Embodied Drawing - January - Online

Online Course January 18-20 (Monday – Wednesday) 2021

 

Image by Sarah Ketelaars

This course is for students wishing to expand their drawing practice and find new limits, beyond the scale of your average drawing, by working large, freely, involving body and breath. You will be your own model, working on 2 or 3 large sale drawings, and guided by Katie’s exercises and meditation. She will encourage you to experiment, layer, develop and change the drawings over the course of 3 days. Imagine shutting your eyes, and drawing yourself from the inside out. What does it feel like to be standing here, like this, breathing, still, steady; and now, on one leg, stretching out to the top of the page, then crouching, curled into a tight ball, charcoal crunching underfoot? Working intuitively, drawing can be like a dance; full of movement, breath, weight, balance, repetition, grace, or even imbalance and clumsiness. By connecting the process of drawing to our own physicality, we can harness directly the power and sensations of the body to create marks; to fill space, to rub out, to scratch the surface, make our mark, to press into, walk through, push, pull, fight with, or dance, find harmony or discord, create movement or find stillness. You might then cut up the large drawings, start again with collage, using the fragments to make smaller work. The outcome is perhaps not important, it is more about the process than than the product in this course. However, the results may surprise and inspire you in your approach to drawing and painting beyond the course, helping you to discover a fresh way of working from the figure, reinventing your visual response to the physical body. (Artists you can refer to; Rebecca Horn, Lee Krasner, De Kooning, Jenny Saville, Matisse and Alice Kettle).

The course fee covers:

• A daily 2 hour live group tutorial each morning from 10 – 12. Katie will do demonstrations, lead meditations, and guided exercises. From 12 – 12.15 there is the opportunity for a question and answer session.
• On day 2 and 3 there will be the opportunity to talk in smaller groups with fellow participants using ‘breakout room’ on zoom. This will be scheduled for 12-12.30 pm on day 2 of the course, and at the end of the day 3.30-4pm on day 3, although will probably take less time. We will allow a few minutes for small groups to discuss the work, given prompt questions from the tutor. Followed by an optional group chat in the main ‘zoom room’. This provides an all important chance to talk to your peers, just as you would in a teaching studio, about your own particular experience of the day/course. We will expect all of you to participate, but understand this may not suit all of you, and there will be options for individuals to opt out of this as desired.
• It is possible for you to record each live workshop onto your own device, so that you can watch it again to refresh your memory of the exercises and suggestions.
• At the end of days 2 & 3 you will be encouraged to email us just 2 photos of the work that you have done that day. These will then be put into a gallery on the website for the whole group to see. This also gives the tutor the opportunity to look at your work and tailor the workshop to every ones needs. To find the course galleries on the website use this link
• If you have limitations where you can work, whilst still having internet access, then each session will be recorded for you to watch again and follow in your own time. We can provide you with a link so that you can watch the workshop again if it is not possible for you to record the session. (This link will only be available for 30 days after the course ends).
• Katie will offer suggestions as to how you might continue working on your own for the rest of the day.
• At the end of each day, 4.30/5pm, you will be encouraged to email us just 2 photos of the work that you have done that day. Please email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. These will then be put into a gallery on the website for the whole group to see. This also gives the tutor the opportunity to look at your work and tailor the workshop to every ones needs. To find the course galleries on the website use this link.
• There is a Facebook group page created for students on this course. You can add photos of your work here and give each other feedback. Please add a friends request to Embodied Drawing online.
• How much work you do is up to you, but we have found that these untutored sessions where people are working in their own space to be an invaluable bonus to the online courses - you are guided into the process, but then essentially, you are working alone in your space, which is after all where most of us work, and often get stuck. By working in this way for 3 consecutive days you might find some really creative breakthroughs occurring.

Online Live Sessions

We will be using Zoom for our Video Communication. It is really easy to use. If you are not familiar with it then perhaps practise with family and friends. You will be emailed a password and login a few days before the course to enable you to join the meeting at the specified time. This will be the same for each of the 3 days. Katie will be online from 9.30 am to enable you to check in and be ready for a prompt 10am start. Please log into the meeting no later than 9.50 so that any technical issues can be ironed out before the class begins.

How to prepare for the course

You can see details in the attached Course Details