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On 5 & 6 September we welcome the amazing De Gilette to Artable to run an incredible...

two day workshop covering De’s self developed techniques with inks and textures to create beautiful vibrant paintings, as seen on “Colour in your Life”. De creates a textured and collaged surface before flooding it with inks to create a wet-in wet result that goes beyond your wildest expectations.  

Here's a run down of what to expect at the workshop......

Suitable for beginners and experienced artist alike- each artist can expect to complete a large (no bigger than 900mm on any side) canvas during the workshop. It is optional to bring along a second canvas to work on, though it is unlikely that time will permit the completion of that second canvas, particularly given the long drying times of texture paste and ink.

This technique depends on building a coloured, textured surface first, then dropping inks into that and allowing them to mingle and respond. Bring along any fabrics, yarn, laces, doilies etc. you may want to glue down. In general, it is better to concentrate on building your textures with Texture Paste rather than gluing down, as the drying time is shorter. However, if you want to glue things down, bring nothing thicker than around 3mm, and nothing too heavy like stones. Shells and bits of coral are fine, and look great if you want to do a reef/beach piece. Even a single thread will show up, so think outside the square and consider all kinds of possible options. Netting from onion bags works well. You can also push texture paste through doilies (plastic or crochet) and stencils, and pipe it out of plastic bags to create the textural definition you must have to inform the flow of ink.

Bring some pictures that inspire you- reference material for reef, fish, bright birds, peacocks, butterflies, frogs, or flowers etc. Sunflowers or poppies work really well, fiddly flowers with odd shaped petals like irises are harder.

We will be simplifying, but we do need to know what the object in question looks like! Working with ink is all about colour and movement, so choose a subject accordingly- for instance a portrait would be really difficult, but a dancer in a flowing dress works well. Any subject requiring gradual tonal shifts, i.e. the nude, or the use of neutral, subtle colours, i.e. realistic landscape, are unlikely to be successful with ink. Subjects requiring lots of drawing and an understanding of perspective, i.e buildings or cars, will probably take too long to finish in the two days. Please don’t expect to do an idea out of your head - if De can’t see it herself, she can’t help you with it.

We couldn't be more excited! What a fun way to spend a weekend....