City of Dreaming Spires

“And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty’s heightening,”

— Matthew Arnold

Last weekend (well it was when I started writing this!) I was lucky enough to attend the 'Call of the Wild Soul' art retreat in Oxford led by Wild Souls, Erin Faith Allen, Tamara Laporte (AKA Willowing), and Claire Russell. The retreat took place in the beautiful Magdalen College which is one of the most beautiful places on earth to spent a weekend.

The college is unique in that it has its own deer park, home to Red & Roe Deer, a tower where the chapel choir sings at 6am on May Morning to welcome in the spring and a most spectacular set of cloisters which seem to be the heart of the college and my favourite place there.

I thought the planting of green Hydrangeas interspersed with what I think was a dark Berberis was inspired, and I don't think I have ever seen quite so many gargoyles and statues in one place!

A particular treat was to hear members of the Genesis Sixteen practising for evensong in the chapel . The acoustics must be truly wonderful as from outside of the chapel the sound seemed as if it came from the choir of 100, on investigating however, I found there were only 5 people responsible for making this glorious noise!

The Sixteen's conductor Harry Christophers and singer and practical scholar Sally Dunkley introduce this year's Choral Pilgrimage tour.

Everywhere you looked there were ancient artefacts and items of everyday use that had been crafted with love and care

Then there were the gardens - an oasis of calm and colour especially the stunning herbaceous borders - always a favourite with me,

enjoyed by college members and visitors alike

Even with a fair sprinkling of tourists around the sense of calm and peace prevailed, and this, together with the hours dedicated to making art and connecting with kindred spirits, made for a very special weekend

“Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with
angels.”

— Richard Wilbur

Seaside Art Retreat

Last weekend I was lucky enough to go to Felixstowe for a seaside Art Retreat which was organised by one of the people I met at Call of the Wild Soul. Seven lovely ladies met up for a weekend of fun, art, conversation and relaxation thanks to our fabulous hostess Marie and her family.

Of course this kind of event is not without its dangers, the main one being ‘supplies envy’ when looking at the goodies everyone else had brought with them, and which, for some of us, has led to a post weekend online shopping spree!

Rather than write more about the weekend I will post the time capsule I made as part of the course I am doing with Xanthe Berkley. This is my first attempted at Videoing which I found a lot more fun than I expected to and only wish I had taken more film especially on the prom and by the pier. I shall know next time!

Hope you will find time to have a look - enjoy!

Seaside Art Retreat - Take 2 from Barbara Evans on Vimeo.

Call of the Wild Soul - Take 1

I'm just back from the fabulous Call of the Wild Soul art retreat at Croydon Hall on Exmoor. The retreat is the inspiration of Erin Faith Allen and was just amazing. My only regret is that it was only possible to take classes from 3 of the 4 wonderful teachers there. I have decided to write a separate post for each class starting with day one when I took Madelyn Mulvaney's Persisting Soul class, which was based on photography rather than painting. It was a relaxed and gentle day with words of wisdom interspersed with exercises in pairs and a post lunch photo walk.

During the first exercise we were looking and embracing and releasing and went out into the slightly damp and misty garden to take photos.

I also used the opportunity to take some of the wonderful moss covered tree trunks in the garden.

Back in the classroom we looked at examples of manifestos and began to brainstorm some ideas for our own - here is mine which I finished on my return home.

After a delicious lunch (would certainly recommend the food at Croydon Hall) we went on a photo walk. There was so much to capture even though we went a relatively short way. This is just a small sample of the photos I took

The second theme of the day was journeys and destinations and my workshop partner and I took various photos around the house and garden.

In between all the other activities we also played around with vintage Polaroid film which produced pictures with a soft light and interesting striped effects. I can remember these from my parents Polaroid owning days when striped photos were not seen as an interesting, artistic or desirable outcome, rather the reverse! Still finding it hard to get my head around this!

Finally we did the self portrait section of the class. Each choosing how we would like the other to photograph us and then choosing a feature of the other to shoot. my partner chose to have a photo just of her foot with adorning anklet and I chose to take a photo of her amazing eyes.

Finally I chose to have a head and shoulders portrait wearing one of my favourite pink scarfs from Marrakech( have photoshopped the results a bit!) whereas my partner chose to take a picture of my hair.

It really was a fabulous day - big thanks to Maddy and all the other wild souls!

A Little Painting ...............

Back home for a couple of days between French holiday and the Somerset art retreat and have realized that what with all the pack and unpacking, son packing for university and general stuff do do after a holiday I am not going to get a blog post written about France anytime soon. So instead, and with the upcoming art retreat in mind, I thought I’d share with you some of the painting I have been doing over the last few weeks.

The inspiration is Mati Rose McDonough’s book Daring Adventures in Paint. Mati takes you through a series of lessons and techniques, each building on the last, until in the final lesson you can use all the techniques in the book. I think it works very well as a guide and like most good things you can take from it what you need, adapting the techniques to your preferences and tastes.

So far I have done three pictures all of which are new departures for me, building on the techniques in the book. I would welcome your comments.

Back after the art retreat so excited about it!