Pleasure To Work With....

This morning I ran a half day Collage Workshop over in Bungay - with the Black Dog Art Group.
The eight lovely attendees were positive, creative and open-minded - which made for a constructive and productive morning.
After an initial look through some of my sketchbooks, I started by showing everyone a few examples of five artists' work that is inspiring me at present:

• Robert Rauschenberg 
  
• Melinda Tidwell 
  
• Ben Nicholson 
  
• Julius Bissier 
  
• Hannelore Baron 
  

This became a spring-board to exploring one's motivation for producing art as well as looking at the formal elements of composition and abstraction. 
I then chatted a little about my way of working now which led to how and why my work has changed since leaving art school -
Then it was time to get hands-on...

I brought a big box full of a variety of papers with me - and set the task for everyone to work on two collages simultaneously.

I was quite insistent on this, which I stand by - as I think it was a new way of working for them all.

Such a pleasing variety of dynamic, calm, vibrant and delicate collages - some filling the paper - some embracing the white space.

Great to see individuals' characters coming through in their choice of colour and composition.

Finally, after the tables were cleared, the collages were laid out and we all had a good look at the satisfying results of a full morning's contemplative work. 

I think I managed to introduce a little bit of a fresh perspective on collage - hope so - as this is a group of people with a great deal of art experience between them, which I fully respect - the evidence is in their approach.
Hopefully all went away feeling they learned something today - I certainly learned lots - but I always do when teaching!