Rachel Sutherland, Flowing Light
4 September 2025, 10:00 – 13:00
Norham
To celebrate the 250th anniversary of JMW Turner’s birth, Connecting Threads have teamed up with Norham Arts to offer a creative workshop on the banks of the River Tweed.
In tribute to the fluid, luminous quality of Turner’s work, artist Rachel Sutherland will demonstrate some of the innovative painting techniques and unusual materials that Turner employed to evoke the dynamism of water as it eddies and pools.
Taking place right on the riverbank, the workshop will involve sponges and scalpel scrapes, as well as wet and dry brush techniques that allow pigments to float or accumulate. Paint can be mixed with water from the closest source: the River Tweed itself.
Turner first visited and sketched Norham Castle on the banks of the Tweed during his 1797 tour and he returned to the area several times to make sketches, watercolours and oil paintings. Several of his Norham Castle paintings were later reproduced as engravings and widely disseminated.
This event is part of the Watery Commons 2025 programme by Connecting Threads. The workshop approaches cultural heritage as a form of shared resource that allows artists of the present to build freely upon the ideas of those who came before.
Booking
This event costs £5 to attend, payable to Norham Arts Group.
Please email norhamartsgroup@gmail.com to confirm your place and arrange payment.
Information, materials and access
Please bring heavy paper, water colours, brushes, scalpels and cloths if you have them.
Some dry pigments, scalpels, sponges and cotton rag paper will be available for anyone without materials.
There will be a gazebo at the riverbank, but if the weather is awful we can move inside Norham Village Hall. The riverbank has unpaved paths and is step free. The hall is wheelchair accessible. If you have any questions about accessibility please get in touch with Norham Arts directly.
About the artist
Rachel Sutherland is an artist with a postgraduate degree in Landscape Architecture. Her work is concerned with the land and cultural heritage; how the land is perceived, used and how to create conversations open to all artists, ecologists and community groups. Rachel is an enthusiastic educator and practitioner, who makes works both on site and in the studio.
www.rachelsutherlandpaintings.com
@inkpenpaint_rachelsutherland
