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.
