Shallal Studio - Day One

Shallal Studio – Day One

The early morning fog had just lifted when we arrived at 10am for our first day at Shallal Studio yesterday. We signed in and were welcomed by Emma who was very warm and helpful. Thank you John Daniel’s Centre (particularly Bea, Emma and Emma) for helping to make this collaborative venture possible. We started by making ourselves at home, bringing in equipment and materials that we had brought with us as well as tables, from the adjoining room, to work on. The studio is quite small, which means it is comfortable and cosy. We will need to experiment over the next few weeks with the best way to optimise the space. 

We worked to a background of Shallal music and a slideshow of Shallal images playing on a big old Apple Mac computer that has been donated. I suggested that we start by making drawings to use as information for silk painting, for which I had brought along the equipment. This was when we began to explore and experiment with the pencils donated by Derwent. It was rather like Christmas morning – we were all quite overwhelmed by the quantity and variety of brand new boxes full of colour. Thank you Derwent – you will see below some pictures of the pencils in action. 

It was mild enough to eat our lunch outside, where the sun shone on us briefly. We had the added interest of watching a JCB that had been brought in to uproot some big shrubs in the vegetable plot nearby. 

Sam and I continued to work on our drawing and collage while Toby and Zoe began the silk painting process. Zoe, who had done it before, completed hers before we had to pack away in time to leave at 3pm. During the afternoon we had a visit from Genie who came to deliver art materials that had belonged to her late husband, Brian. Thank you Genie, we feel privileged to have these. Thank you too to Diana who arrived just before we left to see how we were settling in – lovely to see you and thank you for your supportive advice. Thanks too to Jo in particular for ongoing support and to Duane and Colin - looking forward to you joining us in the future.

Next week I will try to be a little more on the ball in taking photos – apologies to you Zoe, I don’t know how I managed to miss you working. I also should have photographed Raindrop who spent the day sleeping in different positions around the studio, as Toby said, ‘trying out places in which to dream’.

I am certainly looking forward to the weeks ahead. I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did. 

Laura Wild.