Creative Collaborations

Emily Ball (at Seawhite Studio)

Emily and Katie have been teaching together for many years, developing a creative partnership that brings energy and insight  to their courses. Their teaching is shaped by conversation, shared demonstrations and lively exchanges about the process of drawing and painting. The result is an atmosphere that is both supportive and invigorating — encouraging you to experiment, take risks and discover new possibilities in your work.

Together, Emily and Katie create a learning environment that is calm, practical and full of curiosity. With more than fifty years of combined painting experience, both artists are sensitive to responding to individual students and generous in sharing their knowledge. Exercises and demonstrations are carefully structured into manageable steps that build confidence whilst opening up new ways of working.

Whether working in the landscape, the garden, the studio or online, Emily and Katie’s collaborative teaching brings together two perspectives, two voices and a shared commitment to helping artists develop their own unique responses to their experience of being in a place.

“Katie and I have been delivering courses together for years. We continue to spark off one another, bringing both playfulness and a wealth of knowledge that comes with time. We trust the creative process and are more daring with how far we push our work. We love sharing the idea of Serious Play with our students as it has become something that shapes not only our paintings and drawings, but is an integral part of who we are and our everyday lives.”

~ Emily

"Each time I teach with Emily brings new insights and new ways of seeing. Over the years we’ve learned to slow down, observe more closely and trust the process. We try to strip things back to what is essential — to simply be present, notice things with a clarity and awareness, and respond from the heart - and we encourage our students to do the same."

— Katie Sollohub

Marina Tsartsara

Marina’s approach to drawing is very close to mine, which is why we want to work together. While she comes from a dance and performance background, and I am from a visual art drawing background, we both approach drawing in the same way - as a sensory, physical, tactile and emotional experience - which can be further explored through movement, meditation, and the gestural mark. For example, if making drawings about the breath, Marina might start with more bodily references, to the anatomy and the physical structure of the lungs, while I might lead a meditation focusing on the breath itself, and as a mark - both of us would encourage expressive, emotional as well as physical drawings to emerge. 

Marina leads from her own Somatic Art Practice® - “an embodied artmaking practice that explores the relationship between the psychophysical experience of corporeal structures & artistic gesture.” I too focus very much on the body and the senses as a vital part of the drawing process, using meditation as the starting point, to come into presence. Drawing from full awareness, whether from inside the body or from what is in the space around us. 

Together our teachings mirror and weave, offering similar approaches with our own personal differences of touch, of voice, of everyday life and creative life experiences. Together we aim to bring you a drawing workshop that offers an inspirational and meaningful way to engage with the body, art and creativity.

Katrina Pike

With a vision for building something meaningful, our founder brings a blend of big-picture thinking and hands-on experience. They set the tone for everything we do.

Vajradashini

Both art and dharma practice ask you to stop, look again, and question what you think you're seeing. A drawing exercise can open up your perception just as surely as a meditation. A dharma teaching can send you back to your sketchbook with completely fresh eyes. That's the spirit of this day — not art illustrating Buddhism, or Buddhism explaining art, but the two in conversation.