The wonder of Venice
Black & white pastel drawing by Alex. Painting below by Shin.
I
n March, Year 12 Art students flew to Venice for a five day intensive course as preparation for their AS and A Level projects, writes Year 12 student Alex. Our group of seven students was lucky enough to be accompanied by two Art teachers, our own Tracey Leigh and John Childs, former Head of Art at Chenderit School and now retired. Also accompanying us was professional artist, Ian Murphy. The trip was highly successful as it included both time to explore the city for sources of inspiration as well as day and night sketching workshops led by Ian. Exploring Venice was wonderful – it has the most beautiful architecture and art, but it often floods and many of the buildings are very water damaged as can be seen by the mould and crumbling plasterwork on the facades of the buildings. Lots of ground floors of buildings are now uninhabitable and many people believe that Venice will eventually disappear under water due to climate change causing rising sea levels. This gives Venice a kind of ethereal beauty
and it is easy to understand why artists such as Turner and Canaletto fell in love with the city. During the workshops, Ian
gave us advice on pencil, ink and mixed media sketching techniques and I think all of us dramatically improved our observational drawing skills as a result. What I found particularly helpful was learning how to sketch more quickly in order to capture the overall atmosphere of the scene from life.
Ian taught us how to improve our composition, shading and how best to capture reflections in water.
He was also kind enough to talk us through his personal sketchbooks, demonstrating his process of developing initial sketches into finished paintings. We all returned to Sibford with
many sketches and photographs and Ian’s advice was invaluable in helping us to kick-start our own projects. All of the Art students agreed that this trip was not only one of the most inspiring but was also extremely helpful towards our coursework and exams.
The Sibfordian / 19
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