The Inner Landscape (draft)

About

This workshop promises to be completly transformative to your creative practice. During these four days together at Bullclough School of Art, Mark hopes to share with you methods of making, both physical and philosophical. You will work with the tools, motivation and emotional content of making art - from 'simple' marks to how we form our artistic voice. We will loosely divide our time between three topics:

Skill - Our set of internal tools that we are continually learning and using to communicate our desires and ideas. An unskilled artist is hampered by their inability to express themselves effectively.

Creativity - Our reason and desire to make art is driven by creativity. It is the channel through which we pour our skills into art. Creativity is perhaps the hardest area to define since its meaning to each of us is innately personal, yet we all feel and understand it.

Empathy - One of the founding pillars of art is communication. We do it to connect with each other, and understand our place in the world. Making art is hard. It can be a solitary business alone in the studio, yet we are all engaged in this most human of activities. Empathy binds us to each other, and ultimately to the tradition of making art.

Rough outline of Mark's workshop:

Day 1:

Drawing - a refresher/introductory course. Referencing art history, we will set to work figuring out a dictionary of mark making and how we can apply it to the world around us.

Day 2:

Tools and methods - we will begin by acquainting ourselves with different media, possibly trying something new to stretch our creative selves, and then we head outside to begin sketching. We'll discuss the merits and pitfalls of working from photography.

Day 3:

Outside/Inside - whatever the Peak District weather, we will start the day by drawing/painting out in the landscape, gathering information and considering our connection to it. After lunch it's time to evaluate the sketches we have made together and begin decoding the experience into studio practice.

Day 4:

The studio - as we develop our source material, we may find a desire to return to 'en plein air' painting or seek to explore an internal landscape. There is no right answer, but we will employ our developing skills to further our creative voices.

Mark will be with you every step of the way, listening to your individual prompts and thoughts, to help you explore in a way that is true to you. We all travel at a different pace, but this artist's retreat can hopefully enable you to further explore the direction you're traveling in.