Art of Growing, Wednesdays, 10am-1pm
The Art of Growing is a free, friendly, drop-in art club that is facilitated by the professional artists at Chisenhale Studios.
Workshops explore drawing, painting, sculpture, video, performance and much more. We rotate the tutors every few weeks, so there is plenty of opportunity to learn new skills and gain experience from the wide range of artists within the Studios.
Schedule for April, May and June 2012
18th, 25th April: EMMA GUNNINGHAM
Portraiture
Using a variety of materials, Emma will be looking different approaches to portraiture.
2nd, 9th May: JON GEORGE
Relief Painting
Jon George will be exploring a new approach to painting using pulped paper gesso.
16th, 23rd May: RICHARD LAYZELL
Video Art
Richard’s approach to art uses video and performance, and offers something, which is completely different for the Art of Growing project.
30th May and 13th June: KATE HARDY
Oil Painting
Colour and the canal. The group will focus on colour and oil painting.
20th June, 27th June: KEVIN HARRISON
Wood Sculpture
Kevin Harrison’s workshops embrace the enormous fun of using wood to make sculptures. A hands-on experience of working with wood, creating some astounding works of art.
All welcome!
We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of an anonymous donor who is supporting the Art of Growing from February 2012 to June 2012. This funding goes directly towards the workshops, enabling the community to continue to benefit from this much-loved art workshop and club, and supporting the artist tutors involved in the programme.
Another very successful year of the Art of Growing project! It was a year where there were workshops on landscape painting, portrait painting, multi-cast printing and making sculptures in wood. We now start anew on the 18th of January with workshops led by RICHARD LAYZELL. Richard’s approach to art uses video and performance, and offers something which is completely different for the Art of Growing project. His work in performance, video and installation – and with industry and communities – has been recognised internationally, so we can’t wait to see what he brings to the workshops.
Lots of tea and chat provided
All workshops are Free, everyone welcome, including beginners.
For the last five weeks, Jon George and Kevin Harrison have been leading the Art of Growing workshops.
Jon George started with the first two weeks, showing the group an unusual technique of using a glue and chalk mixture to prepare a surface on which to paint. The mixture was used to cover a wood background, layer by layer until enough was built up to provide a smooth surface making it lovely to paint on. In the second workshop the group learnt how to make a special paint mix, produced using colour pigment, egg yolk and water called egg tempera. The richness in colurs created was wonderful and much appreciated by all.
Kevin Harrison’s three week workshop embraced the enormous fun of using wood to make sculptures. All enjoyed the knocking and sawing and hands on experience of working with wood, creating some astounding works of art.
The last workshop session for this year will be led by Charlotte Mew, so no doubt there will be a wonderful surprise in store for everyone. The workshops are open for all ages and abilities and are a rare opportunity for everyone to experience professional art making techniques from experienced artists.
All welcome.
The popularity of’ ‘The Art Of Growing’ workshops continues; for the past six weeks we have had the benefit of Malcolm Jones and Alicia Paz’s wealth of artistic knowledge. The first four workshops were held by Malcolm Jones and continued with developing our knowledge of landscape painting which had first been introduced to us at the beginning of this year. In the first session we spent the morning scouring the local area for inspiration; some of us took photos while others made same sketches of favourite views. Some also brought pictures from personal collections to incorporate into their work and created some amazing imagined landscapes. The end results were Fantasy Worlds that contained not only real places from both past and present but also imagined places. It was astonishing how the work produced reflected such diversity.
In the last two weeks we were introduced to Alicia Paz’s extraordinary technique of collage. Again, strange and wonderful worlds were created; this time using mixed mediums of images cut from magazines, newspapers and painting, combined with the use of acrylics and pastels. The theme we used in the first week was trees, a subject which is a favourite with Alicia Paz. We explored the influence trees have on both our myths and everyday life. The work we created reflected these influences and produced fascinating paintings. For the last session we used the same technique but this time to create portraits.
Everyone attending these workshops expressed how much they valued the sessions and felt priviliged for having the opportunity to learn from such skilled artists.
We are a free, friendly, community art club facilitated by professional artists from Chisenhale Studios who run workshops in drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking. We also take short, inspirational artist led walks exploring the local parks and canals. New members of all ages welcome, including beginners.
Wednesdays 10am-1pm
September 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th
Join painter Malcolm Jones for a four week project using photographs and paint to explore our personal response to landscape.
October 5th and 12th
Join artist Alicia Paz in workshops exploring our mystical relationship to trees using paint and collage.
After a successful Private View of the work produced from last years workshops at the View Tube, the Art of Growing began anew on the 20th of July with Emma’s portrait classes. First for practice, we sketched Barbara who kindly offered to model for everyone, and who was so patient she stayed in position for well over an hour. Everyone used charcoal in order to get the gist of shading and outline. Emma took photos of us which would be the source for reference for our self portraits. The following week, with the aid of a projector, we drew an outline of ourselves using the previous weeks photographs straight on to the canvas. We then started the process of painting using acrylic and brand new paintbrushes which were a joy to use. This week some of us who were struggling with the shading learnt the technique of turning the painting upside down which takes the attention of the eye away from the outline on to the detailing. Some had already completed their portraits,especially Barbara who initially without anyones notice began doing caricatures of everyone and once we realised we all had a good laugh!
During the past year, a number of the studio artists have run workshops with The Art of Growing Club. Malcolm Jones explored collaged and painted landscape, Jon George taught the technique of colour cast-printing, Uliana Apatina showed us how to use music and paint to free the imagination; we explored still life painting and made mono prints with Emma Gunningham, used ink and collage with Kate Hardy, made wood sculptures with Kevin Harrison, designed lettering with Geoff Seville and meandered through memories and found objects to create poetry with Charlotte Mew.
Some of the vast body of work we produced will be shown at the View Tube. Work will be shown on the stairwell, in the café, in the outside space and there’ll even be a piece of sound sculpture in the loos!
For those of you who haven’t yet been, the View Tube gives a stunning vista over the Olympic park and currently gets approximately 10,000 visitors a week. It is a 5 minute walk from Pudding Mill Lane DLR.
Emma ran two pilot painting classes at Butley Court, which is sited very close to Chisenhale Art Place (CAP). Emma was assisted by our wonderful intern, Yasmin. Butley Court Senior Citizens Centre is a multi-cultural community centre providing and hosting a range of activities, primarily but not exclusively targeted at over 50’s. It is managed by residents with the support of Old Ford Housing Association.
“Very, very lovely, would like to see it go on. Nice to be able to use my mind- nice to have your own tutors.” Gladys
“Very good class, makes you get together, good to learn new skills, I didn’t think I could do it.” Rosetta
“Great idea, coming to art group. Hope it continues, it makes a very nice atmosphere.” Stella
This is a Chisenhale Art Place (CAP) outreach project. It was funded jointly by CAP and Old Ford and funding is being sought to run the project for a year. If you’d like to discuss an outreach project with the Public Programme Coordinator, please click here.
Geoff trained in the art of lettering before the days of computers; he maintains that his drawing skills stem from that rigorous training. Geoff introduced the Art of Growing Club to techniques of precision drawing using lettering.
Castprinting is a technique developed by Jon George. As with many other printing processes, multiple copies of the original can be obtained; this is of course the beauty of printing. The cast print is unique because the original drawing is made using a liquid gesso medium so that the final print has a loose, fluid flow to it. Using the gesso drawing, a plaster block is created which is then inked and used to create a print. More than one colour requires further blocks. The process of castprinting needs to be done in stages, as the gesso drawings and the plaster blocks need time to dry. Although great fun, it is a rigorous and time consuming process. The Art of Growing Club worked with Jon over four sessions, but the results were certainly well worth the effort!
