For anyone booking in March 2019 for our May course I will be sending you three mussel shells of finest wild English watercolours. These will be made form ochres gathered in Devon and chalk found near Stonehenge. All the details are at wyrdschool.ie. Get in touch if you’d like to come along.
Paints in their shells, drying in a basket.
7-9pm at Canela Cafe, East Molesey, opposite Hampton Court station. We’ll be looking at proportion, measuring and alignment. Simple methods and a bit of practice will give you confidence. All welcome.
One of two reduced price bursaries remains (700 rather than 950 Euros), now available. Go to www.wyrdschool.ie for details or to apply. There is also a gift for anyone who books in January 2019, a hand made buckskin pouch from me. Just email me your address and payment receipt from Wyrdschool.ie, and I will send you your hand painted pouch…
‘Paul and Caroline wove us an alchemical vessel on that wild island. Between the water and the rocks, the sea otter and the swift, I found something I had forgotten. I have spent the months since dancing with my wild twin — a dance, which, I have come to realize, has no beginning and no end. I recommend this course as an orientation to those who want to embark on a long, tiring, and wonderful journey. It won’t be what you expect, and it is so worth it.’ MK – participant 2018
I am teaching Wild Twins again 4-10th May 2019, with writer Paul Kingsnorth, co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project. We will be making everything we use from scratch, from natural and wild materials, and from the wild hearts of ourselves. Writers and artists will be making their work, sometimes paired, sometimes solo, in response to rugged nature that will be our home for the course. We will not draw or write in the way we always do, but instead find new ways to express something less anthropocentric, more embedded in the living world which we barely behold, but which we can get to know by paying close attention. Both of the teachers are experienced in bringing people to their senses, rewilding their art and connecting to place authentically. We have a magical week planned, full of great work, fires, story, words, images and nature. Writers will be responding to the work of artists, and vice versa. We will turn our work on it’s head and see what we can glimpse when we put down our habitual ways of thinking and working.
Artists and writers of all stripes have joined us for our first course in May 2018, choreographers, film makers, illustrators, professional and less-experienced alike, made hand made books, oak gall ink, mixed ochre paints, smashed green earths from Dingle to make beautiful paints, produced quills and brushes made from feathers, cherry tree gum was used to bind everything, badger-dug and sea strewn chalk for our whites… We explored the significance of red, black and white in alchemy and art, writing and history, and how these colours wind through myth and story.
As well as all this, we’ll also be making charcoal, natural cordage with which to sew our books, and make precious paints with lapis and malachite, inks from nut shells, spices and wine. The studio and accommodation are just metres from the wild Atlantic edge.
Full course details here. Booking and prices. Venue Sherkin North Shore is here, on this island.
Paul Kingsnorth and I are offering two much-reduced price bursaries to artists and writers for our transformational Wild Twins course in Ireland in May 2019. If you would like to apply go to http://www.wyrdschool.ie for details. The course normally costs 950Euros, but this will be 700Euros with the bursary. We are keen that people from all kinds of backgrounds are able to come along to work together in wild nature.
Feel free to pass this on to a friend.
Happy New Year!
Some of the wild materials we will be making and using.
I will be blogging here more next year, but for now, here’s to a creative 2019 for you all. In the meantime come visit me on Instagram @foundandground
I will be offering new courses in January and beyond since the monthly life drawing sessions have gone so well in East Molesey. Classes will run at Canela Café, opposite Hampton Court Station, as well as at our studio near Molesey Lock, a few minutes walk upstream. Keep an eye out here and on @foundandground on Instagram, for the class dates when they appear. See you there.
Have a great Winter Solstice, Christmas and New Year.
If you write or make art of any kind, head over to www.wyrdschool.ie for a 50 Euro reduction on our Wild Twins course, if booked and paid before NYE 2018.
I can’t wait to share all the wonderful materials I have been making and researching for us, and the stories Paul and I have been gathering…
Cernunnus, 2017,
6.3cm square, malachite, ochre and lamp black hand made watercolours on deerskin parchment. Painted for Dark Mountain 12 Sanctum.
Starting with life drawing at Café Canela tomorrow, and following up with other workshops over the winter, here’s the first poster, feel free to share it.
I am now on Instagram at last, come find me @foundandground.
Fugol from my drawings for ‘The Wake’ by Paul Kingsnorth.
It is a joy to find what we need on the ground beneath our feet. ‘Making good use of the things that we find, things that the everyday folks leave behind…’ British folks who were kids in the 1970’s will remember the Wombles, wonderful resourceful animated characters who lived in Wimbledon Common and were proto up-cyclers, foragers and green champions. The show should be brought back, it would be so on-trend.
I’ve been finding some great materials this year, here’s a few pictures.
Red Devon clay, as I found it on a rainy day it formed these useful lumps.
Starting my wild basket in the woods with a ‘god’s eye’ of split hazel withies, followed with long strands of ivy.
Here’s my latest improv basket, made in the woods of Wiltshire. It’s just the right size for gathering nuts and berries, roots and leaves, which is what I was living on for four days. More about that later!
