Blue skies and a turquoise ocean

GCSE and A2 Art and Design pupils visit St Ives

The GCSE and A2 Art and Design groups made their now-annual three-day visit to St Ives at the start of November. This year saw an exciting innovation as the gallery visits and workshops were led by the artist and educator Greg Humphries.

Pupils encountered the work of such St Ives artists as Heron, Frost, Lanyon, Kurt Jackson and Alfred Wallis, and some even received a tour of the Paul Wadsworth exhibition from the artist himself. Visits to the Tate, New Millennium, Belgrave and Crypt Galleries, as well as to the Barbara Hepworth Museum, were complemented by drawing exercises and extended practical sessions. Greg expertly steered the group through the complexities and challenges of Abstraction, concentrating on a small number of essential works by artists as diverse as Michael Craig-Martin and Steven Parrino, and later also worked with the pupils on 3D Cubist constructions using a variety of media from card to clay.

On the Sunday the group climbed to Barnoon to visit the grave of the artist and mariner Alfred Wallis, and to sketch the view from the churchyard which had previously inspired him; additional drawings were then made on Porthmeor Beach, in Norway Square and from the harbour beach – sitting on warm sand, beneath blue skies and beside a turquoise ocean did not equate with November in England!

After a very full weekend of study, lightened perhaps by watching Saturday’s official St Ives Guy Fawkes Night celebrations on Porthminster Beach, the group returned with great memories and full sketchbooks ready for the next crucial stage of their exam courses.