Coming Soon
Bundanon has undertaken an extensive review of its curriculum and pedagogy and is delighted to re-launch the popular “In The Field” program as GROUNDWORKS. GROUNDWORKS updated curriculum is characterised by inclusion of Indigenous Knowledges, and an intensified focus on process over product, creative risk, sustainability, and inclusion.
The new GROUNDWORKS program offers extensive immersion in the landscape, with little to no classroom time (weather permitting). This program focuses on being in specific locations at Bundanon, responding to diversity in ecologies, plant communities and landforms.
Working outside is a creative act, performative, an event. Participants explore the reasons why artists go outside to work. Throughout each activity in this program participants are challenged to think about making as a whole-body action. They consider the action of being outside to create work that captures a moment and responds to site. At the end of each activity participants will share their experience of being outside and how they may have had to adjust their approach to making.
BUILD YOUR SELECTION OF WORKSHOPS
This suite of workshops can be extended in a modular way to focus entirely on drawing, painting or a combination of both.
ALWAYS INCLUDED
To ground you in place, the program always starts with three hours of workshops.
Moving In Place (2 hours)
Walk Bundanon and learn to know this place through drawing.
Spark Ideas (1 hour)
Learners explore and analyse artworks on display in the Art Museum, or Homestead and Studio. Consideration is given to the variety of artmaking practices, techniques utilised and colour, form and material themes evident. This art analysis will inform learners about their own artmaking in the connected suite of learning experiences.
Two-night program
Cost from $400 per person
Two-nights provides opportunities to undertake:
- Bundanon’s optional extension activities, see below.
- Time for a deep dive into your own constructed learning experience.
9 hours of connected learning activities led by Bundanon’s specialist team:
- Moving In Place (2 hours)
- Spark Ideas (1 hour)
- Two workshops selected from the options list (6 hours in total)
Includes:
- All art materials for each of the above activities.
- All activities tailored to the stage required.
- Day one activities take place at the homestead site.
- Time for students to connect and undertake continuous learning.
- Learning in spaces designed to connect with the natural world.
- Contemporary accommodation with linen and towel provided.
- Healthy and fresh onsite catering from afternoon tea on day one through to lunch on day three.
One-night program
Cost from $210 per person
One-night provides opportunities to undertake:
- Bundanon’s optional extension activities, see below.
6 hours of connected learning activities led by Bundanon’s specialist team:
- Moving In Place (2 hours)
- Spark Ideas (1 hour)
- One workshop selected from the options list (3 hours in total)
Includes:
- All art materials for each of the above activities.
- All activities tailored to the stage required.
- Day one activities take place at the homestead site.
- Time for students to connect and undertake continuous learning.
- Learning in spaces designed to connect with the natural world.
- Contemporary accommodation with linen and towel provided.
- Healthy and fresh onsite catering from afternoon tea on day one through to lunch on day two.
Day visit program
Cost from $25 per person
3 hours of connected learning activities led by Bundanon’s specialist team:
- Moving In Place (2 hours)
- Spark Ideas (1 hour)
Includes:
- All art materials for each of the above activities.
- Activities take place at the homestead site.
- All activities tailored to the stage required.
- Time for students to connect and undertake a day of continuous learning.
OPTIONS LIST
Staying overnight creates opportunities to expand your learning program. The aim of the overnight version of GROUNDWORKS is for students to create a body of work. This suite of optional workshops can be extended in a modular way to focus entirely on drawing or painting or a combination of both.
If your group is staying for one night, select one option. If your group is staying for two nights, select two options.
En plein air (3hrs, painting)
Why and what to paint outdoors? This workshop is a guided exploration of en plein air watercolour painting, immersed in the Bundanon bushland. Various sizes of water colour paper will be available to encourage artist choice of producing a series of small water colour paintings or one larger work.
Unpredictable Earth Painting (3hrs, painting)
Consider earth as both inspiration and materials for experimental landscape painting. This workshop begins with some experimental pen drawing activities that encourage innovative ‘looking’ at and ‘responding’ to place. Back in the studio, mix a variety of ground rocks and dirt from Bundanon with PVA glue and acrylic paint to create a palette of pigments. These earthy pigments are then used to make large format prints that are inspired by your pen drawings, resolving these works by painting and drawing back into the prints.
Monochrome Marks (3hrs, drawing)
Make a move away from drawing ‘the view’ of the landscape. Position and reposition your body to observe the forms, interrelationships and diversity in the natural world around us. Use a range of graphite to create a composite drawing (A2) of our natural surrounds. Sit with a board, stand above your work on the ground, use sticks to extend your drawing materials to loosen up your mark making and to shift your perspective. The emphasis is on a monochromatic, graphite response to texture, line, shape, light and tone.
Layered Light (3hrs, drawing)
This drawing activity focuses on close noticing of light, form and texture of trees observed in close proximity. Willow charcoal provides a soft black first layer across the A2 page, onto a textured gesso surface. Erasers are used to “draw back in” the light falling on the tree trunks and build up the composition. Different textures are achieved through a range of techniques and layers of charcoal. The result provides a sense of chiaroscuro drama achieved with the observation of lighting and texture effects.
