Mixed Media Methods: Hatching and Matching - 30/07/2024

This day workshop is open to anyone with any amount of experience, who wants to widen their drawing and painting skills.

This session explores how to make pictures by building up the marks. Demonstrations, prepared examples and discussions will introduce and guide you. The session will teach you how to use shading and layering with a variety of media across the surface, identifying their properties to help you combine the media successfully.

Tutor: Stephen Joyce

Steve has been practicing his art and teaching art in a variety of further education colleges and other contexts for over 25 years. He studied Fine Art at Norwich School of Art and attained a BA (Hons), then later MA in Contemporary Art & Professional Practice at Colchester Institute. He has a wealth of experience from his diverse practice and teaching and great enthusiasm to share his fascination for how pictures can be made differently

"I am a multi-media artist, currently focusing on drawing, painting and mixed media, after some exploration of other methods including collage with printmaking. I use different media from time to time, out of curiosity and depending on the subject matter and the theme I am working on. I combine techniques and media partly to experiment, but also to create specific effects or dynamics within the picture.

Mixed media for me is about investigating the properties of the media. When different media are combined, the potential and limitations are revealed. From this experimental approach, it is then possible to direct the interchange of the different properties and effects to create images with intrigue or distinctive character.

In my teaching, I seek to inform and guide, but also to 'open doors' for the student's imagination, and help them build and develop their own creativity. I use a progression of tasks moving from tutor Directed, to Selected options, then Elected direction by the student. As they respond to the initial tasks with each different media, their understanding of the properties increases. So they move on to different options and combinations, leading them to follow their own creative interests."