Mary Gillett

PRINTMAKING WORKSHOPS & CLASSES

 Please see 'CALENDAR' for information on all the following courses:

Classes 

I run regular evening classes on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and day sessions on most weekends during term time. I also organise tuition for sixth formers and special groups by arrangement.

Longer courses and workshops

Longer intensive printmaking courses take place at intervals throughout the year. A list of attractive local farmhouse bed and breakfast accommodation is provided and there are plenty of places to eat out locally in the evenings.

Tamar Print Workshop 

I studied fine art at Bristol Polytechnic, completed an ATC course and specialised in printmaking on the postgraduate diploma course at Brighton Polytechnic. Twenty years ago I returned to Devon where I spent my childhood. Since my return I have planned set up and resourced two workshops. The most recent is Tamar Print Workshop situated near Tavistock, on the border between Devon and Cornwall, on the edge of the Tamar Valley. The heart of Dartmoor is only fifteen miles away and Cornwall with its windswept beaches and coastline is just as easily accessible.

 I specialise in etching but I also enable students to work with other print forms such as relief, monoprint, collagraph, mixed media and combined techniques. The courses are aimed at professionals, amateurs and beginners, all with an appetite for hard work! My studio is modest in size but has all the necessary facilities for exploration and experimentation. Tuition is non-prescriptive with emphasis on guidance within the context of each individual's needs, abilities and ideas. Lively discussion and feedback generated by the informal atmosphere become integral to to the course content. Participants always depart with a body of challenging ideas and new experience on which to build.

  "What is an etching?"  Click here.

 "What is an original print?"  Click here.

I see my teaching and my work as a practising artist as part and parcel, and to this end I attend courses myself in order to generate fresh ideas and encourage creativity in students. In recent years the most important of these were some Winter outdoor painting weeks with the painter, Ray Atkins, in Cornwall.  I have also participated in the course on Innovative Intaglio techniques which covers developments in the 'Intaglio Type' and Acrylic Resist Etching (pioneered by Keith Howard and Friedhard Keikeben).  This has considerably stretched my understanding of new etching techniques, allowing me to pass on recent developments to the artists and students I am in contact with, and ensuring that I am keeping pace with the issue of Health and Safety in the artist's workplace.