Painting workshop with Emma Jennings - Giving art for Christmas
Most of these students have never painted before and look at what they've created! What will we be doing in our classes? I will encourage you to be brave and experimental. Allowing yourself the time and space to look closely at the shapes and patterns in the natural world will help you create something beautiful and to connect with what's always around us.
You are coming to me with various degrees of experience and confidence. You have a lifetime of ideas to draw on, with different personalities. Some of you will be comfortable painting big and messy, and others will prefer small and detailed. I will encourage you to do what feels right, but also to be brave and try something new.
There is such joy in playing around with paint, and it’s the unknowing and experimenting that is exciting! We will start with looking - holding something from the forest or perhaps you brought something from your garden, and closely observing all the tiny details, shapes and patterns. How does if feel? What can you see?
From there we will spend some time drawing what we see - and we all see things differently! There is no expectation to be refined botanical artists here, it’s all in the experience of looking and making marks with your pencil or brush or charcoal or crayon. If you want to extend that to a finished observational drawing or painting I will help you do that. Or if you’re interested in the geometry and patterns I will help you develop something more geometric and repetitive or abstract. Or you can do both like I do.
We’ll use beautiful Japanese papers which are artworks in themselves. Made using traditional and sustainable techniques with renewable resources, there is something very special about layering your ideas on this paper. You are honouring craftsmanship that is hundreds of years old, and now you are part of its story.
Making art is about giving yourself permission to make it. To sit down and focus, to look closely at the beauty and wonder that is around you, to give something your full attention. It’s not always about the results, it’s about the process, the ideas, the materials, and the joy of making something that is an extension of you. Please get in touch if you'd like to give it a go! Group presentations and private lessons welcome.
