Anna Brass: Still Life Slab Drawings

Saturday Afternoons
31st May and 14th June
3:00pm-5:30pm

During two sessions that are each 2-hours 30-minutes long artist Anna Brass will guide you through an exploration in drawing with ceramics that will result in the creation of multi-layered relief panels. 

In a group class setting Anna will draw inspiration from Giorgio Morandi's etchings and Henri Matisse’s cut outs to nurture an atmosphere of experimentation, where you will attempt to stretch and deepen the drawing process through the use of clay and glaze materials.

This workshop is designed for anyone who is interested in drawing or exploring new ways of thinking about ceramics and should not be considered a technical class.

Session One: Slab Drawing
31st May, 3:00pm-5:30pm

Your first session will focus on 'slab drawing' where you will study Henri Matisse’s cut outs alongside still life images, including paintings from Pompeii and Giorgio Morandi’s etchings.

Anna will create a still life in the studio that you will draw directly onto your own rolled-out slabs of clay. You will think about how to translate Matisse's cut outs from paper to clay, using your slab pieces to experiment with composition through cutting, layering, and eventually sticking them down onto a backing slab.

You will end up with four or five different slab images that vary from the very simple, more sculptural or relief-like, to some that incorporate an additional layer of slip (liquid clay) or incision drawing onto the surface.

Session Two: Glaze Drawing
14th June, 3:00pm-5:30pm

During your second session Anna will introduce you to a series of glaze materials that you will use for 'glaze drawing' onto your bisque fired pieces from session one.

She will encourage you to think about drawing with glaze by asking you to again draw a still life that she will prepare in the studio, this time with the introduction of new objects. You will have to grapple with adding these new objects to your existing slab panels, as well as the challenge of drawing on a three-dimensional surface.

All materials and firings are inclusive with the price of the workshop, and you will be contacted in the weeks after your final session once your works have been fired.

Anna Brass is an artist who makes lots of different things: films, drawings, paintings, ceramics, carpets, wall hangings, architectural maquettes. Her work continually absorbs and interprets images: illuminated manuscripts, Byzantine mosaics, cartoons, film posters, early playing cards. Her practice is driven by a desire to generate and analyse visual material resulting in streams of imagery that are bound up by her research, which often centres around medieval and Renaissance Italy.