Elements Studio | Downhill, Northern Ireland

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Creative Retreat Weekend with Brian Ballard and Kate Fletcher

‘A Brush with Song’

May 25th-27th 2012

Come and take part in a creative blend of singing and painting, in the stunning setting of the North Antrim coast. As well as facilitated sessions each day, there will be free time to explore the stunning surroundings, walk by the sea, or just relax! Gourmet food provided by Crusoe’s of Castlerock. Special diets catered for.

Brian Ballard

is a leading Irish Artist, who will lead the group in painting with oils and/or acrylics. He will encourage everyone to express themselves, either outside, inspired by the beautiful landscape, or inside painting still life. He is an inspiring teacher, who would welcome those with or without experience of painting.

Kate Fletcher

has been running regular singing workshops for over twenty years. She believes not only that anyone can sing, but that everyone has a right to give voice. With a range of songs from around the world in harmony and by ear, the singing is accessible to those with lots of experience or none.

Both Kate and Brian are experienced teachers in their field, and are committed to opening up their sphere to all. So if you are an experienced singer new to painting, an expert artist new to singing, or just like the sound of a weekend of creativity and enjoyment, then this is for you!

Location:

The weekend will based in Downhill where accommodation will be provided at the Victorian residence ‘Glenhassan Hall’, now known as the Downhill Hostel , a beautiful self-catering guesthouse on the Downhill beach.

Accommodation

will be in shared rooms, mostly shared in twos, but to a maximum of three.

Cost

per person sharing:

£250 residential including meals
£160 non-residential including afternoon and evening meals

Arrive 7pm Friday 25th

Depart 2pm Sunday 27th

What to bring:

Enthusiasm!

Outdoor clothing and shoes for painting outside

Your own painting materials if you have them –or materials can be ordered ahead of the weekend (see below). Additional canvasses will also be available for sale.

Please contact Kate and Brian or print and complete the form below, and send with a £50 deposit (payable to Brian Ballard) to

Brian Ballard and Kate Fletcher

53 Kensington Road

Belfast BT5 6NL

For more information or queries, tel 028 90 796697 or email ballardfletcher@btinternet.com

Booking Form A Brush with Song, Glenhassan Hall. 25-27 May 2012

Please reserve me a place on the Glenhassan Hall weekend, 25th – 27th May. I enclose a cheque for £ 50 deposit

Name:

Address:

Contact telephone numbers:

Email:

Special Dietary needs:

Residential / Non-residential (circle one)

I will bring my own materials,/ including sketching easel-please bring if you have one

or: I would like to purchase paints and canvas, and borrow easel (circle one)

Other relevant information or special circumstances which we should know about in order to make your weekend as enjoyable as possible:

May 9, 2012
Kids classes in traditional paper-making

I am now 3 weeks in to a paper-making course with some of the P3, P4, and P5 kids from Ballyhackett Primary school and we are all having great fun, just have a look!

The kids know all the equipment they need and how to set out their tables to be ready to work. Mostly they work in pairs taking turns drawing out each sheet of paper, turning them onto the couching cloths and then absorbing excess moisture with a sponge before removing the mold.

This week the kids coordinated with their partners as they choose what colour paper they made. After making a couple of sheets with recycled shredded office paper and coloured napkins, they started to add textures to their vats from an assortment of things I brought along. The glittery stars were very popular. We also had wool, dryer lint, dried artichoke fibre. The children experimented with the materials and saw how they effected the texture of each sheet as they drew sheets from the vat.

Paper-making is such a tactile process and changing the makeup of the vat after each sheet allows the kids to get a feel for what textures they like as well as observing the changes in colour and thickness of the sheets as the makeup of the vat changes. A further stage is learning how much pulp to add after each sheet is drawn to maintain a desired consistency, and then documenting favourite recipes by proportion so they can be repeated.

March 6, 2012
Kiln Cast Glass

These open cast glass platters came out of a series of experiments with kiln casting on sand. I wanted to use recycled glass to create my own forms inspired by some of my treasures from beach combing. So with sea-glass and tiny shells in mind I started testing combinations of silica sands as a casting bed. I wanted a mixture that would hold fine detail of actual seashells pressed into the sand yet wouldn’t stick to the glass when molten.

After extensive experimentation I found a blend of particle sizes that would work. The detail in the platter rims is created by shells from my beach gently impressed into the sand bed with tweezers and then removed. The sheets of glass are then slumped at casting temperatures over fibre molds I created then embedded into the sand bed inside the kiln. The glass picks up some texture from the sand as well giving a very marine feel to the piece.

The bands of colour are created with coloured glass gravel and sands sieved over the main sheets of glass that create the body of the piece. I made delicate thrown porcelain cups reminiscent of the limpets and cockles cast into the rims which can be used for serving nibbles or sauces. The sets are made to be used as well as admired, food served on the long thin platters looks very sophisticated, and the more portrait proportioned pieces can be used as individual plates as well as serving pieces.

February 21, 2012
Pit-firing

These images show some of my favourite pit-fired pieces which I have kept in my own collection. Pit-firing is a wonderful process for me because it is deeply connected to my environment and the seasons. The process starts with gathering materials for the combustible nest which fumes each vessel. I walk the beach to harvest the right seaweed and visit some of the family farms to get the cow dung that insulates the pieces and slows their cooling as the fire dies out. Other materials are gathered from my garden and the hills around the studio.

All the colour in the surfaces comes from the materials burned around each piece and how it is nestled in the flames. The pieces themselves are generally wheel thrown porcelain, burnished when leather-hard then low fired to retain enough porosity to absorb the fumes released by the organic materials in their ‘nest’. After firing I seal the surfaces with a smooth wax which highlights the satin burnishing and stops the oil from finger prints from marking the surface.

Some of the surfaces I inscribe with text using a razor at the leather-hard stage prior to the first firing. The texts I use are lines from poems, books, or songs that have shaped my understanding of life in some way. I think of the words as being scared into the surfaces, they become an integral part of the vessel, inviting touch for discovery as fingertips trace the letters to understand the phrases.

The markings on each piece are unique, a fusion of shape, materials, and process. The flame fuming of the pit-fire works in harmony with the round shapes of these vessels. The flames are able to lick the shape with out sharp lines breaking their flow. The result is a visually engaging surface with a strong tactile quality which I find a particularly satisfying combination in an art object.

February 20, 2012
Tree Mural: ‘Planted by Rivers of Water’

This was a project I did with a church on a community retreat weekend in Newcastle, Co. Down. The group had taken the theme for the weekend from the Bible verse in Psalm 1 which speaks of a person being like a ‘tree, planted by rivers of water’. I interpret this metaphor as an image of ‘rooted-ness’ , of understanding one’s source and one’s dependance on God for life and sustenance. This project was designed to allow participants to interact in a personal way with the metaphor by making their own leaves for the tree and by creating ‘ribbons’ of water for the river inscribed with text that they had found sustaining in their own life.

As this was an inter-generational project, the art materials were chosen to be accessible to any age. Participants approached the art table and created their own elements to be incorporated into the mural at the end of the weekend retreat.

In preparation for the weekend I painted a background on three panels as a tryptic. After the weekend retreat concluded I gathered the elements and assembled the mural at home adding texture to the tree trunk and weaving fine threads of shiny card and sparkly glue through the river to create a sense of motion. The tryptic was then mounted on board and open framed so that the elements could still be touched.

February 19, 2012
Papermaking

Tomorrow I start a paper-making course at my son’s school. It has been a little while since I have taught it so I am giving myself a little refresher tonight. I went through all my mold and deckle sets and tightened up the mesh on the small molds. I checked the blenders to see that they still run after being in storage, and found lots of squeezys of paper pulp fro previous sessions to help us start off. The school is in its final year of application for the green flag eco-schools credenitals. We will be recycling the shredded paper from the office (with colourful additions of course) then I plan to move on to incorporating vegetable matter. I find banana skins and broccoli stocks work nicely but anything fibrous can be used, artichoke hearts are beautiful, but rather a lot of work to prepare. Looking forward to working with the kids and getting my hands in lovely paper pulp.

February 19, 2012