Found and Ground's early summer newsletter
Image: Some of my regularly used foraged and handmade drawing tools
Found and Ground Early summer newsletter
I am freshly back from touring the USA teaching my own classes and working with Theresa Emmerich Kamper. A highlight was running our new collaborative course Parchment, Pens and Paint at In Situ Polyculture in Vermont. Candace and Owen run such a wonderful project there, do check them out.
Sadly my jetlag is yet to fade, but it’s nice to be able to announce some real world things and share a little of my life as part of the Dark Mountain team, and teaching wild, foraged, scavenged and improvised art materials. So here’s an update from the unruly corner of my world which is materiality, colour and texture, to which you are warmly invited.
Wild world news and feral forecasts: Next week I will be starting to collect dandelion stalks and nettles for cordage and mahonia berries for ink. Very soon, moulted swan and goose feathers will be washing up on the riverbanks near me and will be dried and cleaned for making quills. What are you collecting for your art this month?
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Below are all my upcoming workshops, 121 study opportunities, book launch details, and more. I wish you a beautiful summer ahead.
Image: digging red ochre in England (photo Nick Hunt)
Online pigment class starts next week
Next up on 30th May and 6th June is a two week online course with my regular host Flora of Plants and Colour. Following on from my popular Watercolour Deep Dive, we present the prequel! Join us for a deep dive into Pigments for Paints: how to source, wash, grind, prepare, refine, modify with heat, store and use them. If you are an artist who would like to start sourcing your own materials, this is for you. Booking here.
Image: preparing materials for the first Wild Twins students, 2018 (photo Paul Kingsnorth)
Book launch
If you are in England then please do come to my book launch for Found and Ground on 20th July 2023. It will be held at the Dartington Trust bookshop in Totnes, Devon. From 6-7pm I will give a demonstration and talk, with a small gift for everyone, places cost £3. Then from 7-8pm there will be a free public reception and book signing, all are welcome. It’s a wonderful local bookstore full of such a great selection of books, and so far I think this will be my only public book event, as my students and colleagues are spread around the world, rather than being in one geographical place. We shall see, I am open to invitations! Afterwards I’ll be at The Bull Inn with friends and local students, as the rhubarb margarita made such an impression on my taste buds last time, I feel the need to top up the flavour again.
Image: the cover for my new book
Found and Ground book
Yes, it finally exists, and yes, I am already planning the next one! But I can't tell you what it will be about yet, as my publisher has a say on the two options I offered... I promise I'll announce it here first.
Image: a sneak insight into the day I took the cover shots for my book.
Inside story
The original professionally shot studio picture of yellow ochre on grinding stones was deemed to look too much like spices! So with some clear art direction, and access to my shelf of many colours, I laid out a sheet of cartridge paper and got to work. The results using natural daylight look pretty great and are far more 'foundandground' than something perfectly styled. I hope you like it too.
Special offer: If you can’t come along to the book launch, I hope to arrange an online launch in August, more news on that next time. You can now order my book online or from your local bookstore. Or for a discount and free shipping you can order direct from Search Press: go here for USA and here for UK. As soon as I get my copies at the start of July, I will also be able to supply signed copies, just drop me a message on my website contact form.
Image: Paints made by students at last year's Found and Ground course
In person courses
After teaching with the Dark Mountain Project at Schumacher College this midsummer, I also return to Dartington (Devon, UK) to repeat my ‘natural art school in one week’ course: Found and Ground Art Materials. We will cover pigment foraging, paints of many kinds, inks, charcoal making, quill pens, brushes, sketchbook making, cordage, lake pigments, pastels, historical materials and methods, no-waste practices and more. Students go home with everything they need for a low environmental impact, high beauty art kit. You don’t need any previous experience in drawing or painting, just a desire to get closer to the unmade world and make space for wildness. Dartington provides great food and accommodation too, the grounds alone are a delight, full of huge ancient trees.
I have other courses and classes later this year too, in UK and Netherlands, all the details will be in the next newsletter
Image: iron gall ink and a quill pen on my boat's back deck 2018 Wild Inks and Paints (2 day course)
Image: dendritic patterns in malachite watercolour on the slab and muller, North Carolina, May 2023
Spotlight on makers
Our Dark Materials is a series of pieces I commissioned for Dark Mountain’s online edition from artists whose work and choice of raw materials eschew the pristine in favour of the real, the everyday and the overlooked. Trenchant ideas and deep politics can be expressed by working in natural, traditional or scavenged materials, just as well as they can by factory-made components. The work our four featured makers create are like oases of haptic richness in a tactile desert.
This week features Allan Brown and his incredible Nettle Dress, the subject of a new film. The next 3 weeks will feature an American alchemist ink-maker, a Mexican American natural dyer / multidisciplinary artist, and a Lebanese British calligrapher / artist speaking of the ephemerality of colour and the sacred urge to make art. There are many other artists and makers I could have chosen for this series, so Our Dark Materials will probably return in the winter.
Image: making pastels at the Royal Drawing School 2016
Extra, Extra!
To round off this newsletter, here’s a piece about me on Soolip.com, a US website. I am happy to be quoted as ‘dissing the ruling classes and praising earth’. Thanks to Wanda Wen for featuring me and Victoria Thomas for writing an insightful article from our interviews.
121 study
Get in touch if you would like to study 121 with me at my home in Bournemouth or online during September or October. We can deep dive into pigments, inks, paints, pens, brushes, drawing, foraging colour, and so much more. In person, it is possible to learn most of the crafts or techniques you may have seen on my Instagram account that may have intrigued you. There is ample free parking nearby and a train station only 12 mins walk away where I am happy to meet you. I can supply all materials and equipment as well as a tasty lunch!