Emily Ball

22nd - 24th May

£525

Fields of Colour - Jewels in the Landscape

The landscape each Spring is vivid, fresh and uplifting. The inspiration for this three day course will come from walking in Pomfret’s Wood, the local lanes and looking at the hedgerows on the farm at Lund. Students will create a series of small expressive paintings that are like shimmering jewels; each capturing qualities of the Spring light, growth, colours, spaces, mood and energy of the landscape. Think of them like poems or sonnets in luscious paint helping students to grow in confidence with mixing, phrasing and layering colours. It is not about re-creating vistas or views. Instead it is about noticing the colours, spaces, pathways and shapes that we pass on our walks. The gems that nestle in the hedgerows; the buds and blossom, the birds and bugs, the tangle and new growth. The glimpses of rich soil between grasses and weeds. The paintings will evolve and grow to create the rich depth, shimmer, glow of light, glimpses and drama to give back the experience of being surrounded by Nature.

Emily will provide 6 small primed canvases and all the materials both for black, white and colour studies made in the landscape, including papers. Students just need to bring their own paints and mediums (either oils or acrylics)

Inspiration for this course has come from recent paintings that she has made in response to the landscape in Portugal. In this instance she was using the colour to create the shimmer of heat, the parched earth and deep shadows. The paintings were intentionally small to emphasise the precious jewel metaphor. The importance of noticing the small things, treasuring the intensity and preciousness of life.

Lunches and refreshments included. Days run from 10am to 4pm (ish).

NOTE - this course will be in our Drawing Barn so as to give everyone extra space to work. The barn is waterproof, windproof, though not heated (though this shouldn’t be an issue in May). Access to the barn is along a gravel path - if this may be an issue please do contact me (Steve) before booking.

About Emily

She is a painter, tutor and author. She strives to be a poet in paint, pushing further into the expressive possibilities of translating sensation and experience into a painted visual language. She has been teaching for over 30 years and loves to create a space where artists can be focused and fearless as they explore and gain the confidence to find their personal language in paint.

She graduated from Exeter College of Art in 1989 with a BA in Fine Art Painting and completed her MA in painting from The Surrey Institute of Art & Design, Farnham in 1999. She has exhibited at the RA Summer Exhibition and was a prize winner at the National Open Art Exhibition. In 2009 she published her first book ‘Drawing and Painting People – A Fresh Approach (reviewed by Matthew Collings). In 2012 her second book was published 'Emily Ball – Painting'.

She is director of her Painting School 'Emily Ball at Seawhite' and also travels nationally and internationally to teach painting courses. In 2019 she was invited on a cultural exchange to China, with 7 other British Artists, where she made paintings and was given the opportunity to explore Chinese culture, landscape and painting. In 2021 her drawing 'Self Portrait as a 'Confident Woman' was selected and toured in the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition.

Currently she is working on a new body of work called 'Longing and Sweet Sadness' which explores her connection to her childhood home, memories and the feeling of being in the woods behind her parents house.

“As I paint and draw I am not searching to paint the view but instead exploring a language in paint that could give visual metaphors for the beauty, impermanence and rawness of Nature. I am reminded that all my senses are vital to inform my response; the movement of my body as I walk, the smell and feel of the earth under my feet. The sound of birdsong, the discomfort of working outside, the quiet space for reverie. I cluster marks, distress, mop, edit, knot, caress and balance between order and chaos in each painting. Each time it brings my attention to the particular; gentle paper clatter of leaves falling, piercing slats of amber light; luminous, looming, dimming, fading, draining away. The sap falling and rising, sleeping and waking; revealing the bare bones of the woodland weave.”

www.emilyball.net
www.emilyballatseawhite.co.uk
@emilyballpainting
@emilyball_painting