With hundreds of short courses to choose from in the new autumn/
winter brochure we have put together a list of some notable
highlights…
Books and paper courses:
Japanese style bookbinding with Yo Yamazaki (Brochure
p.53)
New for autumn / winter 2017 the course will take place during
Japanese Week (3-8 Dec).
Students will learn to make a set of 7 books using authentic
methods and tools from Japan.
Drawing:
Drawing trees with fine artist, broadcaster and writer Sarah
Simblet (p.13)
Sarah is a teacher at The Ruskin School of Art and Royal Academy
and has just released a new book, 'The New Sylva'. This course
directly connects to the natural surroundings of West Dean Gardens
and will derive inspiration from Edward James' love of trees and
his arboretum.
Drawing strategies to develop site-specific art with
contemporary artist Mark Anstee MFA (p.10)
Develop a proposal for a site-specific artwork through the
process of drawing. Use different forms and approaches to drawing
from field study and early concept sketch, to the delivery of final
worked-up plans and presentation.
Glass and Mosaics:
Reactive glass jewellery with glass artist Claire Hall
(p.16)
Explore the potential of using reactive glass powders, frits,
silver leaf inclusions and the new
alchemy glass to create a range of beautiful jewellery. Enjoy and
experiment as heat from the kiln brings chemical reactions and
surface pattern to life.
Jewellery:
Silver stacking rings with Laila Smith (p.20)
Students will create a beautiful stacking silver ring set.
Techniques covered include designing, sizing, forming, piercing,
texturing and soldering. Looking at repeated motifs, textures and
surfaces will inform your finished set of rings.
Metals:
Blacksmithing - Practical Projects with Alex Smith (p.23)
This course will give the chance to explore a range of forging
techniques including bending, twisting, splitting, forging and
re-welding. Working with hot metal and fire, students will learn to
make a ram's head poker and other practical items, such as a bottle
opener and key ring.
Painting:
Life painting in oils for beginners with figurative painter Zara
Drummond (p.30)
Learn fundamental techniques to make a representational oil
painting of the figure. Techniques include drawing in paint,
essential colours, organising your palette, colours for flesh
tones, brushes, mediums, composition, light and shade
(chiaroscuro).
Photography:
Digital photography with internationally published landscape
photographer Benjamin Graham (p.33)
Learn to see creatively by identifying the opportunities that
light, subjects, patterns, tones and forms present to you as a
photographer. Enhance your graphic awareness and grasp key
compositional and lighting principles that will stimulate your
personal vision in photography. For DSLR users.
Pottery & ceramics:
Throwing and turning for beginners with Jo Taylor (p.36)
Work on your own potter's wheel as you develop your own designs
and learn how to work with clay. You are shown key techniques,
including how to prepare and finish work.
Sculpting in clay inspired by nature with international
ceramicist Kaori Tatebayashi (p.36) Develop and challenge your
sculpting skills by experimenting with various forming techniques.
You will create a large vessel as a blank canvas to decorate taking
inspiration from West Dean Gardens. Explore how to form intricate
shapes and expand your skills, gaining a wider range of expression
with clay.
Printmaking:
Playing with light in woodcut printmaking with Merlyn Chesterman
who is currently exhibiting at the Royal Academy (p.39)
Discover how to achieve success with sunlight and shadow, direct
light and darkness, to create atmosphere or tell a story. Print
techniques include design, cutting, sharpening, inking and
editioning from both black and white and multi-colour blocks. Enjoy
a journey into tools, papers, opaque and translucent inks, pigments
and printing methods, both by hand and with a press.
Sculpture:
Storytelling through Automata with Rachel Larkins (p.40)
Consider the potential of automata to tell a story through
drawing and making inspired by antique and contemporary moving
toys. By reflecting on the use of materials, construction and
experiments with simple moving mechanisms, you will develop an idea
for a moving sculpture from two-dimensional sketch to
three-dimensional realisation.
Textiles:
Sculptural millinery with Sarah Marshall who currently works for
John Boyd Hats (p.47)
Realise your ideas for making wildly imaginative head pieces, to
create sculptural millinery.You will acquire techniques for hand
building structures using different gauges of millinery wire to
make dramatic yet lightweight forms, and to shape a variety of
materials including straw braid and crin.
Woodworking and furniture making:
Furniture making for beginners - a dovetailed stool with Daniel
Pateman (p.55)
Experience key furniture making techniques to make a simple
dovetailed stool, a versatile project with a multitude of uses.
Essential elements are introduced in a fun engaging way, as you
customise the joint layout of your piece, and learn to set up and
use tools required in this hands-on approach.
Writing:
Writing fiction - developing characters and perspective with
novelist Isabel Ashdown (p.9)
Great characters are at the heart of great fiction, the most
compelling stories contain unforgettable characters we are curious
about and believe in. Through guided discussion, exercises around
point of view and hands-on writing this course will help you to
transform your existing characters and encourage you to unearth a
few new ones along the way.
Freelance writing and Writing your family history with Joanna
Moorhead, freelance journalist who writes frequently for The
Guardian and is a published author (p.9)
Have you ever read a newspaper, magazine or online article and
wondered if you could write like that? If so, this inspiring course
is for you. Covering how to pitch and write articles for
newspapers, magazines and websites, learn how to hone ideas, judge
whether a piece is 'right' for an outlet, and techniques for
writing for the current newspaper, magazine and online market.
