Art in Nature course held at Kinkell Studios, St Andrews, 27-30th Oct 2024

On the Sunday we enjoyed nourishing local seasonal & partly foraged food by East Neuk chef Jason Bayles - from mushroom & pigeon delicacies to venison & seaweed spaghetti, the tastes & textures were diverse and delicious, even the desert had extract of seaweed though you would not have guessed it.

This was the welcoming start to the art courses held in Kinkell Studio from Monday through to Wednesday, each day beginning with yoga with Ailsa onsite. We completed the course on Wednesday & followed it with the sauna nearby on Kingsbarns Beach, a swim in the North Sea, after which we had hot drinks & delicious food by Harbour Burger. Harbour Burger, we learnt, does an excellent range of vegetarian & vegan food as well as locally sourced steak mince from Penman’s, the fantastic butcher at Crail. My daughter is coeliac so it was good to discover that they can also cater for gluten free diets.

Art… the offering of Day 1 was Still Life in the morning to get warmed up with drawing, working in charcoal & inks, exploring quality of line, texture, composition. We headed down to the coastal path in the afternoon where individuals enjoyed finding their own place & viewpoint from the top of the cliff, walking further down to look across at volcanic rock forms or along the beach looking up.

Day 2 involved an Introduction to Figure Drawing in the studio in the morning, working with charcoal, graphite sticks & on variations of tonal paper. In the afternoon the group headed into St Andrews for a hot drink, a wander around St Mary’s Quad with its Holm Oak tree and then into the Bell Pettigrew Museum to absorb and draw a myriad of natural forms.

On Day 3 we played with collage, inks & papers in the morning, exploring composition & texture, working in neutral tones & seasonal colours. Each participant achieved one or more resolved piece and a series of experiments including working with cyanotype using dried flowers, grasses & leaves from the rewilded farmland. We then completed the course in the afternoon and then headed off to sauna & swim further up the coast.

Lunch each day was made by Five Acres St Andrews, who offered seasonal, locally sourced stew and a variety of salads & grains as well as sourdough bread - nourishing Autumn produce. Enjoy the pictures below!

Guggenheim Bilbao in August

Puppy, the bright, optimistic, kitsch sculptural installation by Jeff Koons of a flower-strewn West Highland white terrier, leads you towards the museum, impressive to look at on the outside and equally impressive on the inside. It was brilliantly curated with a broad variety of drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation work, conceptual digital artwork and photography woven into different parts of the museum. From Richard Serra’s raw iron sculptural installation that draws you in and keeps you moving and exploring, to laser lights in a dark room (Split Second by Anthony McCall) - to the otherworldly paintings and sculptures of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara and the sail-like tapestry of El Anatsui there was a huge variety of art, styles, subject matter and approach to making art. The kids loved many of the installations, and were familiar with running around massive awe-inspiring Serra sculptures from our time in Qatar. The Guggenheim was subtle in its use of space, allowing us to weave through the building from one exhibition to another, sometimes open plan and making use of the structural space of the building itself, and at other times offering enclosed spaces with the atmosphere sculpted by the artist.

Between St Andrews & Kinkell Byre: out & about with the sketchpad

Using inks in different opacities: looking downhill, around corners, across to distant hills in town as well as looking up to Archie’s head in the Byre

Kinkell Byre illustration for new logo and web pages

Archie the Highland coo of Kinkell Byre adorns the website, print and signpost down the drive now that Kinkell Byre have re-designed their logo, with thanks to Rav the Dundee based all-woman design team. It was a fun commission and other images will be posted of the more messy ink drawing original sketches that lead to the slightly tidier versions you can see online (kinkellbyre.com). Photos to follow shortly…

Pop In St Andrews

POP IN St Andrews took place over a weekend in the summer, when hundreds of adventurous French women explored the culture and history of the old town of St Andrews and hiked along the nearby coastline. One of the arts activities on offer to them was drawing with me on the coast, looking out to the sea past the beach and the rocks, with charcoal sticks and pencils to hand. We faced the elements, absorbing ourselves for a short period in the wind, sand, grasses, rock and water and look at some expressive British landscape painters for inspiration. See pictures below… We looked at British artist David Bomberg for his hands on, direct approach to charcaol drawing of rocky, sculptural landscapes and Scottish artist Joan Eardley who sat with massive canvases out of doors on the coastline, not forgetting the sea scapes of local Scottish artist David Mackie Cook who works up the coast from here. Expressive, dynamic interpretations that worked with the fast moving Scottish weather:

Aerodynamics in Nature

We were blessed with perfect blue skies and mild weather for the first full day children’s art course at Kinkell Studios. It all went well, the whole day spent in the studio and down at the beach by the Rock & Spindle, where lunch was enjoyed on the rocks. Children engaged in various drawing activities, drawing from observation and trying out different materials, before considering their very own flying machine or bird-like creature with aerodynamic forms in mind. They had to consider their drawings in terms of three dimensions and how they might practically create the joins in the body structure. The 3D workshop began after lunch. The thicker wire was more difficult to mould into shape but provided the back-bone / main frame of the structure, then thinner wires and bendy wooden cane was used for the ribs or body. In order to secure each piece, children handled the masking tape and/or glue gun well, trying out their manual dexterity when shaping the wire and the wood in more detail. Some of them went onto use tissue and glue solution to create a membrane or surface for their structures, it was soggy and fiddly to apply but dried tight and semi-translucent. Transparent fishing string was used to suspend the structures if desired. A couple of the girls came up with a great idea on the beach that involved them using shells of different colours, sea weed and twigs to create a crab back in the studio once they’d finished their construction piece. Overall, a great day enjoyed by all, including me.

Inspiring works in Piccadily

I recently went to the Royal Academy to see the current exhibition on Renzo Piano, the Italian architect. There were inspiring structures and models on show, including small series of maquets experimenting with the shape and form of a building and sometimes the texture of the material used. I found various architectural designs inspired partly by aerodynamics, my upcoming theme. The show could be appreciated on any level however I think it was mainly aimed at architects and designers as it went into a fantastic amount of detail, showing sketchbooks, workbooks, notes and models. I loved the structures delicately suspended from the ceiling. Beautifully designed exhibition, to the detail. If you go, make sure you visit in a weekday as the rooms were packed with people. Take a look at these photos from the show.