Nina's workshop - the limitations of challenging media

I took Nina Johansson's workshop last year in Lisbon and so knew it would be good this time too. She challenged us to use unfamiliar and restrictive tools to make us draw in new ways. She was so generous and let us play with the various media in her kit, but wouldn't let us use anything 'easy'! 

The first thing we did though was to 'ruin' the paper of our neighbour, by splashing paint, walking on it, rubbing it in the dirt or anything else we could think of. The idea was to get rid of the intimidating white paper, so we were less precious about what we sketched. I did some printing off the pattern of a car tyre for my partner; she got into spashing paint around. 

The images above were hard for me. Nina made us draw on coloured paper with just a white gel pen and a black pen, which challenged us to create tonal values very differently. The 2nd drawing was done with a fat felt pen, so detail was difficult to achieve and everything had to be reduced to either black or white. 

Nina wouldn't let us paint unless we used impossible brushes! The one above was done entirely with something not unlike a pastry brush: very wide and bristly. Luckily it was just right for describing the ancient brickwork around the arch.

I have been wanting to try out a bamboo pen for a while, so got very excited with this one (and the one at the top), which may be why I upset the black ink bottle I had balanced on a rubbish bin, and ended up with ink all down my leg and into my shoe. Worth it though. I have bamboo in my garden at home, so am determined to try and make a pen.

I went for something safer next: a fat, wax crayon. It forced me to simplify, since it was impossible to draw detail again and I had to describe the figures by using the strong light on their clothes.

I left Nina's rainbow pencil until last, as I thought it was a bit like something a child would use, but actually, once I started to draw, I discovered it was wonderful and the marks were great. Again, it made me control my lines in a new way and was too fat for fiddling about, so the result is unlike anything else I did while I was there.

Thanks Nina - another brilliant workshop and really well prepared. Great fun.