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Take part in this special half-day workshop on drawing plants and flowers in the Freud Museum’s house and garden, inspired by the botanical work of Lucian Freud.
The artist Lucian Freud – grandson of Sigmund, and nephew of Anna – drew and painted plants throughout his life. From prickly thistle to fragile hyacinths to wild London gardens, we will consider his approach and begin to draw and paint some pieces ourselves.
Fay Ballard, who has previously exhibited at the Freud Museum, will guide you through a workshop of drawing and painting inspired by Sigmund Freud’s beautiful Hampstead garden and indoor plants and the current exhibition on Lucian Freud.
Art materials, including watercolours, pencils and hot-pressed paper, will be provided for all attendees to use but please bring your own if you wish to! There will also be tea, coffee and light refreshments available for all attendees on the day.
There is limited space for this class, so book your place early to avoid disappointment.
About the tutor:
Fay Ballard’s work centres on drawing, underpinned by an interest in psychoanalysis. Her early work focused on plant portraits and she was selected to draw and paint the flora growing at Highgrove and in Transylvania for The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation. From 2010 to 2018, Fay made autobiographical work that explored memories of her childhood growing up after her mother died in 1964. These were shown in the exhibition ‘Breathe’ at the Freud Museum (2018) taking the theme of art as reparation, in ‘Travelling Companions’ at Cambridge University (2020) which explored the notion of personal belongings being companions to our journey through life, and in the current exhibition ‘Mending the Psyche: Art as Reparation’ at the Peltz Gallery Birkbeck, University of London. Since 2019, she has been on a new journey drawing circles that now total 50 and were presented at Handel Street Projects in 2021.
Fay was a visiting artist at Hammersmith Hospital in 2017 and 2018 making art with patients at their bedsides. She sits on the Arts and on the Covid Legacy Committees for Imperial Health Charity (NHS).
Fay has spoken at conferences and seminars at the Freud Museum, British Library, King’s College London, Birkbeck University of London, Cambridge, Leicester, Leeds and Anglia Ruskin Universities. She has taught and spoken at the RCA, Camberwell, Wimbledon and Chelsea Art Schools, Birkbeck, the Royal Watercolour Society and Charing Cross Hospital. Fay studied History of Art at University of Sussex, completed MA Fine Art at Central Saint Martin’s Art School and a Diploma in Botanical Art at the Chelsea Physic Garden. She was a trustee of Camden Arts Centre.
