The Bruton Art Society workshop season has been proceeding apace since February. Now, with a break until the programme resumes in September after the hubbub of the annual exhibition in August, it seems like a good time to report on a great series of workshops organised, as ever, by our workshop co-ordinator, Sally Ridout.
‘ Paper Art ’ : Tutor, Naomi Kendall
We had a rescheduled 2 day workshop on the 20th and 21st February with Naomi Kendall on ‘Paper Art’ which was postponed from October 2024 due to illness.
Naomi is a Somerset based artist and a member of the Paper Artist Collective. Those of us who took part had a very enriching experience, experimenting with cutting, folding and scoring, finding different ways of turning paper into relief sculptures, collages and stand alone pieces. We discovered with great pleasure what Naomi’s words meant : “although it’s such an every-day material, paper can be transformed in so many ways”.
‘ Expressive Acrylics – Land and Sky’: Tutor, Lynn Keddie
A one day workshop on 7th March 2025
Lynn is a very inspiring tutor and artist, who gave the group an opportunity to free up their work using acrylics, a medium often misunderstood. There was nothing but praise for her encouraging style of teaching and folks were determined to continue to work with acrylics undaunted when they went back home.
‘Portraiture, a route to character and likeness’ : Tutor, Toby Wiggins RP
On 13th and 14th March we had the privilege of working with the portrait painter Toby Wiggins, who is a member of the Royal Portrait Society.
Toby took us through the process of building up a portrait on a ‘route to character and likeness’ over two days and we are very grateful to him for agreeing to work with us.Toby is a patient and thoughtful tutor and the results of his teaching are spectacular. Thanks must also go to our two models who sat for us over two consecutive days, with breaks of course! Because this workshop was so popular, Toby has agreed to do another one in the future, so members need to look out for that one in the future.
‘ Expressive Drawing in charcoal and soft pastels’: Tutor, Kate Lynch
A two day workshop on the 10th and 11th April 2025 at Hadspen Village hall.
Kate is well known for her interest in West Country rural crafts and skills, and has researched, written and illustrated books on the subject. One book in particular to look out for is “CRAFT”- portraits and voices recording traditional crafts from Somerset artisans accompanied by Kate’s illustrations.
We will remember the collaborative drawings which Kate set for us in both charcoal and soft pastel and in particular her enthusiasm and joy at imparting and developing our expressive drawing skills.
‘Cut, paste and sew fabric landscapes’ : Tutor, Imogen Bittner
Something completely different and magical happened when Imogen brought her Aladdin’s cave of fabric scraps and offcuts to Hadspen Village hall for this workshop. Her signature fabric landscape and still life collages are works of art like no other, transforming left over cuts of material with their colours, patterns and textures into compositions which inspire and surprise. Those of us who took part in this two day workshop on the 8th and 9th of May found ourselves excitedly delving into her table of treasures, sorting and cutting, stitching, ironing and pasting the gems we needed to create our own masterpieces, guided by Imogen’s encouragement and experience. A whole new world of resources opened up for us in the process and we are very grateful for it.
‘Franz Marc and Der Blaue Reiter’ : Talk/Workshop with Sally Ridout
Blaue Reiter
On 24 May at Hadspen Sally Ridout led an enjoyable and informative workshop on Der
Blaue Reiter.
She opened with a talk and slides of this colourful and stimulating group, active in
Germany all too briefly, roughly 1911 to 1914 , when the outbreak of World War I forced its
dissolution. Principal members dispersed from Munich: Kandinsky went back to his native
Russia,
We learnt of the rejection of 19th century classical formal painting and its replacement with
the freedom of expression pioneered first by Impressionists, Van Gogh, Monet and
company; later by the Fauves, Derain and Matisse. The Blaue Reiter members such as
Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, Gabrielle Munter and August Macke concentrated on
movement with powerful use of primary colours that they believed would signify emotions:
blue for purity and/or masculinity; red for brutality,weight, matter; yellow for femininity.
Nature, principally animals and vegetation influenced design often with flat surfaces and
black outlines.
Several now famous names briefly joined or influenced Blaue Reiter. So we saw bits of
Cubism, Picasso, Klee et al..
Sally encouraged us to listen to The Lark Ascending and some Schoenberg while
generating spontaneous marks on A5 paper. We discussed synaesthesia and colour.
Which colour do you assign to which day of the week? Is your Monday red? Is Sunday
blue? Some surprising coincidences cropped up.
Next, Sally issued a plain coloured card apiece, inviting each one of us to cut out their
own choice of interesting shape. One by one we added and built a group collage on the
floor. Kandinsky would have been as delighted by the result as we were.
The afternoon session was couple of hours individually emulating Blaue Reiter style
inspired by images that Sally provided. Our collected results made a most satisfying show
of bright colour and interesting forms.
I found this another of Sally’s well prepared and successful workshops, evidently much
appreciated by us all.
Thank you, Sally.
Michael Riggs
26May 2025
With many thanks to Sally Ridout and to Michael Riggs for their reports. There are still a number of excellent workshops to come in the autumn. Visit the Events Calendar to explore and to book.