tuesday - if you are interested to join either of them please get in touch.
Textile Art Club
These are just some of the artworks produced by members of the textile club which met weekly at Artmoor Haven from 2023 to 2024. We made work out of recycled donated materials. Most was individual although one large piece (below) was collaborative. General themes were chosen together with inspiration drawn from Pinterest. People were free to make the work that they wanted, with encouragement from each other. There was no obligation to sew, since pictures could be made simply through cutting and gluing, although people would usually opt to have a go at sew.ing. Most of the sewing was done by hand although a sewing machine was available and used occasionally. Sewing did not have to be precise; any type of stitching was fine. The most important elements of the club were the conversations and friendships that developed whilst making and also everyone's creative confidence which developed over time.
Textile Dartmoor. 200 x 68 cms. Collaboratively designed and sewn by hand at the Artmoor Haven Textile Club, from 2023 - 2024.
Pebble Jellyfish Workshop
This jellyfish was the output of a workshop on Bigbury Beach in November 2023, that I led for a group of home educated students, ranging in ages from 11 to 16. To start the session each student was given a bucket and we all took some time to explore the beach, collecting pebbles that caught our eye, placing them in our buckets.
Then we did some mindful exercises and listened to the sound of the sea to tune our senses, before each choosing our favourite pebble to examine in detail. After this, together we sorted all the pebbles, grading them by colours and sizes on a sorting mat.
We sketched a rough outline of a jellyfish on the sand and decorated it together with the pebbles, letting the patterns develop organically as people chose themselves where to place them. At the end of the day we photographed the jellyfish being washed back into the sea and reflected on the meaning of impermanence and liminal spaces.
Circles on the Sand Workshop
This second workshop in December 2023 was a follow up to the previous jellyfish workshop, working with the same group of home schooled students. Whereas the previous workshop involved collaborative work, this workshop focused on individual creations.
For inspiration we first looked at examples of land artists on an iPad, including circular sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy and Jon Foreman.
The students were each given a stick and piece of string and shown how to draw a circle in the sand by tying the circle to the stick, placing the stick in the centre of the circle and using the string to navigate around the stick, marking the circumference of the circle.
Everyone was free to decorate their circle as they chose. One student chose to build a mound with sand in their circle before decorating it with rocks. Another chose to make a smaller circle out of pretty pebbles. Each circle was unique.
At the end of the session we walked around to review and admire each of the sculptures as a group and the students each took pride in explaining what they had sculpted.
Website Building Workshops
From 2023 to 2024 I ran a monthly tech workshop to teach people how to build their own websites. This included working with local artists, none of whom had any prior technical experience, to teach them how to build their digital portfolios. We used Google Sites as a platform, which has the advantage of free web hosting. There is limited functionality on Google sites but this enforces simplicity which can be beneficial where the aim is to display artwork simply, without distraction. Finished websites included photography website by Vanessa Griffith and Refa Art by Christine Bangert.
Individual Art Tuition for Teenagers
In 2023 I provided one-on-one art tuition to teenagers. Provided with tips on how to go about research, they chose their own subjects of interest and I gave suggestions on mediums and techniques that they could use. Here is some sample of work completed by two 15 year old girls.
A nice place to start research in order to find a teenager's interests, is through browsing Pinterest and creating a mood board of artwork that they like. Jellyfish caught this student's eye, which provided the theme for an organic exploration of watercolours whilst discussing fascinating facts about jellyfish.
Continuing with the sea theme, these were linocut prints onto different coloured papers, also chosen as a theme bu the student, inspired by work spotted on Pinterest.
The first two images were crayon rubbings on painted paper (frottage) taken from surfaces around the exterior of the building to create textures, and then cut and arranged into an image inspired by the wild flowers growing in the area. The second images were an extension of the same paper cutting method, inspired by artist Clover Robin: the creation of an elephant moth, which was the student's favourite insect.
Here monoprints were created with ink and acrylic paint, providing random marks and textures in which we looked for landscapes using a square cut out frame. When the compositions had been chose they were then lightly drawn into and framed, to create semi-abstract landscapes.
This was the first cardboard butterfly from recycled packaging materials which launched the start of a growing community 'Butterfly Wall of Hope' (see image below). The butterfly was mounted on metal strips taken from recycled filing cabinet folders. Symmetry was explored as well as safe handling of a glue gun, with careful attention given regarding what to do in the case of a glue burn (run straight under the cold tap for 20 minutes and then gently massage away the glue under the tap when it is completely cold - do not pull off the glue when it is hot or you will damage your skin!)
Artmoor Haven Community 'Butterfly Wall of Hope', 2023.
These acrylic paintings were inspired by the style of artist Sarah Graham which the student had been exploring at school and wanted to research further. She had been disappointed with her ability to create a realistic painting so this is what we focused on, through first tracing her reference image and then step by step breaking the image down into sections, mixing and matching colours and tones and gradually building up the details. Half way through the process she dipped in confidence, disappointed with her progress, but I explained that this self-doubt is a typical inner journey when we create anything and are struggling to see the end point. With encouragement she learnt to 'trust the process' and pushed through that phase. Towards the end she was growing in confidence and liking her results. She did not quite complete the face during the time of tuition, but took the painting home to complete.