IOW Creative Workshop Series

Introducing a series of 8 creative workshops, all exploring local and sustainable material use, whilst remaining accessible and reproducible so you can recreate these processes at home! Running these workshops are George and Maddy, both 23 year old recent art graduates, currently on artist residence in Freshwater. The workshops start in early November and continue through late January.

These workshops will take place at Dimbola Museum and Galleries in Freshwater Bay, utilising both their gallery, library and incredible darkroom space.

Regardless of whether you’re a working / aspiring artist or just enjoy making as a hobby, these workshops invite you to experiment and explore exciting processes using the materials around us. Aimed at ages 16 - 25, we’re looking to build a community of young art lovers, to collaborate and share in these sessions.

If you have any questions or concerns, please send an email over to george.h.budden@gmail.com, and we can work them out!

If you’d like to follow our updates and progress, check out @theworkshopproject on Instagram, where you can also find our personal accounts. We’re really looking forward to working with you! And please bring any ideas or suggestions to the workshops.

Access Notes

Please be aware that most of these workshops include walking in trickier areas (rocky beach, marshland etc.), and the Dimbola darkroom has step free access but is not wheelchair accessible; however there is a disabled toilet available.

We encourage anyone to attend, if you do have concerns of accessibility requirements please give us an email and we’ll try our best to accommodate you!

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

Seaweed Developing A 2 day workshop, looking at natural and sustainable film development. The first day will be spent gathering seaweed and taking photos on black and white disposable cameras (one per participant!). We will then take this seaweed and exposed film back to Dimbola, where we will start the seaweed process. 

On day 2 you will learn to spool on and develop their own film with the homemade seaweed developer. An optional extra step will be to produce some contact prints from these films. We will later scan your rolls and send the results to participants!

Recycled Mosaics

We will be focusing on thoughtfully upcycling old/found objects using gathered natural materials. Our day will consist of a 1 hour walk down to Freshwater Bay, during which we will collect a variety of stones, shells and glass to be used in our mosaics back at Dimbola. This workshop will focus on the meditative nature of process-driven work - please feel free to bring some headphones, or think of some song requests for our speakers!

If you have specific materials you’d like to bring then no problem; otherwise, we will provide an arrangement of objects for those attending.

Cyanotypes

In this workshop you will learn how to create, sensitise, and expose cyanotypes. We will take a particular focus on layering and using alternative materials within the cyanotypes. This might include things like written pieces, film negatives, and etchings.

The workshop will be split into 3 parts, the initial coating of our chosen materials, the foraging and creation of materials to use in the printing process, and finally the actual exposing of the cyanotypes. 

Papermaking and Bookbinding

On this two day workshop, we will create sketchbooks, zines, drawing pads or anything else you’d like - all out of recycled paper! The first day (11am-3pm) will be spent hand-making the paper, for which we will go on a short (1hr) walk to collect flowers, grass and other materials. After our paper is dry, Day 2 will be spent bookbinding, and thinking through creative ways to use our creations. 

Please bring any old paper originally destined for the recycling so we can be as sustainable as possible - but if you can’t, we will provide some for you.

Natural Dyes

This workshop will focus on upcycling materials - clothes, teatowels, sheets etc. We will use natural plants, foraged on an hour long walk at the beginning of the day, and feel free to bring some vegetables for a variety of colours (think onion peels, spinach - have a look online for what can be used!). If you want to bring materials to be dyed then feel free; if not, we will provide some.