Lookout Final Session
Saturday was sadly our last Lookout drawing session in Mareel, Lerwick!
Just like the final session in Bressay, the afternoon was all about bringing together what we’ve learnt about the lives of lighthouse keepers, their families and the islanders who made them feel so welcome. There was time for some final experimentation and exploration however, as we scaled-up our work and tried out new formats!
In the warm-up storyboard exercise participants sketched scenes from a keeper’s daily routine. It was lovely to see thoughtful details added, and interesting to see how a series of three images can start to convey a sense of time and story, like a series of memories.
In the second ‘journey-landscape’ warm up exercise, participants approached their work quite differently, but drawings again had a strong feeling of landscape and change along the paper.
The main part of the afternoon was then again expanding on these ideas to make larger and more developed pieces. We made a few sketches to plan out ideas, then got started. It was lovely to see careful use of watercolour, pencil and wax crayon to make very atmospheric pictures of Bressay lighthouse. We began these sessions by introducing Bressay lighthouse, which watches over Lerwick harbour and is a landmark at the start or end of hundreds of journeys by sea every year. It was a lovely sense of return to see these thoughtful artworks being made.
Thank you to all participants over the weeks, and to Mareel for hosting the sessions!
These workshops have all been part of ‘Gathering Strings’, an intergenerational project between local history societies and children. For the next stage I very much hope these works, and a selection of others from past sessions, will be displayed in Bressay this summer as part of an exhibition.
In association with Shetland Arts and Culture Collective, supported by Creative Scotland.
www.culturecollective.scot