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WORKSHOP
ART MEETS SCIENCE
2023 DATE TO BE DETERMINED
EXPLORE - CAPTURE - PAINT - PROTECT
We are excited to announce a unique opportunity for artists and art enthusiasts to join us in Bimini for a 7 day / 6 night Art Meets Science Workshop! This workshop will be led by award winning painter, designer, illustrator and photographer Francesca Page alongside the Bimini Shark Lab’s professional team of Field Technicians.
Francesca Page is a Wildlife fine art watercolour painter, Scientific Illustrator, published digital illustrator, wildlife Photographer, Dive Professional and storyteller who is on a life long mission to save wildlife through art. She specializes in colour and handmade UV sensitive watercolour paint to capture the colour show of nature beyond our gaze. Francesca’s ocean encounters and photos inspire her artwork, which aim’s to capture the beauty of nature which allows you to fall in love with it and ultimately want to protect it. “Art helps to provoke feeling and passion, which I believe is the foundation to taking the first steps into anthropogenic consciousness.”
“You must first become the fish in order to paint it” - Francesca Page
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
The workshop will be held at the Bimini Biological Field Station (the Shark Lab), a relatively isolated research facility on the island of South Bimini, Bahamas, 46 miles across the Gulf Stream from Miami, Florida. Workshop dates for 2023 are TBD.
Days will be a combination of classroom based art lessons by Francesca Page and scientific lectures by the Shark Lab's researchers, and trips in the field to interact with a variety of sharks, rays and marine life.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN WITH FRANCESCA
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"My dreams and visions for the trip is to create a workshop that allows people to broaden their creative minds, develop on their artistic skills and learn how to turn ocean encounters into meaningful art. By conducting drawing and sketching workshops I hope to grow peoples technical drawing skills and also to see the world from a different perspective. By getting out into the field with our sketch books and being with the subject matter this will allow a greater connection and understanding to grow which can be channeled into art.
The ocean drives my art, without these special and intimate moments under the waves my art simply wouldn’t exist. I believe you must first become the fish in order to paint it and by doing this workshop we will be connecting people with sharks and marine life they have never seen before. Married together with shark biology and conservation workshops will allow a deeper understanding and knowledge which will in turn benefit the artworks to come.
I hope people leave this trip with a new perspective and deeper understanding about sharks, having experienced once in a life time shark encounters. And leaving this trip with a new perspective on the creative mind, new drawing and painting techniques and lots of inspiration to fuel artworks to come."
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1. Drawing & sketching workshops - Quick sketching workshops out in the field consisting of 1-10 minute long sketching exercises aiming to get you to loosen up your mind and drawing abilities, using your eyes more acutely and becoming more aware or your surroundings.
2. Colour theory, composition and painting ideas workshops. Teaching the fundamentals to using composition in your artwork to create a more visually pleasing and eye catching image.
3. Painting workshop - introduction to watercolour, techniques and ways to use it to your advantage when painting the ocean.
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Aims from the art workshops: we aim for the guests to fill a sketch book with sketches of the local environment & marine creatures, drawing & watercolour techniques, painting ideas and a place to play for new artworks to form. We want people to leave with a new perspective, passion and inspiration for their own artistic practice!
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN WITH THE SHARK LAB
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1. Lectures including: A history of the Bimini Shark Lab's 32 years of shark research; lessons on basic shark anatomy; a shark workup demonstration; presentations on ongoing research projects.
2. Daily field activities including snorkelling a coral bed teeming with reef sharks; interacting with juvenile lemon sharks among a mangrove-fringed nursery; sitting in waist deep water at a beautiful white sand beach surrounded by southern stingrays; snorkelling seagrass beds with sea turtles and more!
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Activities in the field may be physically taxing. Bimini is a sub-tropical climate, and field activities will be conducted in the hot sun, on boats and surrounded by water. While there is no diving or snorkelling experience necessary, we want to make sure applicants will be comfortable and safe in and around the ocean.
