“In this month’s Contemporary Elders’ workshop, led by Irene Dellaporta, we will examine the body, mind, space and how the accumulation of marks evolves to create the human form and beyond. As both the artist and the model, we will see what it’s like on both sides of the easel through various exercises. This workshop is about taking our time and finding our way with slowness”.
It was first of two workshops I had booked for the same September weekend, and they both appeared to have the same objective: “making marks”. The second was a “mark making workshop working with natural ingredients” with artist Gwen Simpson at Hadleigh Old Fire Station.
As if this were not enough, Kinetika had an event on the Saturday to launch their “Southend Sails ” project. As anyone with a relatively empty calendar knows, when events happen they always fall on the same day.
How can workshops be the same yet still be so different? Both Irene and Gwen wanted us to work collaboratively. Irene started with individual warm-up exercises then asked us to work together, Gwen set out from the start by asking us to work together then we worked on individual pieces. Which method was more effective? Mmm. Both approaches had their merits. The sheer freedom of sweeping gestures across a vast area of white paper was very liberating. Very creative. And at the end of both workshops I left with an uplifted spirit. . .
Irene began by loosening us up with warm up exercises, then we took turns to hold a pose in front of the group while they used charcoal / pen or pastel and big movements to represent the pose. Each different pose we moved round the table.There was no time to get precious about anatomical detail. This was about sweeping gestures – creating an impression. We finished by having a go at a longer pose. Then we stood back to admire our marks before looking at the other tables’ work and discussing how the mark-making felt. Relaxing – a releasing of inhibitions – enjoyable. A good session.

Gwen’s workshop also used ‘sweeping gestures’ but without any attempt to copy a pose. We had a choice of implement from twigs, leaves, feathers, seed pods or used tea bags to make our marks across the paper spread across the table. Gwen had provided us with black dye from walnuts, red dyes from Sumac and red onion skins and a yellow dye which was either from Golden Rod or onion skins – can’t quite remember. Space around the table was limited, but we managed to work our way around without bumping. As we surveyed our efforts we could see that tannin from the tea bags was reacting with the walnut dye to turn it greenish. Now we concentrated on individual pieces. No right or wrong. The swishing of markers dipped into natural dyes across the white paper and watching as lines converged, overlapped and blended was very satisfying.What am I going to do with my efforts? I think that some of the papers will make great backing papers for other art projects. Above all, one of the resulting marks looks like a squid and I plan to sew over the shape to create the sea monster Krakon for a stitching project.

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