Class details
Surrealism at Home is on Thursday 14 May
2 – 4pm
£10
So far this year we have experienced some unusual events and their effect has differed from person to person. In this drawing workshop led by Sheila Moylan we are going to create our own work of art depicting these surreal times.
Use three simple objects from home to create a surrealist work by playing around with the familiar and creating your own strange new world.
Equipment required: pencils, sharpener, rubber, paper/drawing pad and three things from your home.
All levels welcome.
Interested in Surrealism at Home? Book your place below and we’ll send you the link to log on.
If you aren’t able to join us but would like to do the exercise in your own time – here are the notes from Sheila: Pick 3 ‘objects’ within your home to draw together. One must be a living
thing, either a plant or flower or even an animal. One must be a man made object of either metal, ceramic or glass. The final object is something that will remind you in the future of the lockdown and your experience of it. (Sheila would be lost without her binoculars). Draw them – either side by side or as separate drawings.
Once you have some accurate drawings of the objects, experiment with the 3 elements of your drawing.
What about scale? Which is the most important one? Maybe that should be much bigger than the others even if in real life it is tiny. A clock the size of an elephant? What about background? Imagine a space around your objects. Indoor objects outside? What if the item you have drawn takes on the pattern of the curtains. You could have these items in a vast space at great distances from each other, in a strange landscape or an interior. Use one and two point perspective to try things out. What about texture? What if one object is transforming into another object.
Have a little doodle in a notebook trying out different ideas. For inspiration have a look at Dora Maar, Renee Magritte, Salvador Dali, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington.
About the tutor
Sheila Moylan has a B.A. (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture and Psychology from UEL where she focused on body casting and self portraiture graduating in 1995. She has worked creatively with young people for most of her career mainly in schools at one point running an alternative programme to GCSE in Richmond making art the main subject. Since 2015 has worked within Ealing running art classes for adults with learning difficulties for local charity Artification and for the last year has successfully run Life Drawing classes at OPEN Ealing including piloting a Life Drawing for Beginners and Sculpture for Beginners class and childrens classes. Her approach is inclusive supportive and encouraging to even absolute beginners.
She has exhibited her work at Slaughterhouse Gallery Smithfield, Orleans House Gallery Richmond and more recently the W3 Gallery in Acton, but mainly works on commission.
She is also a musician, harpist and singer performing at small venues in and around London.
