Caro and Theresa are back! In 2023 they came to In Situ Polyculture for the first time to teach Parchment, Paints and Pens as a two-day course. This time, they are back with new skills to share that will expand on the materials introduced last year. This year, Caro will be offering a 1-day pastel-making course for conté and soft pastels. Then, Theresa will offer a 2-day course on fur-tanning. They can be taken separately, if your interest is drawn to one type of materials course over the other. But take them both for a full Making the Materials immersion into hides and pigments once again!

Dual registration comes with a 10% discount off of class tuition.

No prior experience is necessary. (New and former students welcome!)

Applications for scholarships are being accepted now through February 28th, 2024.

Registration opens in late February for these courses.

*If interested in taking both courses, you will need to register for each course separately on our Programs page.  We have an attendee limit to make sure that each student gets face time and access to the faculty. Your tuition discount will be applied for your remaining balance due in April. Details about the individual courses are below:

 

Artist’s Pastel Making Course includes;

• How to source, choose and prepare raw pigments, powders and clays to make pastels, including a brief look at washing and sieving.

• How to make simple ‘Conte’ type pastels. This will include blending, tinting, and toning the wet materials to create a beautiful balanced range of pastels, ideal for tonal drawings.

• Traditional soft pastel making technique.

• Using, labelling and simple ways to make ecologically sound and waste-material storage for our finished pastels.

• Making two spray fixatives for works on paper for use by blow-diffuser or pump spray bottle. One is egg-based, one vegan.

• Ample time for questions.

• An information sheet tailored to what was covered in the course, plus any suppliers, artists and information that was mentioned in the session will be provided to all participants for their own personal use the following week by email.

 

Fur Tanning Course includes;

• Learn to produce an incredibly soft, beautiful and durable product from raw animal skin using one of humankind’s earliest tanning technologies!

• Utilizing materials readily available in the surrounding environment, we will walk through the steps of this transformation.

• Tanning fox furs with a variety of fat tanning which uses Lecithin and oil* as the dressing agent.

• The class will cover rehydrating dried furs, de-fleshing, dressing and softening the fur skins, as well as smoking them so they can be easily washed.

• Theresa provides comfortable, easy to use tools and detailed handouts covering the tanning process, as well as ethnographic anecdotes and a list of helpful literature for those who wish to further their own knowledge of tanning.

• Please join us for a course sure to contain plenty of memorable moments, lots of practical information and, if you put in the work**, one that will see you heading home with a beautiful, unique and usable traditionally tanned fur!

*  The use of brains or egg yolks as an alternative dressing agent will be covered.
** Please be aware that a reasonable amount of fitness is required for this course. Instruction will be provided on good technique and timing with the skins, but you will need to be able to be on your feet and active for 6 to 8 hours per day. Any serious injuries need to be discussed with the faculty prior to booking onto the course please!

 

Max Participants: 12 for each course
Costs:

$145 Pastels (Duration: 1 Days)

$300 Fur Tanning (Duration: 2 Days)

$400 together(10% discount for dual registration, Duration: 3 Days)

Day 1: Pastel Making with Caro: Wednesday, May 1st, 2024 – 9AM start time, lunch, 5 PM Course ends

Day 2: Fur Tanning with Theresa: Thursday, May 2nd, 2024 – 9AM start time, Finish when we finish.
Day 3: Fur Tanning with Theresa: Friday, May 3rd, 2024 – 10AM start time, 4-5 PM Course ends.

 

FACULTY

About Caroline Ross

I live and work in Bournemouth, Dorset, UK, making drawings and paintings from wild and ancient materials, from small illustrations to large murals. I have taught life drawing as well as painting and I currently teach people how to make the materials I use from my studio, online and as a guest at centres across Europe and UK [and more recently the USA on Turtle Island]. I teach at Dartington both on my own unique course ‘Found and Ground art materials’, and with the Dark Mountain Project, online and in person at Schumacher College. Having spent decades indoors in art and recording studios, I now spend my life outdoors as much as possible, sourcing my materials, making my work, immersing myself in nature.

I write about Tao, the embodied life and art where earth matters every Monday morning at my Substack, Uncivil Savant.

Caroline Ross

Faculty Photo: Teaching ink making in Totnes at The Albatross, August 2022.

 

About Theresa Emmerich Kamper

Theresa is an avid practitioner of traditional living skills and primitive technology of all kinds.
An interest which came in part from growing up in the Rocky Mountains in the USA, where
backpacking, hunting and fishing were part of the culture. She has followed this interest into
the academic field of Experimental Archaeology in which she holds a PhD from the
University of Exeter in the UK. Theresa has been tanning skins using traditional technologies
for over 30 years. Learning to tan was a natural offshoot of the attempt to use as much of the
animal as possible and had the added bonus of producing a beautiful end product. She
includes in her instruction a diverse range of information, from skin morphology to helpful
hints in dealing with the numerous and frustrating problems which are often encountered
when first learning to tan.

Theresa Emmerich Kamper

Faculty Photo image credit: St. Fagans National Museum of History