Mark Making Course
with Catherine Weld
Wednesday 19 April to 17 May, 10.30 am to 12.30 pm
Maximum of 8 participants, Fee: €150 for 5 sessions
Booking directly with Catherine Weld at catherineweld@gmail.com or 085 8308918
This is a course of five weeky two hour sessions, exploring mark making with a range of media. It is suitable for any level of experience, all are welcome.
The term 'mark' applies to any material used on any surface: paint on canvas, ink or pencil on paper, a scratch on plaster, a digital paint tool on a screen, even a tattoo on skin. These are all examples of the use of marks. Marks are made in response to something seen or something felt and can be created directly from the subject, from drawings and photographs, from memory or from imagination. Mark making is a vital skill that is fundamental to the act of making art. Indeed, without marks, there is no art!
The five course sessions will involve a series of carefully prepapred exercises providing a structure within which participants will be able to explore and develop their individual language of marks using of a wide range of media: penicl, charcoal, ink, collage, paint and mono-print, at a variety of scales. The emphasis will be on process – this is an opportuniy to practice letting go of ideas about outcomes or finished work, and to push through psychological barriers. As participants gain in confidence and learn to trust their process, they will find that this helps with decisions around composition, tonal values and scale, and there will be many opportunities during the courses to experience this.
The small size of the group will ensure mutual support and trust. A short coffee break will provide an opportunity for discussion around an art related theme - probably using a short art film as a starting point - or chatting about a shared idea or experience related to art, which is always inspiring and enriching. The aim is that the courses overall provide time away from everyday life and concerns, to dedicate to creativity and enjoyment with like-minded people.
About the facilitator
Catherine Weld’s current work, the Fragile Island series, aims to distil the experience of being in the complex and beautiful but fragile and vulnerable natural world, as it comes under increasing threat from changes in climate and the ravages inflicted on it by man.
Paintings originate from constantly walking the land whilst making observational drawings that are refined and strengthened in focus and consistency to build a personal language of abstract marks. In the studio, the application of this vocabulary through oil paint, together with other media such as ink, pencil and charcoal, becomes the primary subject; working organically and intuitively, physical properties of colour, tone, line and surface are allowed to develop until the image reaches a point where it offers a conclusion in terms of visual balance, and has become imbued with atmosphere and sense of place.
The artist has exhibited widely including at the RA Summer Show in London, the RUA in Belfast, and the Vue Art Fair, RHA, Dublin, with the Catherine Hammond Gallery. Paintings are in the OPW and Cork County Council collections as well as in private homes in Germany, Switzerland, the U.S.A., the U.K. and Ireland.
As a facilitator of hospice-based, patient-led projects, Catherine Weld has shown work in London at the Riverside in Hammersmith and The British Museum. Between 2003 and 2011, she was artist in residence at hospices in Dorset, England, and Inverness, Scotland. She was co-curator at Blue House Gallery Schull in 2017 and 2018 and ran the gallery at Organico, Bantry where she had the opportunity to offer many new artists as well as better known names an opportunity to bring their work to a wider audience of locals and visitors, with a professional level of organisation and curation. Finally, she has been involved in three successful art-based fundraising events in support of the campaign to prevent the mechanical harvest of the native kelp forest of Bantry Bay.
