Berlin, Germany

Drawing as a Way of Knowing – Plants

The workshop's participants will study historical plant samples, explore the Botanical Garden and discover structures with the microscope. The gathered knowledge they will develop into a graphical interpretation of the plant world.

In my workshop you will have the opportunity to deal intensively with botanical phenomena. We start with drawing explorations in front of nature. In the studio we translate these into free artistic expressions.

With three excursions we visit special research sites in Berlin and study the plant world in different ways: Systematics and stylization based on historical models at the Laboratory for Drawing of the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK); surface structures in the Microscopy Center of the Humboldt University of Berlin; richness of form and complexity in the Botanical Garden. In this first phase of the workshop we will teach drawing techniques that allow you to look more closely and accumulate a broad understanding of natural forms.

During the second phase of the workshop we will meet in the drawing lab of the UdK. In individual supervision you will further develop the inventories. Playing with translation and abstraction, you will expand your graphic vocabulary and transform it into your own interpretations and you will have the opportunity to transform your knowledge into printmaking artworks.

Invited are visual artists, architects, designers, as well as self-taught artists with previous knowledge of drawing, who are interested in deepening their study of nature and who want to collectively open up perspectives for their respective artistic practice.

Course leader

Kerstin Hille

Fee info

EUR 580: EUR 580