Learning to See (with Ruskin) online sessions 2025/6

Introduction

You should be sent the Zoom link for each session by email in the week of each session, and it is also available further down this page

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EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS

We suggest that attendees have the following materials to hand:

Sessions will usually run for 90 minutes. 

Forthcoming sessions

SESSION FOUR, ON SATURDAY DECEMBER 6TH 2025, AT 2pm (UK time)

ZOOM LINK: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7070805610?omn=81170147738

INTRODUCTION TO THE SESSION FROM KATERI EWING

Ruskin taught that every line and shadow should come from observation, not habit. He admired artists like Dürer because every stroke they made was thoughtful and true. He didn’t want students to draw fast or showy pictures, but he wanted them to look closely at the real world, even the smallest part of it, until they could see its form and texture clearly. He said if you don’t have time to draw carefully, it’s better to wait until you can give your full attention. Drawing isn’t about getting a “result,” it’s about learning to see and recording what’s true.

Exercise: Drawing a Walnut Shell
Subject: A single half or whole walnut shell, placed in natural light, or the reference image provided here.

Observation: (5 min)
Hold the walnut shell in your hand. Notice its weight, its asymmetry, its folds and ridges. It’s like a tiny landscape — hills, valleys, and shadows.
Outline: (5–10 min)
Begin with the outer contour, drawn lightly. Let the line be quiet and deliberate, a boundary of observation.
Shading: (30 min)
Study how light moves across the shell. Notice where the shadows collect in crevices, where the highlights shimmer. Use slow, layered shading, tiny strokes or circular marks, to build the form. Work from light to dark.
Encourage folks to spend more time looking than drawing. The eye should guide the hand; the hand should never rush ahead.
Reflection: Pause and look at what you’ve drawn. What surprised you about this simple object? Did you notice how much character it has when you slowed down enough to see?

By drawing a walnut shell slowly, you’re practicing exactly what Ruskin meant: the art of seeing truth in the ordinary, seeing shading instead of line, and finding beauty there.

SESSION FIVE, ON SATURDAY 3rd JANUARY 2026 AT 2pm (UK time)

(zoom link to follow)

INTRODUCTION BY SESSION LEADER DORIS ROHR

The mystery of quantity

This is based on Letter 1 sections 72-85

Letter 1 breaks down the difficulty of how to proceed from a single leave to an arrangement on a branch. Although designed for the studio or indoors, it is a preparatory step towards working in situ in the landscape.

For the workshop bring unbleached white paper, which was customary at Ruskin’s time Consider preparing paper staining it with black tea, coffee or soya sauce. If you prefer Turner Blue paper (see example below) you can apply a light wash of blue such as cerulean instead. Stretch white paper onto a wooden board, seal with extra wide masking tape all around the paper fixing it to the board and apply the staining agent with a flat 1.5 inch or larger brush. You don’t need to cover the whole paper (see my example). You can also collect reinforced Manila envelopes A4 size. Parcel paper or light blue or light brown kraft paper also works well. 

Drawing tools: 

• Flat brush for underpainting, 
• Pencil, 
• Fine pointed watercolour brush size 1 or 2 
• White paint (gouache or watercolour titanium or zinc white is good). 
• Ink.

In the northern hemisphere we will have only limited access to branches with leaves as it is winter. If possible, please locate a branch with leaves, deciduous trees often hang on to their withered foliage, especially oak, whitebeam and beech do so. Find a branch with leaves still attached. Failing this, bring evergreen branches such as ivy, holly or pine.

We will follow some of Ruskin’s exercises, exploring organisation of leaves on a branch, foreshortening of leaves and silhouette drawing with ink.

The aim is to learn to cope with drawing a complex branch with a large number of leaves. To solve the riddle of the mystery of quantity Ruskin asks us to let go of slavish detail. 

Rohr (2023) Leaves Gathered in Silence 

Images by John Ruskin:

Figure 2  John Ruskin,  The Dryad's Waywardness: Oak Spray in Winter, seen in Front 1858–1860 (Ashmolean)

‘Turner Blue Paper’ watercolour and bodycolour over graphite on blue wove paper

Fig. 3 John Ruskin Under-surface of a dried Spray of Olive, gathered at Verona (Ashmolean)

Prepared blue tint on buff grey paper, watercolour and bodycolour over graphite on wove paper.

Both Figure 2 and 3 are taken from the Ashmolean Ruskin’s teaching collection https://ruskin.ashmolean.org/object/WA.RS.ED.266

https://ruskin.ashmolean.org/collection/8990/9165/9209

Session recordings

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

SESSION THREE (November 2025) RECORDING: https://youtu.be/DOFtphS3AIE?si=LM0eadoFOdOiCxR1

Reading 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.

Participant's gallery

If anyone who attends a session would like to share their work, we will display it here.