Chalk Pastel Landscapes at Petworth and West Dean Gardens

This course will begin with a visit to Petworth House, where you will take inspiration by sketching in the gardens where JMW Turner had sketched in the past. You will spend the first full day of the course at Petworth, where there will be a chance to see the permanent collection held in the house, which includes a variety of Turner's paintings. The rest of the course will be based in the gardens and studio at West Dean.

Using chalk pastels, you will immerse yourself in the grounds of Petworth and West Dean Gardens, working between the landscape and the studio. You will begin with sketchbook studies that will inform larger works in pastel. Free from the limitations of size, you will experiment with expanding your drawings to achieve a greater sense of scale and space.

There will be a strong emphasis on working from direct observation. You will also explore the variations in mark-making that occur when working from life, memory and imagination. These reflections will support you in creating work that moves beyond pure topographical representation, reaching a level shaped by your personal experience of the landscape. This approach is a fantastic way to loosen up your observational drawing and enable you to work on a much larger, more expressive scale, producing artwork that is true to your own experience.

By the end of the course, you will be confident in identifying and developing your own visual motifs within the landscape as part of your evolving personal practice.