Study Groups
Monthly online study groups for those who are exploring natural colour making and seek to be part of a supportive creative community. These are small informal peer groups meeting up to share explorations, ideas, and questions.
Format:
Groups meet up monthly for a two hour meeting on Zoom. The monthly two hour zoom call is an informal open space for emergent discussion and conversation. Members are invited to share questions with the group, explorations, and artwork in process or completed. This is supported by ongoing conversation and photo sharing online.
Purpose:
Connection with a global community of plant dye, ink, & paint making enthusiasts.
An opportunity to share your work and insights.
To get feedback around your creative explorations.
To hear about what others are exploring, and be inspired by this.
Live Session: In order to make the sessions more affordable, we have decided to just have the sessions live and not make a recording.
Commitment:
These are ongoing groups, where you can build relationships and support each other as you develop your creative practice throughout the seasons. To join the group, you have to commit to join a term of six monthly sessions. There are two terms per year.
Timing: Wednesdays 6.00pm - 8.00pm (UK time) (11.00am-1.00pm PST)
Term Dates: March 18, April 15, May 20, June 17, July 15, August 19
Payment: £65 for 6 months for six sessions.
These sessions are recorded. The group is limited to 12 people.
Facilitated by Carolyn Sweeney.
Carolyn Sweeney is an artist and art teacher based in Portland, Oregon. She uses mineral and botanical color on paper, mostly foraged from public roadways and the compost piles of neighbors. Carolyn has a BA in Fine Art from Whitman College and later studied textiles at Oregon College of Art and Craft. It was in the midst learning to weave and spin that Carolyn first encountered natural color, using natural dyes for her textile projects. After having a child she went back to working on paper, and started making botanical inks from her natural dye plants. From there she discovered mineral pigments and making her own watercolor paints. She now uses a variety of handmade artist materials- watercolors, lake pigments, pastels, egg temperas, soy wax crayons, and others that defy neat categories. She is also a beginning papermaker, and paper nerd.
Carolyn’s own art practice seeks to center these natural materials as co-creators, finding inspiration in the relationships between humans, plants, and the very earth beneath our feet.
Learn more about Plants & Colour Study Groups. During 2020 lockdown, Flora Arbuthnott of Plants & Colour gave a call out for a new Study Group series based around plants and colour, obviously enough! We began as we continue today, with each term or round running for a 6 month period and meeting once a month for a two hour Zoom call. Having signed up out of interest to connect with like-minded folks, I could not possibly have fore seen then just how important these monthly meet ups were to become to me.