THE BOSCASTLE SKETCHBOOK
An opportunity to experience the ancient harbour of Boscastle in a new and exciting way.
CREATE your own Sketchbook, Visual Diary, Portrait of a Place.
EXPRESS yourself in word and image, exploring the landscape of this unique and historic location.
OBSERVE the changes, tidal rhythms and weather patterns; the extremes of colour, contrasts of light and dark; effect of wind and wave on structure, shape and sound. Capture on paper a true sense of place
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK. Begin with a small fragment or idea, and allow the words/sketches to evolve and develop in new and exciting ways. Enlarge, experiment and progress into pattern, marks, colour, story and verse.
SURPRISE YOURSELF. Find your own voice and visual language.
TAKE A JOURNEY. Retrace the ancient footpaths. Be inspired by the surrounding hills and river valley. Travel along the Valency through the harbour walls to the ocean. Walk from Forrabury Church across the Celtic stitches to the lookout or scale Penally Cliffs up to Profile Rock and along the heights of Pentargon.
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THE BOSCASTLE SKETCHBOOK.
INTRODUCTORY DAY.
The purpose of this SKETCHBOOK PROJECT is to encourage you to work from the landscape and record in your own way, your responses, both structural and emotional.
Your first task will be to collect information in the form of notes, sketches and ideas.
Research of your subject is essential and pre-knowledge of the area would help you in your initial enquiries.
You will be encouraged to work in different media and develop your drawing, mark-making skills. For those interested in working with words, either exclusively or in combination with sketches, you will need to record your responses in an immediate, unselfconscious manner, thinking about the shape, sound and colour of words that describe best your feelings and observations.
It is not purely the structure of the landscape you should strive to portray, although this is certainly a very good point at which to start your enquiry, but how your subject matter relates to everything around it; how it is affected and changed by strength and direction of light; how it can be seen and described in totally different ways from different angles and viewpoints to create ever changing feelings of SCALE, SPACE, MOVEMENT, RHYTHM, PATTERN, TEXTURE, SURFACE, DRAMA and MOOD.
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Think about LINES, SHAPES, SHADOWS and COLOURS in the landscape.
The success of your first day will depend on your ability to work without preconceptions and unrealistic expectations. You will need to be able to focus and create small contained compositions. You will need to SELECT from all that is around you and maybe deal with only a small area or detail, as if you were looking through a viewfinder of a camera.
If you try to take on too much you will only disappoint yourself.
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Try to take an unusual viewpoint and then think carefully how to place this on the page. Will your sketch bleed out across the full extent of your page, or will you create a vignette and let your drawing make its own edges? Perhaps you will make several small studies of different aspects of the same subject on one page? Perhaps you will list some pertinent words within your sketches, or write in note/diary form alongside your image with brief annotations.
For those of you working almost exclusively with the written word, make short, concise sentences, continually re-shaping, re-arranging your pieces. Play with the words. Don’t be precious about your researches at this stage. You would also benefit from being able to illustrate/accompany your pieces with thumbnail sketches so try to make some visual marks, however simple. If you prefer, you could use a camera and later combine words with photographs.
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While making your sketches, try not to concentrate too much at this stage on technique or you may lose, or over work the very qualities that inspired you in the first place.
Try not to tidy up and manicure your work. Try to be experimental and open minded and work in a way you have never worked before.
Take risks. Break new ground. You may well surprise yourself!
HOW TO BEGIN.
You can work in any media you choose i.e. charcoal, graphite, pen and ink, pastels etc.
Try mixing your media. Try using chalks and pastels on black and coloured papers.
Try using different surfaces i.e. brown wrapping paper, cardboard etc. and make lots of different marks.
If you decide to use water-colour, try not to draw in pencil first, but go straight on to the paper with the paint and let the brush make the marks for you.
When you use charcoal, use it vigorously and then work in reverse and draw with your rubber into the dark ground.
There are no rules or limits.
When you are making your notes, think creatively about the words you use. Try to be expressive, listen to the sound a word makes and look at the shape of the written word on the page. Play with the arrangement of words, try to create rhythm, movement and contrast. Explore repetition, alliteration and rhyme and start to build your phrases into a short passage or coherent piece.
There is a wealth of history, myth and atmosphere in Boscastle to experience and interpret.
The landscape is ever changing and inexhaustible. You could work on the same small area throughout the year and discover new things and feel differently about it each time you tackle it. If you were working honestly, you would never repeat yourself.
A sketchbook/notebook is something you should carry with you at all times. It will become your own personal visual diary, a way of expressing yourself, recording your feelings of the moment and interpreting the world around you in your own special way.
At the end of your first afternoon, we will gather together at TURNSTONES STUDIO, have a look at the work, exchange ideas and discuss options and possibilities.
For those of you unable to attend further classes, this INTRODUCTORY DAY should at least, have enabled you to gain confidence in working from the landscape and encourage you to continue to carry a sketchbook/notebook at all times.
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THE SECOND and THIRD DAY will concentrate on developing further, your mark-making skills and continue to encourage wide and varied use of media and materials, towards producing some larger pieces.
We will have a group discussion at the end of each session and exchange views and ideas as to the best way for each individual to move forward and if desired, develop the sketches/words into a finished/resolved piece or series of work.
We will also explore the integration of words with image on the page. For those of you able to return in subsequent weeks, there is the opportunity to progress into more intensive studies, paintings, collection of word pieces with imagery, and explore design/layout options with the possibility of creating a coherent book/story format.
This however, depends entirely on you, as an individual and how best you see yourself achieving your goals.
The opportunities are endless!
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THE BOSCASTLE SKETCH BOOK project allows you to work in your own way at your own pace and re-attend the Course on any day throughout the year. There will also be provision for hourly one-to-one tuition should it be required.
For those of you living outside Cornwall who can no longer attend, but wish to progress with their studies, projects and assessment can be continued by e.mail.
THE AIMS OF THE COURSE are to encourage students, whatever their age, ability or experience, to work from the landscape and express themselves in a creative and personal way. There is no better place to begin than in Boscastle. The ancient harbour and surrounding hills will inspire, surprise and delight you in ways you could never imagine.
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