Meet our Teachers
Clare Schmidt Norris
Clare is a mixed media artist whose work explores the connection between colour and place. Her work sits at the intersection of collage, painting and textiles and, whatever materials she is working with, the process of cutting, combining and joining is always at the heart of her practice. She loves the freedom of collage and the discovery of unpredictable combinations.
Clare uses colour as a way of understanding and recording her experience of place and especially time spent in the South of France where she feels a deep connection to the warmth of the earthy ochre colours. Through her abstract paintings and assemblages, she hopes that the viewer will feel a quiet energy from the surface and colours, and make connections with their own experiences of the world around them.
She has been teaching art to both adults and children for over twenty-five years and highly values the importance of sharing her practice and creating in a community. Her in-person workshops offer an open and supportive space for exploration and play and help women to wake up their creativity, make with freedom and connect more deeply.
Clare has exhibited internationally, has work in many private collections and has recently completed and MA in Education (Artist Teacher Practice). She currently lives and works in Devon.
Website: www.clareschmidtnorris.com
Constructing Collages: Exploring Colour and Place
The workshop will begin with an exploration into how we can use colour to respond to places we visit. Clare will introduce different techniques to help build interesting and successful colour palettes from memories, photos and things we collect.
We will then use our chosen palette to create a collection of collage materials through layering paint on paper, cardboard and fabric. Clare will demonstrate techniques for both adding colour and taking it away, creating subtle, layered and textured surfaces.
In the afternoon we will use the painted materials to build a series of constructed abstract collages. Working intuitively, we will play with colour, surface and shape to explore how they interact with each other, enabling informed decisions about composition to emerge. The final collages will become layered fragments that encapsulate a sense of place through colour.
