Come and get wired for two days! Learn how to use wire and other materials to make the sculpture of your choice – the only limit is your imagination! This course is perfect for releasing the creativity that we all have inside ourselves, regardless of your ability or experience. And the best part is that wire is so accessible you can carry on doing it at home with minimal expense.
Join James Ort for this inspiring and practical course that will teach you free-form wire sculpture techniques to bring your own ideas to life. James will give a brief talk about the various techniques and approaches on the first morning, leaving you with the rest of the time to lose yourself in creativity. James will be on hand to guide and advise. Whilst James specialises in making animals he will assist you in making what you want – animal, human figure, an abstract form or decorative piece, basically anything goes! You can incorporate a range of other materials into your design. We supply various materials but you can also bring your own, anything such a feathers, fabric, string, beads, jewellery, etc.
The wire used can be surprisingly pliable and easy to manipulate. At the same time however, it can assembled in ways that bring great strength and rigidity. This makes creating very dynamic forms a reality, something that is not always easily with most sculptural mediums. It’s basically like drawing in air!
COURSE OUTLINE
.
PART OF SATURDAY MORNING
Brief talk & demonstration.
REST OF THE WEEKEND
Your time create!
This fun course includes:
- Informal, relaxed & attentive guidance for every student, provided by James Ort
- A morning demonstration showing…
- How to use a range of wire types (for example fencing wire, chicken wire and sheet metal)
- How to assemble your sculpture in order to make it both stable and lifelike
- How to handle the wire to bring symmetry, flow and visual movement to your creation
- How to incorporate mixed media elements into your sculpture
- Ideas on how to display your work at home and how to carry on creating beyond the course
Suitable for?
Anyone regardless of experience – we generally limit the age to 16 years old+ though.
What is included in the price?
- Two full days teaching (10am-4pm-ish)
- A printed course handout outlining the technique’s main principles
- All the tools & materials needed to make a great sculpture*
- Tea, coffee, biscuits/cakes
- Use of a beautiful, purpose built art studio with all the equipment & materials you will need
- Beautiful countryside setting
*a small surcharge may be added for more expensive materials. These are kept as minimal as possible
This course is for you if:
- You want to explore your creativity but lack the confidence to do so on your own
- You want to get away from it all and immerse yourself in a fun, creative environment
- You want to experiment in a medium that is accessible and cheap to pursue at your own leisure – this could be your new passion in life!
Pre course prep:
If you have signed up for the course or are considering doing so then you just need to do a little preparation beforehand. In a nutshell you need to collect reference material from which your sculpture will be based (i.e. pictures of your subject matter from various angles). Please read the following document – Choosing Reference Material Selecting Guide
You will need to bring:
- Any mixed media pieces you would like to incorperate into your artwork. This could be anything – beads, jewellery, old keys, scrap metal, feathers, anything!
Beyond the course:
Once having completed the course, we would hope that you have the confidence to carry on exploring the medium at home, You could also drop in on one of our Creative Monday sessions and carry on creating here too!
Need accommodation?
If you are travelling from further afield and would like to stay in the area for your visit then have a look at our recommended list of local B&Bs and hotels.
ABOUT THE TUTOR
James Ort
James is the tutor of the weekend course and runs the Phoenix Studio. You can read more about his background here.
I love the wire & mixed media courses for many reasons, but the main is the accessibility of course. Anyone can try it regardless of their background, it’s easy to take up and so open to interpretation – as such, you see raw creativity in it’s purest form. I love it!
I simply arm the weekend’s artists with the basic techniques and ideas, it’s then it’s up to them to interpret what they have been told in their way (that’s not to say that I am not there to offer help when needed!). Often the artists who sign up for the weekend course will learn as much from their fellow students as they do from me. It’s about sharing ideas, inspiration and experimenting.
James Ort – Course Tutor
We get wonderful feedback from the artists who attend this course. Here are a couple of testimonials:
I would also give this course the highest recommendation! James is a young, talented artist in all the media he teaches in (plus more I’m sure!), but he is that rare find – an empathetic, balanced and clever tutor.He kept an eye on all of us, encouraging us all to put our best creative ‘hats’ on, giving advice and an opinion if you asked for it. This is especially vital when you’re new to a creative media, as we all wanted our work to look the best it could – and it did! I was amazed at what I was able to create, but also with all the other great varied pieces of work everyone else created. His encouragement of the group to share ideas/praise/encouragement with each other really works. His pre-course advice was super helpful, all admin re: the course spot on, and he even makes a great lemon drizzle cake!! I can’t wait to go back and try other things!
I am just home from the most wonderful two day wire sculpting course with James. It was excellent. I loved the relaxed level of organisation which looked relaxed but was actually bang on. We were set up so fast and empowered and encouraged throughout the two days. James has a lovely coaching style of teaching and ensured we all got one to one time so we could leave feeling we really had achieved something special. I would have no hesitation in recommending this course and actually the studio as a whole – it’s a fabulous venue.
Jackie Forbes
Comments are closed.