An artist studio in a shopping centre

One of the most interesting projects I've been invited to help with this year is the Scotch Hall Art project. An empty space in the Scotch Hall Centre, Drogheda is to be transformed for the next two weeks into a temporary Art Studio and workshop space for the public to try their hands at painting and drawing.



Sean O'Dwyer is going to host a series of live demonstrations, art events, workshops and mini-shows that the pubic can get involved with where people can get a chance to paint and draw with him. I'll be there from this evening helping to get things set up for a private viewing of the Open Studio space. I hope to be able to try and blog a bit of it too.

Sean has been painting, sculpting and teaching for longer than I've known him. His teaching technique, called the Perfect Painting method, has helped people who have never painted before achieve remarkable results in a one day workshop.

Using primitive cameras, as Da Vinci, Vermeer, and Ingres did, Sean has a unique gift in making even the least confident person feel comfortable with a brush and produce something they can be proud of. The results of his workshops tend to speak for themselves.



Among the things happening in the open studio for the next two weeks are:

• A day by day viewing of the preparation and making of unique large scale oil painting for Scotch Hall to be displayed in the centre.
  
• An exhibition of works in progress entitled "Aspects of Her" by Sean
  
• Perfect printmaking: a mini-show of prints designed by the artist and created by participants from Perfect Vision painting workshops
  
• Invited guests and workshops on themes related to the paintings.

The Scotch Hall Art Project runs from the 7th to the 19th of October during shopping centre hours. Project events such as art exhibitions, demonstrations and workshops are available to the public, but will need to be booked in advance.



Sean tells me there'll be more information on his website. He's also on Wikipedia and blogs when he can too. Here's a nice video of the artwork he used to create the painting above.