Drawing Workshop at Toast Creative Residency
Stephanie Forrest and Rosie Vohra, practising artists and tutors from The Royal Drawing School will be leading a workshop exploring the notions of 'flux and flow' through drawing and collage as part of the TOAST Creative Residency.
The annual TOAST Creative Residency aims to bring together a like-minded community of creative individuals. This year, Toast are hosting their first virtual Creative Residency, an online three-day programme of talks, workshops and live demonstrations.
The programme, inspired by their seasonal campaign Flux & Flow, is open to all and aims to connect individuals and foster thought. Prices for individual events vary. The Residency runs from Thursday 15th - Saturday 17th October 2020. The full schedule can be found here.
The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.
— Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching
Stepping back and allowing things to flow in their own direction is central to building discovery and the unexpected into our work. Fundamental to ‘flow’, is the Taoist idea of ch’i – the energy force imparting life to all things. So we begin this workshop with a range of warm-up exercises designed to bring our awareness to the kinetic energy between mind, body and tool; scaling up, speeding up and embracing uncertainty and chance in our creative process. We will look at mark-making in traditional sumi-e ink painting alongside the work of Lee Krasner, before making our own improvised drawings with brush and ink in response to the music of John Cage.
For the second part of the workshop, we will switch modes to ‘flux’; moving from abstract marks to observational drawing; working from objects, words and the imagination. Through collage and ‘the cut-up technique’, we will re-purpose some of our first drawings to elevate the accidental, the spontaneous and give free play to associations. The torn edges of our creations will be held within the confines of small concertina books made in the workshop, for you to flux further or keep as pocket books of inspiration!
Materials list
- Inks or Watercolours
- Brushes
- Water pot
- Ink dish
- Kitchen Towel
- Fine table salt
- Scissors
- Glue
- A range of drawing materials- pens, coloured pencils, crayons
- A2/A3 paper for making a book
- 8 sheets of A3 paper
- A reading book (of any content)
- A small collection of scrap material (newspapers/ packaging/ receipts)
- Optional: Roll of cheap lining paper