Urna

Each Thursday we met in the Art School to

look at art, to workshop our new ideas and

to talk about developing themes. I say ‘our’

because we learn together. I learn what

interests them and where their strengths

lie, and they learn to push a little outside

their comfort zone, maybe trying a new

method of drawing or to work on a larger

scale. Yes, we are teaching them art skills,

but we are also sharing with them ways of

making decisions, how to best visualise

concepts and to use their invaluable

imaginations in innovative ways which will

serve them well beyond making art!

Siobhán Humston

Artist in Residence

Marlborough College

2019/2020 Art Scholars

Under the extraordinary circumstances that has been this last

couple of months, the Art Scholars have finished their works

under the designated theme Nature, Landscape & the

Environment. A wide variety of mediums were used and even

within that theme, the subject matter is quite varied. What

breathes forth is a great sensitivity toward their natural

surroundings and themselves within that context. It has been a

great pleasure to be a part of the process, meet with them via

Zoom, to see the works and written words arrive via email, then

to arrange them virtually, through the magic of photography and

Photoshop, into the Mount House Gallery space. We were

scheduled to hold an exhibition this month and I decided to put

one together despite our geographical isolation. This catalogue is

a testament to the value of both art and nature in the lives of our

young people, and indeed to ourselves.

Max Baldock

Common Potoo Owl

Graphite on paper

19 x 13.9 cm

I was interested in the different ways animals

and birds disguise themselves from their

predators and prey. One of the most impressive

animals at disguising themselves (an ability

named crypsis for animals) is an owl called a

common Potoo that disguises itself remarkably

well during sleep. Another reason, I looked at the

Potoo was because of their manic bright orange

eyes that I was interested in drawing or painting

but could not while looking at crypsis because

the Potoo only disguises itself when resting. The

owl will sleep on or in some cases inside trees

and be almost completely camouflaged. The only

way to distinguish the Potoo from the tree is to

look at the texture of the bark and the texture

of the Potoo’s feathers. I decided to draw the owl

with pencil because I was interested in drawing

the textures of the Potoo and the tree. I wanted

to record these subtle differences that prevent

the owl from being completely invisible.

Casper Barker

This piece was heavily influenced by my A-level course

work, inspired by the work of Peter Doig, a Scottish

artist who moved to Trinidad at a young age. Doig has

been significantly influenced by the large amount of

travelling he was part of as a child, something he endured

due to his father’s work. Influences can be seen from the

tropical beaches of Trinidad, snowy landscapes of

Canada, and the streets of London. Throughout his

pieces, Doig is able to achieve a ‘place between places’, an

effect I have tried to capture in this work of my own.

My painting was inspired by a trip to Costa Rica, which

has similar beaches and landscapes to those of Trinidad.

Both present pristine beaches, protruding palm trees,

and thick threatening jungle, filled with an array of

creature including electric blue butterflies, and even

pumas.

A Dream

Oil on canvas

149 x 122 cm

I was inspired to draw this by my cousin

who specialises in black pen art. He has

always been a massive inspiration to me

with art and he was mainly the reason

to why I got in to drawing. I still have a

drawing that we did together when I

was around 6 and it is of a tree that sits

outside my grandparents and every

since I’ve always wanted to redo it but

at an age where I felt more comfortable

with my art. I originally wanted to do

this project based on garden mazes but

then from there I thought It would be

clever to link that into the tree by using

Nicki’s technique. In the drawing it’s

quite difficult to actually see the tree

which is exactly what I wanted to

create. Then by surrounding it with a

maze helped to show how I wanted the

tree to be the core. This represents

what means most to you, is deep down.

Edward Bentley

The Hidden Secret

Ink on paper

60 x 42 cm

Untitled

50 x 65 cm

Mixed media on paper

Nina Blakey

About my piece: I had originally pencil drawn a

few flowers from some fields near my house

but then I decided to take it further by

including some different mediums and adding

colours. I chose my two favourite flower

designs and photocopied them into different

sizes. Then I placed some leaves (actually from

a lemon tree) into the photocopier and

magnified them to some different but larger

sizes. These make up a portion of the

background. Also included are coloured

versions of the original flowers. The yellow

flowers are printouts of a photograph of one of

the flowers I copied and the pink/purple ones

are the real flowers placed in the photocopier,

the way the leaves were. I was really impressed

by how well all of the coloured photocopies

from the real flowers and leaves turned out -

how realistic and vibrant the colours were.

Phoebe Brown

Untitled

Graphite, collage on paper

84.1 x 59.4 cm

 This piece is inspired by the isolated environment we

are living in. the little house, sits at the end of my

garden, and I've always admired it as a place of solitude

amongst the colour and chaos around it. I thought there

was nothing better to represent, us in our current

situation. The house was sketched in pencil, with the

door painted the same colour as the original. The path,

made of newspaper, represents the media, and how it is

our only link to what's going on outside, as we can only

see the rest of the world through it. To make this piece I

simply found an old plywood board and painted a plain

white background, this depicts the unknown in our

future.

Dominic Cox

I’m Dominic and I am particularly interested in drawing

and painting landscapes. One of my most preferred

mediums is pencil drawings, however I also enjoy

painting in watercolour or acrylics. This piece of work is

of a  picture in Wales from about a year ago. It’s a photo

of a walk we regularly go on as we have a family cottage

in North Wales which we go to fairly regularly. The

picture is from the top of a hill looking down on the old

mine works in the foreground. In the background lies

one of the valleys Snowdonia. I was inspired by the range

of colours and contrast in the picture so I decided to

use water soluble pencils to blend colours together and

get the necessary range of colours needed.

Old Mine

Watercolour on paper

Phoebe Cox

Memory Map

Mixed media on paper

22 x 18 cm

This exhibition is about environment. Environment can

mean lots of things but in this piece, environment shows

family and the place that I grew up in. 

The main focal point of this piece is a drawing of my

younger brother and I; unfortunately he died from a

brain tumour 6 years ago. 

In my piece I decided to have a couple of translucent

layers, to show the layers of a person or people. The

map shows lots of things but the one I wanted to

express is adventure and that your past and present will

always be and stay an adventure. 

Luli Chambers

I have produced a piece of embroidery inspired

by a spiders web in ‘Cabinet of Natural

Curiosities’ by Albertus Seba. I like how the

plain, thin web in this piece of art acted as a

subtle yet interesting background. I have used

the idea of the thin spider’s web and sewn a

web for the background using a sewing

machine with thin thread. I then used

inspiration from other books and online

resources to come up with my own plant

designs to hand embroider. I used a variety of

greens and browns. I also used maroon, pink

and red to bring some other flowery colours

into my work. I like how the spiders web

brought a modern aspect to the piece. I also

tried to make my hand embroidery big and

modern so that the plants and the branch

made a frame for the web with the spiders at

the centre.

Web

Embroidery on cotton

27 x 25 cm

Rapha de Segundo

The Great Realisation

Watercolour on panel

Abi Edwards

Untitled

Watercolour on paper

29.7 x 21

Sophia Eng

Turned Leaves

Watercolour on paper

29.7 x 42 cm

I am a Year 9 student and I have always been fascinated

by nature especially in the Spring when everything is

starting to bloom. In my garden, I watched the

movement of leaves as they blew in the wind and I picked

up a small branch of green leaves to draw inside the

house. I experimented painting the leaves as they were.

Then after many days without water, the leaves started

to decay and turn brown. Being in the warmth and

dryness of the house made the leaves curl. I found the

change in shape, the texture and colour to be

extraordinary. They became much more interesting.

The centre spine and the smaller veins of each leaf were

more pronounced and had a stronger contrast. The

curling showed their crispness and fragile state. First, I

sketched the outline of the leaves in pencil, showing the

curls and veins of each leaf. I wanted to show the

fragility of the leaves like they could break at any

moment with monochromatic shades of browns. I

started painting the entire leaf in pale brown, then the

different sections of the leaf separated by the veins in

shades of mid-browns, followed by darker browns on the

edges to show the decay. I thought it was interesting

how I started the project was completely different to

how it finished.

Francesco Faccini

Amphibians

Ink on paper

84 x 59 cm

Alara Fuchs

My name is Alara, and I am 16 years old. I am interested

in the interlinking relationship between humans and

nature. I wanted to look closely at how they interact,

and looked at the question of which is more dominant. I

decided to voice my opinion that nature will always be

more dominant and surrounds us in my piece. After a

photoshoot of my friend I decided to weave in nature by

drawing It growing around her and over her symbolising

us being just a creation of nature and it being more

permanent and powerful. I decided on drawing it all in

pencil so I could concentrate on the figure rather then

the colours taking away attention from the shape.

Untitled

Graphite on paper

28.2 x 20.1 cm

Peps Haydn Taylor Gaia

Lino print on canvas with plant

pigments, ink, graphite & gold leaf

120 x 84 cm

I am in Upper 6th / Year 13 and am fascinated by the human

condition with respect to our natural surroundings. With this

piece, I wanted to explore the common personification of the

Earth as female. Many feminists such as Luce Iragaray have

described an intrinsic link between the female body and the

natural world, and both have continuously been neglected in the

progression of civilisation. While some say linking the two is

essentialist and constrictive, to me the embodiment of the Earth

as a mother goddess shows the power of both parties. I tried to

echo this in my materials: the background of my print is cotton

which I boiled with leaves and vegetables to create the subtle

colours. This process was important to me: through making

something beautiful by boiling, rinsing and then stitching the

fabric together, I attempted to show the value of what is often

called ‘women’s work’; work that is undervalued in modern

society because of this association, despite being integral to our

daily lives. I then then printed on top, choosing lino and black ink

as my medium because the bold lines seemed to assert power

and strength, especially against the soft lines of the leaves in the

background. To finish the piece, I used coloured graphite, ink,

pencil and gold leaf to create the moon-like halo around the

figures which has long been associated with women. Despite a lot

of technical difficulties, I am really pleased with how the piece

turned out, especially the earthiness of the natural pigments.

Stella Harvey- Bathurst

I have chosen to paint this flower because we have

them in the house every year at Christmas which

was the last time my family was all together and

when the virus wasn’t really that well known. It is

a reminder of how things used to be and a sense

of fun and enjoyment for me.

I have used watercolour on A4 paper to create

this and used different sized paintbrushes to help

portray the minor details. The bright red colour

brings it alive and because of this I admire how

the real flowers look.

Amaryllis

Watercolour on paper

27.9 x 21.6 cm

Dorothy JohnstoneTremora

Acrylic on canvas

40.5 x 60 cm

Under the prompt of Environment I

chose to create a piece inspired by

Cornwall, half of my family live there

and it is somewhere that has been

tied deeply to my family throughout

my entire life. I Therefore based the

painting off of my memories and

experience there, I took

photographs of six of my family

members all seated either at home

or on the beach in Cornwall. I chose

to surround them with flowers that

I associate with my time there, the

gorse and foxglove are flowers

found on the Cornish cliffs

surrounding my Grandmother’s

house and the margheritas and

forget-me-nots are flowers that my

Grandma has always grown in her

garden. To me this painting shows

my environment in somewhere I

consider to be my home and

somewhere that I’ve known my

Ines Johnstone

Lionfish are found in the south

pacific and Indian oceans; they

are armed with venomous

spines and striking stripes. I

was inspired by their beautiful

appearance and their

incredible fins, before coming

across them I had no idea fish

could look like that. Merged

with my love of the sea and

the theme of nature I thought

it perfect to show off this

fascinating fish.

Lionfish

Drypoint

40 x 28 cm

Daisy Krens

In this piece I have painted a person concealed in two

layers of opposing materials. One being ivy growing

around the person and the other white cloth. This

shows the contrast between how we use the

environment for our benefit, making clothing out of

cotton or we can become overwhelmed by it covering

us. I used ivy because it continues to grow and conceal

the structure it grows on. In nature we see ivy

everywhere and I wanted to emphasise how much

nature affects us in our lives. It strikes us as shocking

when we see ivy growing over a face. I used the cloth as

well as the ivy to show how reliant we are on nature

because cloth is made of cotton plant. It shows the

contrast between being covered by a plant against our

will or creating coverings out of plants for warmth,

clothing, fashion and wellbeing. This painting has allowed

me to learn about my environment and how I am so

dependent on it in so many ways.

Untitled

Acrylic on board

Antigone Lee

Graphite Skull

Graphite, beetroot juice on paper

59.4 x 42 cm

For my piece, I wanted to explore my surroundings at

home since the landscape is very unique and important

to me. I began my research by observing, collecting and

drawing natural objects that I found on local walks. One

particularly interesting object was a small animal skull.

The shape and texture of it resembled Henry Moore’s

sculpture ‘Animal Head’ (1951), which was made from off-

white plaster and loosely represents an animal skull.

This became the source of my inspiration and I aimed to

incorporate a similar sense of ambiguity. I tried to

create the light tones and smooth texture of bone using

graphite to contrast with the strong, dark crimson

wash running down the page and over the skull. I

created this using the juice of a beetroot, as the bright

colour is similar to that of blood, which opposes the soft

hues of the skull.

Bea Middleton

Within exploring this theme of nature and the

environment, I wanted to produce something

different which shows the growth of humanity

through nature as well as nature itself. I wanted

to incorporate a sense of peace instead of

destruction to show something other than

climate change and pollution. Whilst researching

some ideas, I was inspired by a piece by Wendell

berry on Pinterest.

I used the same structure- the hands as if they

are trees, as well as the gentile face leaning on the

palm of the hands looking extremely peaceful. I

photographed some images of my friend whom

portrayed the same-like structured position. I

used watercolour, to present this softness to the

piece as it glides off the surface of the paper in a

smooth dream-like matter. I blemished the dark

tones with the light to concentrate the focus on

the face in contrast with the hands. However, I

was unable to finish the composition due to

covid-19.

 

Growing

Watercolour

29.1 x 21 cm

Talia Neat

Home

Oil, coloured pencil on wooden board

59.4 x 42 cm

Untitled

Gauche on linen with embroidery

42 x 29.7 cm

Nature and the environment

drift into our everyday lives,

growing up with teddy bears

and floral wallpaper becomes a

common trend in many of our

childhoods. It was interesting

for me to see how the natural

world is so frequently used in

synthetic everyday items which

spark memories of childhood

and growing up. Using the two

teddy bears and my mother’s

childhood wallpaper as

inspiration I wanted to create a

portrait expressing how much

nature is a part of our day to

day lives. With our limitations

during this quarantine, these

images of the outside world in

our own homes seem even

more comforting than before

and therefore I wanted to

create a piece expressing the

influence of nature in our

everyday environments.

The natural linen canvas felt like the

appropriate backdrop for a piece

inspired by nature. Due to our lack of

social contact, the portrait photograph

used for reference, was taken through a

FaceTime call. This idea of being inside

surrounded by synthetic replicas of

nature, be it in our clothes, curtains or

wallpaper, was something I wanted to

show through the small embroidered

plants. The light coming from above

from the window inspired me to sew

plants as if they are growing inside. I

wanted to keep to a neutral earthy

colour palette to maintain the nature

influence of this piece. 

Isdi Newall

A Girl with a Rose

Graphite, photocopies, embroidery on

paper

26 x 16.9 cm

I am in year 10 and I particularly like drawing portraits.

To start off I took many photos of my friend with a

vague idea in my head. After narrowing down the photos

a more vivid idea came to mind. So, with one drawing

left, I drew it in pencil. I then photocopied it and put

charcoal for a background. After I was happy with that, I

photocopied it again and drew a rose with white chalk

pencil behind the figure. The rose idea was from an

artist I like called Nunzio Paci. I chose white for it to

contrast against the black background. Then to finish

off I used the photocopier for the last time and sewed

over the rose and finally I was finished. I decided to

display them in this way to show my process. 

Taba Reed

‘Every Flower Stirred’ is a self-portrait made from materials

extracted from our natural environment and a pallet recording my

experimental use of colour. 

Our natural world is the core foundation in supporting our existence.

In the modern age, we are often removed from the subtlety, beauty

and changes that surround us. As I was sat in isolation I was made

more aware of the colours of Spring. It is easy to ignore the

environment when life is full of distraction, however, if one slows down

they are able to appreciate the abundance of awe-inspiring colours.

I crushed and stirred a collection of flowers, fruits and soil which

formed pigments. I melted beeswax to create texture and used

charcoal to darken colours. I want both my self-portrait and pallet to

communicate how intertwined we are with nature and remind the

viewer of human kinds longstanding relationship with colour.

Every Flower Stirred

Natural homemade pigments, bees

wax & charcoal on linen

30 x 30 cm each

Sophie Smith

Before the Spring

Ballpoint pen, embroidery on paper

The inspiration for my drawings came from many wintery walks through the countryside. I came across

these trees, stripped of all green, their skeletal, twisted forms exposed in a tangle of branches, and was

drawn to their forlorn, neglected appearance. All seemed grey and dreary at that time of year. Yet as the

weeks passed by, I have enjoyed watching the first signs of spring creep slowly into the landscape, then

burst suddenly into a wealth of greenery and fresh, vibrant leaves. The lines of colour are there to serve

as a symbol of the coming bloom, and as a reminder for when those winter months come around again

that the spring is never far away.

Eva StuartMother Nature’s Death Mask

Graphite on cartridge paper

42 x 29.7 cm

I had seen a Francis Bacon piece entitled “Study

for Portrait III (after the Life Mask of William

Blake)” in the Tate and had found the notion of a

death mask- a wax cast taken after death- an

interesting concept. When told that the theme

for this year’s exhibition was “Environment” I

found myself considering how current and topical

it could be interpreted as, in the urgent age of

climate change. I had read an article discussing

how differently humans might treat the earth if

they regarded it as a fellow person, and this lead

me to consider the personification of the earth

we live on: Mother Nature. I wanted to take this

idea of portraying the earth as human and

thought that art would be an effective medium to

query how viewers might react when consider her

as a being.

Jamie Walker

I am in Year 11 and my favourite Art technique is

dry point etching. This composition of two

prints is from when I went to China in the

summer of 2018. One shows a section of the

famous 99 turns in China going down from

Tiananmen mountain. And the other is the glass

elevator in the Zhangjiajie National Park

Mountains, most well know for being the set for

the Alleluia mountains in the film Avatar. I have

chosen to etch these landscapes because

etching brings out great detail and there is

great simplicity with the single colour. Also this

style reminds me of some ink paintings of

Memories Never Forgotten

Drypoint

42 x 29.7 cm

Ted Walker

Untitled

Digital painting