Experimental Drawing

with Allie Sylvester

Friday 25 October 2024

10am - 4pm (arrive at 9.30am for coffee/tea)

£120

Group Size - 10 people

Allie has a sustained passion for botany and the detailed observation of plant architecture.  She will often use this a starting point for a journey which might involve scoring, stencilling, rubbing out, collage, continuous drawing and blending.  Her experiments sometimes result in close botanical representations or may just as easily become abstracted, almost mythical plant forms.  The day will involve collecting plant material from the garden at Damson Farm for inspiration and discussing different examples of plant structures.

Even if you are one of the many people who think they are ‘no good at drawing’,  Allie aims to give you the confidence and tools to have fun making your own creative decisions and enjoy the process. 

She says “I’m really interested in making drawing accessible. So many of the participants from previous workshops start a day saying they can’t do a thing but by the end are taking agency of their own work, making creative decisions and confidently discussing ideas. I absolutely love that.  I sometimes get creative block and my way of bypassing it is to doodle, vary the media or medium I’m working on and definitely not to be too precious!”

Allie Sylvester is an artist and printmaker based in Totnes, Devon. She originally trained in jewellery and metalwork before completing an MA in Fine Art Printmaking at Camberwell College of Art.

Lunch 

Alison will prepare a simple vegetarian lunch including produce from the garden. We will round up the day with tea and cake. If you have any specific dietary requests do let us know on the booking form.

What to Bring

Check the weather forecast before you travel and ensure you bring appropriate clothing, whether that’s waterproofs or sun hats, or possibly both!  You may wish to bring a notebook and camera too.

Getting Here

Directions will be emailed to you a couple of weeks before the workshop. Use Damson Farm rather than the postcode on Google Maps.

Cancellation policy

As a small business it’s not sustainable to offer refunds. However if you need to cancel your place up to 28 days before the event you will be offered a credit towards another workshop.   After that time, the offer only applies if we’ve been able to re-sell the place. It’s not possible to promote cancelled places for re-sale less than 4 days before the event.