Learning to See (with Ruskin) online sessions 2025
What happens when we pause long enough to truly see the world around us?
This gentle, monthly workshop series, at 2pm (UK time) on the first Saturday of every month, from September 2025 to May 2026, invites you to slow down and look closely—at leaf and lichen, cloud and stone, light and shadow. Guided by the spirit of John Ruskin and his belief that learning to draw is above all a way of learning to see, Learning to See offers a welcoming space for anyone, regardless of skill level, to deepen their connection to the natural world through careful observation and creative practice.
Inspired loosely by Ruskin’s The Elements of Drawing, the series will blend drawing with a wide range of creative responses, which might include walking, watercolour and colour mixing, photography, mapping, and reading.
Sessions run on the first Saturday of each month, with artist, writer and Companion Kateri Ewing opening the series in September and October, setting the tone for an experience rooted in reverence, presence, and accessibility. We are delighted that artists Julian Perry, Robert Newall and Doris Rohr have all agreed to be guest session leaders in the series.
Together, we’ll explore how attentive seeing can rekindle our sense of wonder—and how wonder can lead us toward care.
Join us for 90 minutes of shared observation, practice, discussion, and community each month, and discover how small, mindful acts of attention can become a daily rhythm of creative noticing.
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ZOOM LINK FOR THE NEXT SESSION: You should be sent the Zoom link for each session automatically, via Eventbrite, in the week of each session, and it is also available via this page, here:
SESSION THREE, ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 1ST 2025, AT 2pm (UK time):
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7070805610?omn=81108113190
We will focus on the exercise of beginning to draw a dropped piece of cloth, and this is the relevant piece of Ruskin's text. Please bring with you a small piece of cloth that you could use for this exercise.
- When you have once got the feeling of the way in which gradation expresses roundness and projection, you may try your strength on anything natural or artificial that happens to take your fancy, provided it be not too complicated in form. I have asked you to draw a stone first, because any irregularities and failures in your shading will be less offensive to you, as being partly characteristic of the rough stone surface, than they would be in a more delicate subject; and you may as well go on drawing rounded stones of different shapes for a little while, till you find you can really shade delicately. You may then take up folds of thick white drapery, a napkin or towel thrown carelessly on the table is as good as anything, and try to express them in the same way; only now you will find that your shades must be wrought with perfect unity and tenderness, or you will lose the flow of the folds. Always remember that a little bit perfected is worth more than many scrawls; whenever you feel yourself inclined to scrawl, give up work resolutely, and do not go back to it till next day. Of course your towel or napkin must be put on something that may be locked up, so that its folds shall not be disturbed till you have finished. If you find that the folds will not look right, get a photograph of a piece of drapery (there are plenty now to be bought, taken from the sculpture of the cathedrals of Rheims, Amiens, and Chartres, which will at once educate your hand and your taste), and copy some piece of that; you will then ascertain what it is that is wanting in your studies from Nature, whether more gradation, or greater watchfulness of the disposition of the folds. Probably for some time you will find yourself failing painfully in both, for drapery is very difficult to follow in its sweeps; but do not lose courage, for the greater the difficulty, the greater the gain in the effort. If your eye is more just in measurement of form than delicate in perception of tint, a pattern on the folded surface will help you. Try whether it does or not: and if the patterned drapery confuses you, keep for a time to the simple white one; but if it helps you, continue to choose patterned stuffs (tartans and simple chequered designs are better at first than flowered ones), and even though it should confuse you, begin pretty soon to use a pattern occasionally, copying all the distortions and perspective modifications of it among the folds with scrupulous care.
(15.59-60)
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SESSION RECORDINGS.
PLEASE NOTE: For anyone unable to join us live, or if you wish to repeat the session, a recording of each session will be placed on YouTube and you can find links to them here:
SESSION ONE (Sept 2025) RECORDING: https://youtu.be/iP7iPUFqVs8
SESSION TWO (October 2025) RECORDING: https://youtu.be/ITQ2DAMuIRY
EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS
We suggest that attendees have the following materials to hand:
Sessions will usually run for 90 minutes.
READING THE TEXT OF THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
If you would like to read The Elements of Drawing, it can be found online HERE, and you can find a facsimile of George Allen's edition of 1904 HERE.