LOOKING/LISTENING/READING/DRAWING
ASH TREE DRAWING GROUP
Starting on Thursday the 5th of March
How the group works:
We will meet every Thursday (with a few exceptions during school holidays) at 19:00 for 1 hour at the Ringway Centre 268 Baring RD London SE12 0DS
It doesn’t matter if you can’t make every session.
I will bring in freshly cut branches of ash each week from a beautiful tree that grows in the community centre garden and each person will choose a piece.
For the duration of the session we see how it feels to try to draw what we see while looking at our little ash twig, what ever state it is at: in bud … in leaf, noticing how it has changed since the previous week.
These drawings are private, and they are a bi-product of the session rather than the goal. At the end of each session they will be collected and I will look after them until the end of the year. There is no right or wrong way to draw, you do not need any experience or even any interest in drawing to take part. The practice of responding to the experience of looking by making marks on paper can effect the feeling of
looking and can help us sustain and develop attention, and can help facilitate an open, alert, calm, and productive state of mind.
While drawing we take it in turns to read to each other from writing about nature.
No one has to read if they’d rather not. Listening while drawing can help sustain and deepen the non verbal attention of drawing, by diverting mental energy from the tendency for internal talk and self criticism or the impulse to chat.
We will start by reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
And if you dont feel like drawing you can enjoy paying close attention to the twig while listening and no one has to read if they dont want to.
The feedback I have received from people who have joined these groups has been amazing, people often find that it is an activity quite unlike anything else they do, it seems to be both calming and energising at the same time, Its hard to describe.
There is no need to bring anything, everything you will need is provided.
There is no need to book or sign up
Just turn up on the day.
About Charlotte:
Born in 1977. Like her mother, on the bank of the Quaggy river in South East London (Lewisham Hospital) Charlotte Mann has worked and works across and in between: fashion, fine art, illustration, textiles, architecture, sculpture, performance… always drawing, writing, teaching and making…
Work experienceable by the public in the UK currently:
*2025 – 2027 5 Nurses. In the Art of Nursing exhibition at The Royal Colege of Nursing London. This work evolved from sculptural installations made in collaboration with the estate of Leigh Bowery and T J Boulting Gallery and curator Freya Bently.
*PERMANENT WORK: Liverpool Homes: In the main foyer mezzanine of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital this work consists of a 10 meter long mural and 10 individual small drawings of real peoples real homes in the Liverpool area.
*PERMANENT WORK: Across the facades and an internal wall of the QE2 hospital Welwyn Garden City Amanda, Lily and Monica (water jet cut cut stainless steel) and 49 The Wade (an 8m hand drawn mural) are works about the interface between public and private space.
*ONGOING: LOOKING/LISTENING/READING/DRAWING is a community project where anyone who feels like it can join Charlotte to draw branches cut fresh each week from a chosen tree spending a full year January to December with each tree. So far This group has worked with Sycamore, Lime and London Plain.
*ONGOING: Drawing Laboratory is an evolving experimental teaching project run each term at The Royal Drawing School in Shoreditch London and is open to public booking.