Exploring Drawing

Service Description

If you are looking for space to reconnect with your inner creative? Are you ready to paint with your eyes closed, feel your way round your subject, and draw with both hands? Well... Exploring Drawing is for you! Each week of Exploring Drawing looks at a new subject and medium, including water colour, pastels and charcoal, with a focus on experimenting and creating a broad portfolio of works for participants to get a sense of how and what they like to draw. The focus of this course will be less on learning formal skills, but instead an introduction to how drawing can help us think, make us feel, document our experiences and ground us in spaces. Some classes will be taken in the studio, and others will take us on ‘research trips’ within walking distance of Assembly Arts - there will be lots of drawing from observation and imagination. It will be social, with lots of discussion, and feedback will be geared towards helping artists grow confidence. There will be no assessment of skill, but permission to experiment - which is the fuel for creativity, personality, and style. *How long is the course, and what is the structure of each session?* The course is 5 weeks long an each session is 2 hours long. The sessions will, on the whole, be led by our excellent tutor Meg Bowyer. An example of what you could expect can be found below. Please note that the plans may change as other teachers are brought in to add their unique twist to the course. Week 1 - Observation Drawing - please bring a few objects which you would like to draw. These could be sentimental objects, things which hold importance or stories, or they could be interesting to look at or feel - like a pinecone. Week 2 - Exploring Drawing using watercolour. We will experiment with the movement of wet mediums, interpreting abstract watercolour shapes into surreal drawings using the wet/dry technique. Week 3 - Portable, a Plein Air! We will meet in the studio and make our own concertina sketchbooks. We will then draw whilst walking along the Lancaster Canal, paying specific attention to the natural world. Week 4 - Portraits in Place - some warm up drawings to introduce the class to soft pastels, and some short life-drawing style exercises to start drawing faces. Week 5 - Taking inspiration - This could include drawing from museum objects, or drawing from other artists. We will conclude by editing and reflecting on works made during the course.