“A camel is a horse designed by a committee", a fitting description for the creative death knell of compromise that governs so many boardroom tables. Despite promising objectives, how often in the corporate world are the possibilities of what could be replaced by the limitations of what must be. The word corporate comes from the Latin incorporatus: to embody, incarnate. The whole mood about the word is connection. Yet, the one thing that beguiles all corporations is the struggle to connect as one. 

Come and join me for a day of drawing. Break down the blockages ahead through skills of observation and analysis. Learn how to deploy ideas over a broad and complex conceptual landscape, activating the capacity to imaginatively create and respond using strategy and planning. Though most importantly, come and discover a creative process that connects ideas, to evaluate and resolve relationships and intelligently discern between creative problems and genuine solutions, to make verses from reverses. 

Take your creative strategies to a scenic dimension, go plein air. 

This is great fun and an excellent team building activity before or after a hard days work. Check out this quick flick...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUFAwdBz_5k

Time to take a step out of the office, to set aside some time to face great creative problems beset over magnificent scenery? A great way to debrief creatively after a demanding day of conferencing. An excellent way to sit down and enjoy a drink while engaged in the active pursuit of leisure.

Add a sense of direction, colour and form to your creative strategies, come and have a sketch.
All materials supplied, including chairs, cushions, easels and gentle good humoured guidance. 

With over 20 years experience scribbling the district come on an adventure with Dan, exploring the sculptured foreshore, beaches, buildings and greater aspects of our beloved Sydney. 

The main impetus for these incursions is to provide a specialised service to boost the quality of drawing in schools. School years, I believe, are the perfect time for individuals to cultivate their capacity to draw (not to mention drawings great role as a foundation to future learning- "the mother of the arts"). The courses below can also be adapted to suit any faculty programs.

COURSE 1: The Eye and the Hand.

One of the great anxieties at the centre of all drawing is the elusive gap between what we see and what we create, between the eye and the hand. This course attempts to suspend a bridge between this gap by reducing visual elements down to broad and simple relationships (such as basic geometric shapes, general tonal divisions and essential gestures), promoting a more constructive and inventive approach to drawing. 

COURSE 2: The Visual Language. 

Introduce students to the basic words of the visual language. Exploring the idea of Cezanne that the world can be reduced to five basic shapes, students learn to identify with these visual symbols and explore the potential for greater narrative making and meaning in their work.

COURSE 3: The Mechanical Eye. 

Learn the mechanics of how to bring an idea into being as a tangible design on paper, drawing together the principles of composition- repetition, contrast, variety, dominance, balance, harmony and unity.

COURSE 4: The Eternal Tension of Tone. 

When people think of drawing they usually overlook tone? This course looks at the essential values and relationships that make up this all important tension that sits at the heart of drawing. Students learn to develop a sense of pitch and gradation, explore the passage of light and shade across basic forms and develop the mastery to invent one's own light sources. 

COURSE 5: Breadth and the conception of mass

"The fault is not in drawing what can be seen, but what cannot be seen- not in seeing enough, but in seeing too much". (Samuel Prout 1848)

This course looks at the eternal problem of forgoing the details for the bigger picture. So often we fall into the habit of becoming transfixed with the distracting details. Students explore the possibilities of working toward the general before the specific, conceiving form in larger masses, tone in broader distinctions...etc.  

COURSE 6: Breaking free from the tight end of the spiral.

Ever been caught in a holding pattern- round and round the merry-go-round, the only way out ending in a jam? Open to a new direction of drawing with the impetus to break free and soar to higher heights. This course explores the unique function drawing provides to achieve creative breakthroughs: throwing ideas together, developing creative confidence and capturing fleeting moments of inspiration. Let drawing transform the "Oh dear" to the "Ah ha!"  

COURSE 7: Geometry Drawing. 

This course looks at the great tradition and foundation to all drawing, geometry. Developing from simple ornamental patterns to complex architectural and industrial structures, students are introduce to this essential visual language of composition and design. A great cross curricular course for Visual Arts, Mathematics, Industrial Design and even Science! 

COURSE 8: Ornamental Drawing: the Misshapen Pearl. 

This course resurrects the ancient art of ornamentation. Invaluable to the development of rhythm and design in drawing, this course focuses on geometry, organic forms and the great ornamental styles that have emerged from the past.

COURSE 9: The Figure. 

Drawing together all the elements to create the ultimate symbol, the human figure: utilising the structure of artistic anatomy, the guidance of the great masters and the inspiration of the live model. Develop the skills of observational method while also expanding on opportunities for narrative and metaphor in drawing. 

COURSE 10: The philosophical path of drawing. 

Drawing in its most simple form opens a philosophical quandary about an individual's relationship to reality, of absolute values of beauty and truth, of metaphysics, semiotics...etc. This course chronicals the rocky path of drawing and its philosophical implications as it has moved through the Medievil, Modern and Postmodern periods. A valuable insight for understanding the bones of Art History and contemporary art making.

The word faith comes from he Latin fidere: to trust. Rather than being just an outcome of religion, faith can be seen as a process of connectivity, connecting ideas together through trust.

We are reminded of this challenge to connect every time we start a prayer and invoke the Trinity. Here we have the coming together of three main ideas: the father, God projected in Heaven, the Son: God reflected on earth and the Holy Spirt: God as is understood and expressed through the self, breathed in and out through human consciousness (spirit coming from the Latin Spīrāre, to breath). On a simpler level this is a connection between what is seen, what is made and what is felt, connected as a symbol of one.

A practical way of understanding this sacred union (or com- Union) is through the humble act of drawing. Learn to literally draw together a greater connection to faith through one of these faith formation workshops. Below is an extended selection of themes to chose from, with each theme presented in a three stage format: demonstration, explanation and practice.  Sessions generally run for the day but can be modified to suit. More information is below. 

Building from 25 years of sculpting, teaching and learning some of the themes presented include...

1. The Sacramental Sculptor: Explore the role ritual and the sacraments play in creative process. 

2. The Triumvirate: beauty, goodness and truth: Explore how these values interact to create meaning in our life

3. The Tension of Opposites : As we face a world of seemingly irreconcilable polarities explore the idea of the diverse being complemented the converse. 

4 The Practicalities of Prayer: Explore how to break down the elements of beauty we aspire to in prayer. 

5 Toward a Greater Self: How do we break out of our preoccupied state and connect more deeply with the world around us. 

6 The Treachery of the Sacred: Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. 

7 Absolute and Relative Values

Explore the passage values through Medieval, Modern and Postmodern times. 

8 The Virtues of Goodness : How creativity enhances virtues and virtues enhances creativity. 

9 The Calvary of Creativity: Learning to let it go. 

10 The Spinning Symbol: Why a spinning colour wheel appears white.