Listen to the wisdom of the trees..for trees know you can be still and grow at the same time…

The Autumn of 2020 has truly been a season like no other - the first certainly where we’ve been actively encouraged to stay as far away from one another as possible. One where many of us have felt isolated, alone and yet, despite all this, as a creative community we have still grown, together. Since the end of the summer in late August, Sketchbook Club tutors and students alike have been gently percolating on this beautiful theme - The Wisdom in the Woods.

After the wild shifts of the summer season, where we spent much of our time adjusting the sails to the stormy seas around us, it was time to connect to an energy and a theme that would ground us and help breathe light into the darker days of Autumn - and this journey has been nothing short of awesome.

For those of you curious as to how the structure of our online class works, here’s SAS founder Ellie Green introducing the theme for the Autumn season. We teach using a combination of approaches - pre-recorded tutorials and general pep talks, a private facebook group where we connect as a community to share our progress and gain feedback on our work and our online learning portal which is packed with downloadable resources to keep the inspiration flowing from week to week. Because our lessons are pre-recorded, students are able to acccess the tutorial in their own time, at their own pace. There’s no race to the finish line with us, we give our students plenty of time in between and after lessons to gently digest each stage of the process.

Members Meet Up

For the first time this Autumn we were able to gather our members face to face, albeit outdoors and at a safe distance, for a morning of mindful creativity. This was a very special moment for us all and a memory we truly treasured as we moved through the season.

After a long summer spent working apart, together, our hearts were oh so full when we stole ourselves away to Leith Hill, Surrey for a morning of socially distanced creativity, connecting to the magic of the woodland at Leith Hill. Ellie ran a beautiful forest bathing meditation and shared some tips on Mindful Photography as we moved through the woods. From the top of the hill we used brush pens to create some quick studies of the stunning pines that line the hillside and are so characteristic of the Surrey Hills. We hope to be able to meet again at a later stage of the Winter season when its safe to do so as this was such a special moment.

Photo: Leyla G Photography — **Photo:** Leyla G Photography

Making our own Oak Gall Ink

Our starter kit for the Autumn term, as with every term of our online Sketchbook Club class, included a mystery item. For this season we included an Oak Gall Ink making kit! Working from an original recipe that dates back to medieval times, when oak gall ink was used in some of the earliest written manuscripts, we created our own ink and used it to capture the majestic beauty of Autumnal Oak trees. We learned that Oak Gall ink is quite simply magical and should be used with a light touch as the ink itself changes tone as it dries - much to everyone’s surprise!

Work in progress

Take a look into the Sketchbooks of some of our students over the Autumn season. Through a mixture of observational drawing, photography, print-making and painting we captured the changes in the forest through the season - creating studies of trees, leaves, bark, mushrooms, woodland mice, moss, lychen and so much more! Mono-printing was a firm favourite with our students this term so we’ll definitely be bringing some print-making magic to our Winter season too.

It always comes together in the end my friends

And finally, here you’ll find but a small snippet of the absolutely spectacular outcomes that some of our students have shared with us this term. Of course outcomes are but a small part of the creative journey itself but they are a chance to reflect on how far we’ve come and these students have come such a long way both in confidence + skill this term - so its a true honour to be able to share some of their highlights from the term here. To all our students - we are so proud of you for being brave, stepping gently out of your comfort zone with us and making this commitment to your own creativity and well-being!

A huge thank-you to everyone in our growing online community for taking the leap and joining us to learn online this year. On behalf of my tutor team we’d like to wish you all a lovely restful Christmas break and can’t wait to get back to class in early January for the start of our Winter Season. For more on Sketchbook Club follow the link below and if you’d like to hear what our students think of Sketchbook Club, scroll down for just a snippet of some of the amazing words you’ve shared about your creative journey with us this year!

Interested in joining us for Sketchbook Club in 2021?

Hop on board!

Everyone is welcome to join our warm and supportive online community and we’ll be there to support and guide you every step of the way!