Preparatory Sketches, Real Learning and Scones with Jam

Exam season is over - which means (exam marking aside), I shift into the Summer Period.  Art.  And becoming A Student.

In the true spirit of learning, I spent the weekend up to my elbows in linseed oil, confidence wobbles and a frankly heroic number of homemade scones with cream and jam.

This was a weekend painting course inspired by the gardens of Great Dixter.  If you’ve never been, imagine colour at full volume.  Wild tangles of poppies, calendulas, and dahlias throwing themselves into the light like they’ve got something to prove.  Glorious. 

And overwhelming.

Undeterred, I set up - I couldn’t do the Exotic Garden (green turns to mud in my hands); or the view of the house down the central alley of poppies (two others got there first); so I perched on the edge of a ha-ha and began to contemplate the depths of colour and shape in front of me.  And as members of Rye Arts, or the Women’s Guild, or the bus tour from Barbizon leaned in and whispered, “There’s a chap over there doing amazing things with charcoal - you should go and look,” I valiantly flung colour at paper and did artistic things with leaves and sticks, trying not to take it personally.

“Vous pourriez apprendre quelque chose.”

Back on firmer, less opinionated ground, I set up my easel in the Creative Centre (it used to be a school - listen carefully and you can still smell the hormones) and contemplated my blank page.  Everyone else cracked on.  I cracked up.  Thank goodness for my dogs and their company as I walked round the back field re-evaluating my earlier decision to paint over a vast canvas in bright orange.

And yet - I loved it.

Because being a student again, learning from everyone in the room (from palette to plate of muffins), reminded me what it really feels like to be on the other side of the lesson.  The risk.  The self-doubt.  The weird joy of getting something almost right, and wanting to keep going.

More than anything, it was a reminder that the comfort zone isn’t where anything interesting happens.  You fumble, you second-guess, you wonder why on earth you thought this was a good idea - and then, sometimes, something starts to shift.  Not always neatly.  But honestly.

“Fail better.”  Thanks, Beckett.

Thank you, Nick - for your patience and your quiet belief that one day my greens might actually look green, the middle of my painting won’t stay mysteriously blank, and I might even remember to clean my brushes between colours.  I know how it feels when a student nods politely while doing the exact opposite of what you’ve just suggested (I smiled politely and continued to paint the sky).  And I know how much grace it takes to let them find their way regardless.