Listening to the Landscape

5th - 9th August 2013
Bridge House Art studios
Ullapool

The first of 5 weeks, back to back summer school courses! Glorious midge-free weather was most welcome for this group of students. They went out and about as far away as Achiltibuie collecting ideas and site specific sketches to take back to the studio to develop further.

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Bridge House Art Summer Schools are Go!

We are well and truly into the summer school sessions. This week sees the start of an intensive 5 weeks of back to back creativity. So far this summer we've enjoyed two weeks on the idyllic Tanera Mor, a week of Transformations and two sell-out Playing in Silver weekend workshops.

Eleanor has been a visiting tutor in Edinburgh and Yorkshire, but now she's back and full of her infectious enthusiasm for the rest of the summer school weeks at Bridge House Art's riverside studios.

Meanwhile the flock of' 'Chorus' birds have migrated from Ullapool and are now roosting in a new location. Read on to learn all about recent projects and see some of the amazing work being made by our creative students. Chorus roosting in Westering Home windows

One of the many beautiful objects developed whilst Playing in Silver Transformation in the studio garden

New courses for Autumn / Winter just released:
October - December 2013 Grain and Groove - expressive woodblock printmaking with Tiril Planterose. Starts Tuesday October 29th for 6 weeks. £80 (all materials provided)
Daring to Draw - drawing with Eleanor White. Starts Monday November 4th for 4 weeks. £60 (all materials provided)
Portfolio Booster - two one-day workshops to supplement art college applicants portfolios. Saturday November 9th - Observational drawing and portfolio review with Eleanor White and Christine Morrison Saturday November 23rd - Figure drawing with Sheila Robertson. £70 per day (all materials provided)
January - February 2014 Playing in Silver - Drawing, designing and making jewellery in silver with Merlin Planterose. Starts Tuesday January 7th for 6 weeks. £100 (all materials provided)

Chorus has Flown!

After an initial exhibition at the MacPhail centre, followed by hugely successful roosting in the shop windows on the corner of Argyle Street during the World Skiff Rowing Championship week, the display of wonderfully painted bird boxes then flew a few streets back from the seafront into the gallery space at An Talla Solais, Ullapool Visual Arts on Market Street. The bird boxes have now migrated out of Ullapool and landed safely into the new library at Dingwall.

The community project, led by Bridge House Art's Eleanor White, involved many members of communities from Ullapool and the surrounding areas. It involved photographers, Ornithologists, rangers, and members of the public from all ages and abilities. Yet again, Bridge House Art has created a wonderful display of the creativity and skills to be found locally. The exhibition is flying off to other areas in the near future, look out for updates on where they will be roosting next!

Playing in Silver 2

Another hugely successful Playing in Silver weekend workshop just completed! Tiril once again encourafged and cajoled her group of enthusiastic students to produce some amazing work. A very happy, but tired group of weekend silversmiths left clutching their beautiful items of jewellery

Ideas Without End - Sketchbooks

Eleanor has been away to the Yorkshire Dales as visiting tutor at Jack Beck House. A fabulous 3 days was had by all - the course took students on a personal journey exploring mixed media, text, image, drawing and observation, all contained within the sketchbook. The course aimed to help students gain the confidence to use sketchbooks regularly and understand the use of them as visual research tools.

Natural Impressions - Drawing into Printmaking

Straight after the Transformation summer school week, Eleanor was off as a visiting tutor to Edinburgh. She began the week by getting the students to develop observational studies from natural forms, exploring the transformative power of drawing and then developing the drawings into a series of work through various printmaking techniques. A superb display of work at the end of week exhibition included boxes, books and prints.

Transformation

The first summer school week at the riverside studios was blessed with great weather! The course started with students looking and gathering images from both close up source material such as objects and natural forms, and then go out into the landscape and gather images from wide and open vistas. The images gathered were then transformed by a selection process by drawing from drawings and discovering what was the focus and theme of the final paintings.

Tanera Mor - Ten on Tanera

To celebrate Bridge House Art's tenth year on the Island of Tanera Mor as a creative venue for residential courses, we planned to bring an exciting change to the nature and content of this ever popular intensive residential week. The course this year was geared towards students and artists that were happy to work independently. Each morning a set brief was given out as a source of inspiration and a loose guideline to follow, thus aiding a focus and theme to the week as a whole.