Collaborative Creatives Workshop!

So, ARTBANK Bunclody's resident artist and sculptor, John Renwick (with a silent "w") facilitates these Thursday Night workshops, more formally known as the Collaborative Creatives Workshop at the ARTBANK Bunclody.

Anyway, I've long wanted to attend the workshop as I need to learn to loosen up in my creativity, John says his workshop can do that, and everyone says it's great craic. So this Thursday, I drew on my best play clothes, and drove over to take a peek.

I was lucky enough to find John had scheduled in an opportunity to learn some of his techniques for sculpting with acrylic paint. I'm currently a student on Peter Cunningham's Learn to Paint with Acrylics course at the ARTBANK Bunclody on Mondays, so I was fascinated to discover what John does differently with my new medium.

John is inspired by nature. He crafts "fossils" that capture the essence of what is around us and brings that into a three-dimensional space. He does that by mistreating the acrylic paints, allowing them to dry to form a hardy skin, and then gets physical with them to the point of destruction. There remain shards, slithers, and jewels of colours: natural hues, violent tones, and metallic sheens.

And then, John begins to sculpt and craft what first appear, and indeed begin as random forms that grow organically and disproportionately and exponentially; the final form being a result of the journey without having ever being the destination.

Close-up detail of Bunclody Shield, by John Renwick.

Deviations, discoveries, and perhaps even chaos mimic as well as represent nature. Mountaintops decay onto the seabed to be reformed by colossal pressures and geological events on a continental scale. New landscapes emerge; new life, colour, and events. How better to create?! And there's green foliage, browns and greys of our Earth's geology, and representations of our rivers, trees, fauna, and even our weather. It's no surprise that such an organic form of creativity would itself include organic forms. Small dried pieces of nature find their way into the work - literally, John creates fossils!

Amazingly fine details in John Renwick's Bunclody Shield.

John demonstrated his technique to encapsulate the scattered acrylic detritus strewn randomly on the table into "rolls" of fresher, stickier, but dry acrylic paint. From the rolls, we can cut them in half to form two 'flowers', or slice through their marbling to create tiles of quite extraordinary colour and interest.

I'm encouraged to use glue to speed up my own process. As with every child, it's well known NEVER to let me near, or even to look at Super glue. John gives me Super Glue. Some while later after I've spared my skin from the acrylic and squeezed tears from my eyes, John gives me Bostik.

My own sculpture using just two of John Renwick's amazing acrylic techniques (including super glue and flesh)

And then, it seems only seconds later, John gives my work a good look. But I had come off his brief. I'm a little embarrassed. John is ecstatic! This is exactly what he's after me learning tonight - to be free, to explore, and to enable a flow; a voyage; a journey of my own making and my own "happy little accident". My own sculpture: a three dimensional collection of paint that shares the same space as we do rather than being constrained to a flat plain. I get it. I really do.

Check that out. And I had fun doing it. Although I am far from being a Renwick.

Of course, I know some of John's art and have three small pieces of his I stole from his box of goodies on display at home, but I am still discovering so much more. The pieces I have were made over many days of applying acrylic to jigsaw pieces. Each piece, about a centimeter in length, then went toward creating a larger artwork. They are incredibly beautiful and labour intensive.

The opportunity to take even only a peek under the hood of John's workflow this week has been very special.

A very small piece of John Renwick in my own home

John leads his workshops through so much more than acrylic sculpting, too

There are always different projects and more so as things escalate toward ARTBANK Bunclody's Mayhem. Decorative umbrellas, parade art, and incredible free-art such as last years' Mayhem Table. It's a freedom to create freely.

Artworks created in workshops last year and exhibited in the gallery (photo courtesy of ARTBANK Bunclody)

John regularly presents his workshop on Thursday evenings from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. You are warmly invited to attend for a €10 contribution. That's great value. And it really was great craic.