Draw a tree

A one-and-a-half-hour workshop where we will draw using our senses and work with tree-based inks.

Using ink made from trees and employing tree branches and leaves as found tools, this session is a drawing meditation, exploring ways to perceive trees beyond sight.

We will begin with observing the sounds of being amongst trees, the feel of bark under our hands, and the scent of early autumn leaves. Drawing will not be about creating a finished outcome but about observing and responding to qualities discovered through our senses.

“The body is not negligible,” Shepherd wrote, “but paramount. The hands have an infinity of pleasure in them. The feel of things, textures, surfaces, rough things like cones and bark, smooth things like stalks and feathers and pebbles rounded by water, the teasing of gossamers… the scratchiness of lichen, the warmth of the sun, the sting of hail, the blunt blow of tumbling water, the flow of wind—nothing that I can touch or that touches me but has its own identity for the hand as much as for the eye.”

Participants will leave with a deeper awareness of trees and their own sensory engagement in drawing, guided by the textures, smells, and sounds of the natural world.

This workshop has been made possible with funding from the Cairngorms Trust and the Scottish Government in partnership with the Cairngorms National Park Authority and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.