Pat Thornton and Rachael Adams are practising artists with a wealth of experience, not only as art-school tutors and fine artists, but as designers, illustrators and all-round practitioners. They are members of the Edgeland Modern movement, living and working in and around the edges of Newhaven, Brighton and Lewes, between the South Downs and the South Coast.
Pat is an artist and tutor, teaching for many years on Foundation courses. She was recently short-listed for the Jerwood Drawing Prize. Instagram Feed. MA Sequential Art.
Rachael is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and publisher, with experience teaching at Foundation level. MA Sequential Art, PGDip Narrative Art/Editorial Design, BA Fine Art (Painting).
How we Teach and what we Practice
“Our approach is to encourage and facilitate a student’s personal expression, it’s not to conform to a prescribed style or technique. There are techniques and approaches that will – with practice – result in a relatively faithful representation of what you see – and we do teach along these lines – but it is important to encourage confidence in a personal response. For instance: what to include or exclude, with what pressure of line, sensitive or bold, that should be the choice of the student. Too often instructors impose rules, taboos and ideals. In many classes students end up making replicas of their teacher’s work. Our objective is for the student to find their own visual language.” Pat Thornton
History
Pat and Rachael met while teaching Visual Communication Studies and Fine Art at Northbrook College in Worthing (National Diploma and Foundation) in the late 1990’s. They began ‘Just Like Art School’ sessions in 2017 to share many of the approaches they took while teaching – as well as developing new ones – gleaned from old and new researches. They also continue to practice the stuff they were taught. Not all of it, but the stuff they recognise was really good art-school practice… Hence the umbrella name of the courses ‘Just Like Art School’.
They will – on occasion – present examples of other artists’ work to widen an appreciation of exciting types of drawing. This (hopefully) will dispel any preconceived notions of what a ‘good’ drawing should be and allow students to form their own ideas about how their work could develop.
