As we draw towards the end of another year of interesting and stimulating workshops it is good to see some feed back from one attendee, the talk and workshop being led by our organiser, Sally Ridout herself. For a number of years Sally has organised a rich variety of quality workshops for Bruton Art Society members this year being no exception. There are still a few workshops left before we wind things up. A programme of what’s on can be found by clicking here.
We very much looked forward to Sally’s workshop, “Picasso in Context”, particularly as we had recently visited the Picasso museum in Barcelona. The workshop was very timely, we were eager to explore some historical context and to try out some new techniques.
So how to summarise one of the icons of the 20th century, an artist who was prolific in painting, sculpture, printing, ceramics, theatre design and who produced over 20,000 works of art and 100,000 prints in his lifetime, all 91 years? A daunting task.
Sally described and illustrated some of the influences in Picasso’s life, his upbringing, women in his life, loves and losses, the effect of 2 world wars, other renowned French and Catalan artists, the ballet, circus harlequins, his passions and pet hates etc, portrayed through paintings such as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (influence of African art), Guernica (effect of the Spanish civil war, pre WW2), 3 Musicians (cubism).
As a group, we discussed various Picasso works, from the weird and wonderful, the sublime and surreal, sometimes the erotic and sometimes dark. Overall, Sally’s presentation was very interesting and thought provoking and gave us an insight into finding out more.
In the afternoon there was a chance for hands-on drawing and painting such as; drawing from memory, illustrating ‘Picasso hands’, a still life from different viewpoints, and some freestyle painting (creating our own form of abstract or Picasso-esque art).
Many thanks, Sally for such an informative and enjoyable day and for your guidance, visual aids, helpful material and reference books. Such a busy day! The Picasso workshop followed on seamlessly from your Cubism workshop that we similarly enjoyed.
( Thanks also to Nigel Stevenson for this report)
