Fermynwoods Contemporary Arts
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE WORKSHOPS
Based in a cottage deep within the woodlands of Fermynwoods, this residency was directed towards providing creative workshops for high school students working towards their Bronze and Silver Arts Award.
The first week involved taking the students out into the woodland to explore how faces and characters could be found by drawing around shapes in tree bark, leaves and other natural objects. By inviting the students to be creative about their interpretations of the objects we encouraged them to be playful and imaginative about how inspiration can be found from unlikely sources. We then took the field drawings as influence to create our own comic strip style illustrations which imagined where the characters we created might live.
This was followed by another workshop which explored the use of jesmonite, a plaster based eco resin, and casting the jesmonite in silicone moulds to create coasters, jewellery and candle holders. The session included learning how to mix jesmonite, what tools you would need, the ratios of the materials, casting times and using coloured pigments.
Emma Denby 