Course dates:
13-16 May and 17-20 May 2023
Wildflowers on Easdale has been designed as an immersive experience for participants and a wonderful opportunity to work with paper botanist Ling Warlow.
Over the duration of the two-day course, you will spend time exploring Easdale island for inspiration and Ling will guide you as we look closely at the spring flowers and learn how to deconstruct the flower and recreate it using paper and mixed media. Paper flowers are a wonderfully mindful art form. You will emerge with new skills and a new way of looking at flowers!
Ling will introduce herself and her work to you and outline her ideas and approach to the Wildflowers on Easdale course. Her work has been featured on ITV, and currently forms part of an exhibit at the Design Museum, London. She has been funded by the Arts Council England to develop her practice and has worked in schools across Merseyside teaching children about art and nature. Ling’s work is sought after through commissions and she runs popular workshops sharing her skills and enthusiasm with others. She has a particular interest in wildflowers and sustainable practice, often dyeing her own papers with vegetables and foraged materials from the plant kingdom.
Easdale island provides the perfect environment for the course. It is renowned for its wildflowers especially during the month of May when the course takes place. The island is rich in history and colour and participants will enjoy the spectacular views and seascapes which surround this small, car-free island, located just a three-minute passenger ferry ride off the Argyll coast, 15 miles south of the town of Oban.
On arrival, a convivial evening meal with Ling Warlow and other guests will be prepared, using specially selected ingredients which will inform our creative colour palate! You will be accommodated in one of our beautiful cottages, which are designed to reflect Easdale’s past as the centre of the slate-quarrying industry in Scotland. Each participant will have their own bedroom, and all meals will be provided, except on the last evening when we have the opportunity to eat at the Puffer, the island’s excellent restaurant. The course will have a maximum of six participants, ensuring you will receive plenty of one-to-one advice and support.
If possible participants should bring a magnifying glass/lupe and their favourite pair of crafting scissors but it’s not essential as all materials will be provided and tools will be available. Sturdy shoes are recommended, although we will not be walking great distances. We will venture out round the island – which takes around 25 minutes to walk around – so clothes for different weather are recommended. We will, however, be making the work inside. At the end of the course, participants will come away with a good understanding of Ling’s methods of working with crepe paper to create artistic interpretations of wild flowers, and will make several flowers of their own, inspired by flowers spotted on the island.
“People often ask how I came to make the art I create – paper wildflowers, giant flowers, fantasy flowers. Although I was born at art college, I never quite made it back there and have taught myself everything I know. Here is a little of my story:As a child, I was obsessed with wildflowers. Our home was creative, an idyll – with no tv there was so much time to look. But it couldn’t last. I grew up – stopped looking at wildflowers, stopped making art. I worked hard, at many different things, the years rushed by, deep down, something was always missing. Then – suddenly! Everything changed. Working in weddings, in 2020 suddenly my entire business was cancelled overnight. But lockdown gave me time! I started looking at wildflowers again – it was like finding a long-lost friend. I immersed myself in paper flower art – the perfect medium to combine my passion for nature and need to create. Now, by inspiring others to look more closely at wildflowers, I want people to know it is never too late to reconnect, with both nature and your true self.” – Ling Warlow.
Please get in touch for more details via the enquiry form below: