O’Hanlon Center for the Arts
Wabi Sabi Ink Painting
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13 10 am–4 pm
616 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley, CA
COST: $175 non member $140 member + $15 materials fee
(Bring a brown bag lunch.)
Wabi Sabi is the Japanese aesthetic of finding beauty in life’s imperfections. This is a great concept for letting go of the desire for perfection and freeing ourselves to explore the uncontrolled parts of life — even purposefully getting there with our art. A great example of this is experiencing the magic that happens when ink meets water, or gestural marks that are made without planning.
We will work with Asian brushes and ink to make calligraphic lines that express both movement and stillness. Watercolor will be added as accents. Beginning with meditation and centering ourselves, we will get our whole body involved as we work from the heart to paint the ensō (the Zen practice of drawing a circle). From the East, we will incorporate the concepts of empty space — allowing the painting to breathe, and qi — the living energy of the painting.
From the West, we will work with line, color, shape, movement, rhythm and other elements and principles of design. Here, our guiding themes will be value and contrast. The conversation with our pages will be “What is already happening, and what do I do next?”
Embrace the unknown as we explore abstract art from both Eastern and Western perspectives to create several finished paintings. No experience is needed.
Sebastopol Center for the Arts
Painting Poetry
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 & 4, 2024. 9:30 am–4 pm
282 S. High Street, Sebastopol, California
COST: $225 + $15 materials fee (Please bring a brown bag lunch.)
“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks,” said the classical Greek lyric poet Simonides of Ceos. The current show at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Reverberations 2024, explores that theme as a visual conversation between painting and poetry.
Traditional Chinese painters used both word and image on the page, integrating the two. In this workshop we will begin with ink and Asian brushes to invoke a similar practice. Our aim, however, will not be to write the words of the poem, but to infiltrate our paintings with the feeling of the words.
Using calligraphic marks and abstract painting techniques, we will work with gesture and movement, rhythm and contrast to create several paintings on paper. Each student will use a poem of their choosing, as we look at what quality of line, size of strokes, energy, color, value and texture can express that poem.
By getting present and centered in the moment and feeling into our bodies, we will open to our intuitive self, perhaps even leave the poem behind, as the paintings evolve and create their own paths.
No painting, calligraphy or even poetry experience is needed. You will be gently led on the path of abstract ink and watercolor painting and leave with several works that are inspired by poetry.
