EMILY BALL AT SEAWHITE | CONTEMPORARY DRAWING AND PAINTING COURSES |
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UP CLOSE | Three artists. Three creative journeys. One September at Seawhite Studio. |
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| Image: Close up details from work by Eve Stuart, Joe Packer and Simon Carter |
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Dear Visitor
Halfway through August already, and I think we can all agree it’s been a hot one. With September only a couple of weeks away, here at the Seawhite Studio we’re beginning to look towards the end of summer — a time of harvest, changing light and, hopefully, cooler creative days to set us up for the winter months.
With that in mind, this newsletter takes an Up Close look at three of the courses kicking off our autumn term: |
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Constructing a Landscape Painting with Joe Packer
7–9 September | |
| | Dress Up & Draw with Eve Stuart
Friday 11 September
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| | High on the Downs with Simon Carter
21–24 September | |
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This September we're giving you a golden opportunity to spend dedicated time working alongside an artist — whether acclaimed, established or up-and-coming. Our tutors generously share their knowledge and experience, while being immensely kind and flexible in the way they teach.
Joining us for one of these courses is time to immerse yourself in your practice, experiment, and perhaps see your work in a different way. Combine this with the Seawhite Studio’s expansive wall space – where you have the freedom to spread out, step back and really see your work – and you have the perfect recipe for super-charging your painting practice for months to come. The processes, ideas and advice shared on these courses can help you develop your own discipline and rhythm of working, giving you something to take back to your own studio and continue in your own time. |
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| Image: Close up details from work by Joe Packer, Eve Stuart, Simon Carter |
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So this newsletter isn’t only taking a close-up look at these three exciting courses. Throughout each course description, Emily will also be providing an up-close look at each artist’s practice — a little insight into who they are, their approach to making, and what makes their work so compelling. She’ll be looking closely at the way they handle materials and place marks; at the physicality of paint, the ease and playful beauty of the materials. Joe, Eve and Simon’s work demonstrates a sensitive and assured use of sumptuous materials, evocative marks, shapes and gestures. Looking closely at their individual approaches offers students inspiration — and the guidance to explore and develop their own ways of working. Read on to find out more! |
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| Image: Joe Packer in his studio |
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"Joe Packer won the 2018 British Contemporary Painting Prize. His paintings glow, and his playful yet complex compositions draw you into another world — a landscape of memory. As we look into them, our eyes move over and between leaf motifs, drawing us into secret, lit spaces. These invented and constructed landscapes are rich with colour, built up through layer upon layer of coloured glazes and overlapping motifs.
"Joe handles paint with remarkable ease and assurance, moving effortlessly from delicate glazes to thick, expressive paint; pulling colours through one another, layering and sliding the paint to obscure or reveal glimpses beneath the surface.
"Through his teaching, students have the opportunity to explore Joe’s approach to landscape painting and construct their own memory landscapes" ~ Emily |
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| Image: detail 'Nashgumbrook III', 105x95cm, oil on canvas, 2020, Joe Packer |
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Constructing a Landscape Painting With Joe Packer
7-9 September (Monday-Wednesday) £320
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The intention of the course is to use paint and collage methods to construct a space or spaces within a painting that capture an essence of a place rather than creating an illusionistic ‘view of it.
“We will explore the idea of a painting being something that can both evoke the feel, or atmosphere of a place without trying to depict it in a literal way, whilst also trying to make something that functions as a self-contained thing in its own right. The idea of its existence justified by its own internal‘visual poetry'.” ~Joe |
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| Image: 'Nashgumbrook III', 105x95cm, oil on canvas, 2020, Joe Packer |
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The course begins with participants working outdoors in a nearby wood. On this first day you will gather visual material, working initially in black and white, and then progressing to colour. Rather than recording the overall vista, you will be invited to make a series of quick drawings and paintings on paper, recording interesting forms, light and shadows, perhaps getting in quite close and intimate with the woodland undergrowth. These drawings and paintings will not only be a resource to work from, but used – in a collage capacity - as part of subsequent larger paintings “How each student responds to working directly from the landscape is unique, and will present exciting challenges when these ‘resource’ drawings and paintings are then taken back to the studio to be used as the visual materials for larger paintings.” ~ Joe |
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| Image: painting details, Joe Packer |
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On days two and three, you will be working in the Seawhite Studio, exploring the possibilities of visual play: cutting up and reassembling drawings and paintings to use as collage components; experimenting with different spatial arrangements and mark-making; and exploring paint-transfer techniques.
As the paintings are built up in layers, their ‘history’ becomes an inherent part of the work. As the pieces begin to take on an identity of their own, the decision-making process becomes less about following a pre-planned idea and more about responding to what is happening within the painting itself. |
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The purpose of the course is to explore the potential of painting through these processes and the exciting possibilities they offer. The resulting works can be unexpected, surprising and impossible to have fully planned in advance — allowing the painting itself to lead the way. |
| | Image, student, Constructing a Landscape Painting, Joe Packer |
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Click on the image below to watch a short film outlining the main themes of the course: |
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For more information about the course or to book your place, please click on the button below:
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| Image: Dress Up & Draw - close ups, Eve Stuart |
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"Eve Stuart is a talented final-year Costume Design student at Wimbledon College of Art, who has recently worked with Rambert Ballet and the Royal Court Theatre. Drawing has always been a vital and powerful tool within her design practice — but it is also an immediate and playful way of looking, exploring shape, silhouette, attitude and character.
"Eve drapes and constructs fabrics directly onto the body, exploring ways to enhance, transform and play with its shape. Her practice celebrates the movement and character that emerge through draping, stretching and adorning the body in fabric. There is a wonderful sense of play and discovery in the way she works, allowing the materials and the figure to interact and evolve.
"Dress Up & Draw is an exciting opportunity to work with a new designer and experience Eve’s approach first-hand, as she shares her knowledge and explores how fabric, movement and the figure can be transformed into dramatic and characterful drawings." ~ Emily |
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| Image: detail of mixed media drawing inspired by Elizabeth I Portrait, Emily Ball |
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DRESS UP & DRAW
With Eve Stuart
Friday 11 September, £80
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"Modelling and dressing up is a key part in my personal practice and designing process.It enables me to step into the shoes of a character, offering a personal doorway of details: the clothing and fabrics; the body of the character, and how they feel in the clothing that they are wearing.” ~ Eve |
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| Image: Dress Up & Draw - close ups, Eve Stuart |
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Dress Up & Draw invites participants to discover how clothing, fabric and accessories can inspire expressive drawing and character creation. At it’s heart it’s about experimentation and play, and a key part will be encouraging everyone to take turns dressing up and drawing each other in fun, playful outfits using patterned fabrics and eccentric accessories.
Starting with quick observational sketches, focusing on fabrics, textures and objects, you will then progress to larger, more expressive drawings. You will also create collage papers that are layered into artwork, building figures through mark-making, fabric-inspired textures and imaginative costume design. |
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| Images: collage drawing/study inspired by Catherine Parr portrait, Eve Stuart |
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Eve will provide a wonderful selection of clothing, fabrics and props. Participants are also encouraged to bring along their own favourite clothing or accessories to share with the group. All your materials will be supplied and everyone will leave with a collection of artwork created during the workshop. |
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| Image: collage drawing/study inspired by Catherine Parr portrait, Eve Stuart |
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“What will you wear? Maybe a frilly flamboyant skirt or big chunky patent boots. Dressing up is a joy, lets capture the fantastic feeling of fabrics and materials adorning the body on paper.” ~Eve
For more information about the course or to book your place, please click on the button below: | |
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| Image:Simon Carter in his studio (Noah Carter) |
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"Simon Carter brings a lifetime of painting knowledge and experience to his work. Hugely respected in the art world, we are very lucky to welcome him to the Seawhite Studio as a visiting tutor.
"Watching Simon paint, he makes it look effortless. With an expressive and animated line, he can describe the movement of water or the edge where land meets sea — but the paint does so much more. Through the accumulation of changes, additions and marks, his paintings begin to take on the weight, air and toughness of the landscape he walks through and draws every day.
"His dedication to his work has enabled him to create palpable qualities of his experience and a physicality that gives new life to the subject. There is a real sense of the landscape being felt as much as seen — captured through the movement of the paint and the physicality of his mark-making." ~ Emily |
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| Image: painting details, Simon Carter |
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12 Months in Essex is a film about Simon Carter’s work and practice, made by artist and filmmaker Noah Carter, who has been filming him working for over 15 years.
In 2022 Simon and Noah met once a month to record what was going on with Simon’s work. They met at 7am at Beaumont Quay, filming in the landscape from which Simon draws and then later in the studio. They set up the cameras each day and left them running, observing Simon’s working practice and the digressions of studio life.
12 Months in Essex is now available to watch online. To find out more and to purchase your copy, please click on the button below:
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HIGH ON THE DOWNS
With Simon Carter
21-24 September (Monday - Thursday, £450
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“The South Downs are such an iconic southern landscape. I know them more through painting than direct experience, so I’m excited to begin by being high on the Downs. There’s an overwhelming sense of space—almost as if you’re flying over the unfolding landscape. Then there are all those things that can’t quite be drawn but are essential: birdsong, insect calls, moving air, warmth, the smell of the land. It’s about more than drawing the view; it’s about being immersed in it.” — Simon |
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| Image: painting inspired by Eric Ravilious painting of the Downs, Simon Carter |
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High on the Downs begins with a day on the Downs above Shoreham in West Sussex, using the wonderful Truleigh Centre as a base. This day is all about exploring how to record things in the landscape: working expressively in charcoal, across multiple sheets to create panoramas, or focusing on the smallest details that often hold the greatest interest. |
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| Image: postcard-size darwings made on location, Simon Carter |
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Back in the studio, you’ll unpack your location drawings, discovering what they contain and how to develop them while preserving the freshness of those first marks. The process of paintings will include cutting, collaging, re-drawing as well as the addition of colour. Simon will guide you towards making tough compositions, considering both depiction and the abstract qualities of composition. |
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| Image: painting, Simon Carter |
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“Throughout the course we will seek to approach painting with freedom and attack. We will consider the relation between drawing in the landscape and painting in the studio and find strategies to keep the paint surface energetic and alive.” ~ Simon |
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| Image: Middle Sluice, 2026. Acrylic on canvas, 100x120cm, Simon Carter |
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For more information about the course or to book your place, please click on the button below: | |
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Simon Carter: From the LandscapeFirsite,Colchester
18 September 2026 - 17 January 2027
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| Image: The Unsayable Lights, 140 x 145cm, Simon Carter |
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“Since earlier this year I have been working with Firstsite, Colchester on an exhibition of my work which opens in September. All my time has been taken up either working in the studio or in meetings. It has been a good experience having the gallery’s full attention focussed on my work and consequently the summer has been very productive. A new set of paintings is taking shape and these will form the final room of the show.
“The exhibition will present these new works alongside existing older work, including a watercolour from 1984, a big painting from 2013 and a wall of 500 drawings. The exhibition has an opening party on Friday 18th September from 6pm, to which all are welcome.” ~ Simon Carter |
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| Image: titling new small paintings, Simon Carter |
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To find out more about Simon’s exhibition at Firstsite, please click on the link below:
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