Summer School

Tom Wood
Tony Noble
Norrie Harman


August 2008

Animal Kingdom

The Animal Kingdom is a one day workshop exploring the many weird and wonderful animals that live on planet earth. From the arctic polar bears, the Kangaroos of Australia and the cheeky chimpanzees in the trees to the pandas of China. We will use all our favourite animals to make a variety of stencils that will be used to create our very own enormous painted animal kingdom in the studio. We will capture all the wonderful colours and textures of the animals using a variety of different painting and mark-making techniques with sponges, rollers, brushes and even our own hands! So be warned it will be messy!

Tom Wood is an experienced and popular educator who has taught for over 25 years in both schools and colleges. He has worked with children of all ages both in the classroom and on summer projects most notably at Huddersfield University where he undertook a large workshop on the theme of Carnival. For eight years he was Education Officer at Cartwright Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Bradford where he worked with hundreds of school groups on numerous projects both inside and outside the gallery. Most recently he was Senior Art Advisor to the English Schools Foundation, Hong Kong where he undertook a number of large digital murals working with both Primary and Secondary children. As a versatile artist he is comfortable working in both 2D and 3D and he has worked with children to realize an enormous dragon puppet the size of a house!life is the best arena to learn about colour, texture, and rendering in paint. “Rendering” in this case means making things look the way they truly do in nature. That is, ensuring that cloth looks like cloth, metal objects look metallic, paper like paper, and so on. So, in this workshop participants will work on one painting during the weekend, trying to bring it to a fully rendered finish. The classic layering technique taught in this workshop will allow participants to learn how to put a “high finish” on their paintings, somewhat in the manner of the Dutch masters. Important concepts, such as glazing and toning, will be introduced throughout the class, as well. Jane will do short demonstrations, usually in the mornings but also, as necessary, throughout the day. Most aspects of colour and many other technical questions about paint and materials will be discussed. Jane will provide criticism, instruction and encouragement both individually for each artist, and to the group, regularly throughout the workshop.