Recorded Courses
Working in your own space and time
Museum of Self - Keeping a Visual Diary
A pre-recorded online 5 day course
Once registered, students have access to the films for as long as you need.
This year more than ever we have been confined to our homes, many of us turning to it as a subject matter, for its familiarity, and personal significance - whether comforting, or claustrophobic. But if you are finding drawing yet another tea pot just a little uninspiring, this 5 day course will give you a fresh way of looking at the everyday, and aims to encourage a regular practice on a small scale. All the work will be done in a sketchbook, with guided exercises and suggested self-study throughout. It can be seen as a way into a new subject, making you see your home life with new eyes, maybe inspiring more work to develop from it. Or, it might help you rediscover the joy of keeping a sketchbook as a visual diary, for no other purpose than the process itself, a record of these times. There will be 5 sessions, which you can choose to do in 5 consecutive days, or, take your time, and see how much work can come out of each online session, let the sketchbook fill up over days or even weeks.
Course Details
There will be a mixture of exercises and meditations to guide and inspire you: experimenting with materials as well as exploring ideas, finding ways of starting, planting seeds for growing a creative practice. We will begin with the ordinary, an object in your pocket, getting in touch with where you are right here and now. From this anchor point you will be invited to explore your own home, create your own story, visually though observation but also through memory and association. Using only a small, portable selection of materials, you will be free to move about your home, find your favourite spots to sit and draw or dream. As you let things unfold, taking time to explore, you may be surprised at what connections you find, what inspiration awaits you, in the every day.
In the process of making this film, I have been enjoying my own process of free flowing creative ‘thinking’ through doing. Sometimes it is the material that leads the way - an ink line, a cut edge, a splash of pattern. Sometimes the idea takes over - a memory of my morning walk, the act of cleaning my teeth, a collaged photo of my own work stuck into this new context. I have found myself rediscovering recurring thoughts and images, subconsciously connecting to what is important in my practice. I shall certainly be continuing with the sketchbooks I started here.
I am so excited to be offering this course as a pre-recorded session as I can imagine you all in your own homes, something that would be impossible in a studio based course. I can feel you seeing your spaces afresh with new eyes. I can picture you moving about your homes, sitting in a sunny window, lying on the floor, climbing a dark staircase, drawing what you see and feel as you move and respond.
Price £160
What people are saying
“Katie’s calm, meditative approach helped me to get back in touch with my drawing practice. I created work in my concertina sketchbooks that I will draw upon in my painting practice.”
“I have to say that I found the course excellent. The exercises were stimulating and clearly explained and helped me to look at and explore the landscape in depth. It has been really absorbing and rewarding.”
Coming to your Senses
A 5 day online pre-recorded sketchbook course for working freely and experimentally outdoors - on holiday, in the landscape, by the sea.
Once registered, students have access to the films for as long as you need.
Come to your senses - and spend time being creative in the great outdoors in this 5 day prerecorded course led by Katie Sollohub, inspirational teacher, artist, and experienced yoga and meditation practitioner. This course will give you a fresh way of looking at the everyday, and aims to encourage a regular practice on a small scale. There are 17 short films ranging from approximately 10 minutes to an hour long.
Course Details
If you’re feeling inspired to make work outdoors, as the weather warms up, and we are once again able to venture a little bit further afield, then this is the course for you. Take a sketchbook on a journey with you, open your body and mind to the sensory experience of being outside in the elements. This 5 day course will give you a fresh way of looking at the everyday, and aims to encourage a regular practice on a small scale. Get down and dirty, in touch with your materials and the landscape around you, with meditation exercises alongside. All work is sketchbook based, using mixed media, so it is portable, and suitable for all.
Expect to fill a sketchbook or 2, either over 5 days if you have the time, or, spread it out and let each recorded session lead you into days or even weeks of exploration. A perfect way to come into Spring and Summer, and if you are planning to venture further afield this would also be a brilliant travelling companion, encouraging that elusive holiday sketchbook to come home with more than one page complete! These sketchbooks are a process in their own right, or, could be seen as a way into a new subject, providing material and inspiration for developing your own work from it.
Price: £160
What people are saying
“Katie gives wise words of advice at the beginning of the course “to just take your time” with this process and to simply enjoy the dynamics of the paint and painting. Thank you Katie for this invaluable course.”
From Sketchbook into Painting
Have you ever wondered how to maintain the freshness and freedom of the work in your sketchbook when it comes to painting?
If this sounds familiar, and you have sketchbooks full of exciting and experimental studies, just waiting to become inspire paintings, then this is the course for you!
This exciting painting course is designed to follow on from Katie’s two inspirational sketchbook courses, Coming to Your Senses (landscape based) and Museum of the Self (on the subject of home). However, it could be used by anyone who has found themselves often pondering the same questions.
The main aim of this course is to demonstrate how your sketchbook can and will inspire a series of paintings, by removing the boundary between the work we do in a sketchbook, and the ‘proper’ painting. Throughout this course you will be invited to revisit the processes that you may have only used in sketchbooks before, including mark making, pouring ink, accidental marks, layering, rubbing out, collaging over, allowing the image to emerge from ‘chaos’.
Once registered, students have access to the films for as long as you need.
Course Details
There are 10 short films of varying lengths that guide you through this course. Whatever your subject matter, you will be looking at your sketchbook for most of the inspiration - this is now your subject, your landscape to walk through - this is where all your memories, smells, sensations have been recorded. Now is your opportunity to spend time immersed in it, walk though it, take glimpses, find marks, shapes, ideas, as starting points, as fragments, as layers of a painting.
You will be given a series of exercises, sometimes from one page in particular, other times ‘picking and plonking’ marks and imagery from throughout the sketchbook. Always with a sense of play and curiosity. These exercises will be used to start at least 3 paintings, and the experimental approach will be used throughout, so the paintings remain alive and changing, maintaining the spirit and looseness of the original, without having to copy. You will be given advice for choosing which images to work from - these will not necessarily be the most resolved, but rather the ones that feel unfamiliar, which have the uncertainty that leads to curiosity and transformation.
There will be mindful meditations to help you pay attention to your work without judgement - ways of looking at your work, reconnecting with your subject, through memory, sensation, traces, glimpses. You will be encouraged to take risks in your paintings. You will be offered ways to resolve paintings, but this course is not necessarily about finishing paintings. It is ok to leave them unfinished for a while, like you might in a sketchbook. What is more important is, does it excite you, will it encourage you to keep going? Let your work feed itself, back and forth, from sketchbook to painting and back again. You may find weeks, months, or years of work in one sketchbook. You will never be bored!
Price: £130