Summer School // Flux and Flow: Watercolour and Ink

Fundamental to ‘flow’, is the Taoist idea of ch’i – the energy force imparting life to all things. Ink painting has long been considered the supreme vehicle for the manifestation of ch’i because of its extreme responsiveness and delicacy. So we begin this course bringing our awareness to the kinetic energy between mind, body and brush.  

Dating back to Neolithic China, ink is our most ancient liquid medium and the most simple: ground soot suspended in water. But for such a humble material, its qualities are unbounded. 

This course will explore the potential of inks and watercolour through a number of slide talks, unpacking its rich history through a wide range of examples across continents and time.  We will develop strategies for handling and harnessing its fluid, unpredictable nature; learning to collaborate with it and bring discovery and the unexpected into our work. Combined with the temporal nature of the medium, this encourages us to embrace the idea of image-making as performance, a theme we will develop throughout the course. Exploring diverse tools and application techniques, we will discover how watercolour and ink can form a bridge between the disciplines of drawing and painting.