When:

2008 Spring Work Shops

• April 2008 (to be announced)

• 2008 Summer Workshop (to be announced)

 

Do you enjoy the outdoors? Would you like to explore the marshes and barrier islands with Captain Rene an easy going watercolor artist and naturalist  who can answer questions, give you an ongoing narrative of what you are seeing and help you translate it all into a journal to take home with you. Connect with nature, come for a weekend of plein air sketching (ie: painting outdoors), instruction and   create a nature journal filled with watercolor sketches, pencil drawings, photographs and the written word. Travel by boat for sketching, to the remote beaches of barrier island “Little Tybee”, Lazaretto Creek fishing village, and a peninsula jutting out from Fort Pulaski that is home to the 1857 lighthouse “Cockspur Beacon”.

This is an intimate trip with only six people, so there will be as much one on one assistance with your sketching, painting and drawing as you desire. Captain Rene will be identifying  the animals, plants, shells and tracks you will inevitably see. Get the most out of your experience with a  studio component for  finalizing and tuning up your sketch journals. Return to the artist’s studio on Chimney creek  to  refine and enrich your journals using a collection of natural history books to add details. Collected  items that we find in the field ie,  stray feathers, seed pods, sea shells, or wild plants can be incorporated into journals directly  or used as a reference for later study. Shoot digital photos on location and print them out for inclusion in journals or email them to yourself for later use.

This course will get you started with a calming, fulfilling, inexpensive, and lifelong hobby that produces a tangible result. You will enjoy a greater self confidence in the ability to express your self, heighten your powers of scientific and aesthetic observation, and experience parts of Georgia that few people are able to access.

In this 20^th century, to stop rushing around, to sit quietly on the grass, to switch off the world and come back to earth, to allow the eye to see a willow, a bush, a cloud, a leaf... I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen.

--Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing

Recommended needs: Please wear durable footwear and dress accordingly for the weather and wear layers  that you can pare down. Bring  water, a lunch, bug repellant, sun screen. Optional - Binoculars and or camera. A material list of art supplies will be provided upon registration.

Trip Rigor: Easy- Some agility required  to get on and off the boat at the beach and dock. People will have the option of walking/hiking as far afield, time permitting as they like. For those less inclined there will be plenty to observe and draw right where we land.