D+P Studio News
Here is a wee bit of news from the D+P Studio!
Looking, sensing, watching in the Botanic Gardens…
1 November 2019
This time in the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow, our drawing group tucked ourselves into the deep ferny vegetation of Kibble Palace to draw the frenzy of intertwining plants.
We had a quirky session of drawing textures and shapes, then moved onto looking at the wider areas of the palace.
One of our group was inspired by reflections, sight and the act of watching itself.
We played with oil pastels and lead graphite sticks to try out different textures.
Category: Art Groups Tags: Drawing Groups
Japanese shodo calligraphy at the beautiful autumnal Cowden Japanese Garden
1 November 2019
We had a lovely day at the Cowden Japanese Garden with enthusiastic people taking part, it was a colourful autumn day and tranquil atmosphere, a perfect setting to enjoy a workshop of Japanese shodo calligraphy.
After a short talk about shodo we slowly strolled outside, meditatively walking in the garden to admire different features in the garden and interact with our senses, especially we paid attention to ‘karesansui, 枯山水’ dry landscape which was related to our theme that day!
Then we went back to the room, we started to try out the ‘enso, 円相’ circle to loosen up. Then we moved onto ‘sui, 水’ and ‘san, 山’ which can be combined as ‘sansui, 山水’ mountains and water. We had demonstrations and wrote the characters in very varied styles of calligraphy which the participants enjoyed!
During the break we had delicious scones and empire biscuits with hot drinks 😉
The garden is a delightful and peaceful place to visit, (it reminds Blair of Kenrokuen garden in Kanazawa) and the setting in the foothills of the Ochills near Dollar is inspiring 🙂
Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy
Halloween Masks and Autumn Crowns
30 October 2019
A simple fun way to make a Halloween mask or Autumnal crown is to use a long strip of thick paper sized to fit around the wearer’s head, and decorate and trim this to your fanciful and fantastical desire!
You can enjoy experimenting with different styles of masks, from superhero to elegant to monstrous, to animal or tribal..
Useful materials:
Scissors,
double sided tape, pencil, paint pens such as posca, coloured paper
such as heavy sugar paper, oil pastels or crayons, inks using a brush,
or artbrushes as we used, leaves – carefully choose the colours and
shapes of leaves.
We found inspiration and tips from the website Handmade Charlotte.
Category: Art Tags: Creative preparation, Young people's art
Relaxing doodling and free creative time at Centre81
30 October 2019
Our friendly free of charge group welcomes you to come along and join us tonight at the fabulous Centre81 at 6.30 to 8pm. Destress, find inspiration, enjoy trying out our drawing materials 🍁🧡😄
Last week at the Clydebank art group we had some fun with a nature rocky theme, in our group there is always plenty of freedom also to go your own creative way if you want to, and lots of help and encouragement when you need it too 🤗 we help you feel settled and enjoy a sense of wellbeing. Thanks to Centre81 Steering Group for co-organising this group.
Category: Art Groups Tags: Clydebank Art Group, Community Groups
Experiments outside with Suibokuga Japanese landscape painting with Margaret Kerr
15 October 2019
Margaret and Blair walked to the river North of Lenzie and found a sheltered peaceful spot next to a small weir, ideal for setting up for Suibokuga 水墨画 water and ink landscape painting.
We used 顔彩 gansai paint sets with fude brushes and cut bamboo takepens, and painted in sketchbooks for ease of working outside.
Coming to the activity with a meditative relaxed mind-body helped us to connect with the environment in harmony with the brushed markmaking. The sound of the frothing swirling water was relaxing to hear, and the bull that slowly appeared up the riverbank signalled time to move on.
Category: Art Tags: Environment, Japanese Chinese painting, Margaret Kerr, Meditation
Stress free creativity at Centre81
7 October 2019
At Clydebank art group we had a lively night with a great turnout of folk trying out all the different materials from pencils and pens to pastels and colourful inks.
We had a rocky theme exploring rocky shapes and imagining the carboniferous world that shaped the rocks below the Glasgow and Dunbartonshire area.
Rocky places was our starting point and we went off in several creative directions from there, so it was an expressive, natural and experimental night!
Kindly supported by West Dunbartonshire Council and Flightpath
Category: Art Groups Tags: Clydebank Art Group, Community Groups
Destress and doodle
2 October 2019
Relaxing creativity is back on at Clydebank art group tonight, organised by Centre81 and Centre81 Steering Group , please come and join us. Here are some images from the colourful artwork of the participants last week, we tried out lots of materials including art brushes and oil pastels 🧡
Kindly supported by West Dunbartonshire Council and Flightpath
Category: Art Groups Tags: Clydebank Art Group, Community Groups
Summer months of shodo calligraphy at Zen Heart Brush
30 September 2019
In June at our Zen Heart Brush Japanese calligraphy group, we practised the chapter title from poet and zen mater Dogen’s Shobogenzo “有時” uji – being time, and talked about the meanings of this, and the meanings of the individual characters themselves, which was surprising and mysterious!
In August we practiced ningen “人間” which means human beings in Japanese, but curiously in China it means society or human world. It was fascinating to explore how the kanji changed over time from the earlier shell and bone examples which are very visually communicative and lifelike.
In our September session, we had a full group (sorry didn’t manage photos until afterwards) and after working on enso zen circles we practiced the key eight strokes of a Chinese character. The Chinese character “永” ei contains all of these strokes – known as eiji happou, there are various versions of ei which vary in balance and dynamic, we had fun trying these out. We also looked at the fluid rivery meaning and visual in the kanji character. The faster more fluid styles were popular tonight 🙂
Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy
Autumn creativity
25 September 2019
Relaxing doodling is on at Clydebank art group tonight, organised by Centre81 and Centre81 Steering Group, please come and join us. Here are some images from the fun artwork of the participants last week.
Kindly supported by West Dunbartonshire Council and Flightpath
Category: Art Groups Tags: Clydebank Art Group, Community Groups
October Japanese themed groups 🙂
23 September 2019
We are having some Japanese themed groups this October.
One is “Cloudbrush, Treebrush” with Margaret Kerr, on Sunday 20th October from 10.30am – 4.30pm in the open countryside of Lenzie. Combining Japanese calligraphy and meditation, we will explore the relationship between clouds, water and the character of trees.
More info:
https://drawingandpaintingstudio.com/e…/cloudbrush-treebrush
Also we are delighted to be running two events at the beautiful Japanese Garden Cowden near Dollar, one is Suibokuga Japanese painting and the other is Shodo. Please click below for full information, the tickets are sold by the Japanese Garden.
– Japanese Suibokuga Landscape Painting, Sunday 6th October 10.30am – 1.30pm
– Japanese Shodo Calligraphy, Sunday 27th October 10.30am – 1.00pm
More information and tickets:
https://www.cowdengarden.com/…/japanese-suibokuga-landscap…/
https://www.cowdengarden.com/pr…/japanese-shodo-calligraphy/
We hope you can make it along and enjoy autumnal groups together! 🙂🍂
Category: Art Groups Tags: Margaret Kerr, Shodo calligraphy