Drawing As Attention: Thursday Morning

Thursday, 10am-12pm

Drawing as Attention is an eight-week series for adults who want to draw with more care and curiosity. It is not a skills class. It is a practice of looking — learning to be present with the world by drawing it slowly and attentively.

Each session begins indoors with a warm-up exercise before moving outdoors into the garden when weather allows. The series is rooted in observational drawing from living subjects leaves, bark, shadow, root, light with a particular attentiveness to the season. Beginning in late summer and moving through autumn, participants will witness the garden change week by week, and their drawings will become a slow journal of that change.

The emphasis throughout is on drawing as an attention practice rather than a skills test a way of slowing down and cultivating care for the world around us. Participants are encouraged to keep a simple commonplace book throughout the eight weeks: a place for drawings, notes, pressed leaves, and observations, forming a personal record of the course.

What to bring

All materials will be provided and will consist of:

• Sketchbook (A4 or A5, cartridge paper)
• Pencils: HB, 2B, 4B
• Willow charcoal sticks
• Compressed charcoal or conté crayon
• Small watercolour set or a few autumn colours (burnt sienna, yellow ochre, sap green)
• Wax resist candle or white crayon
• Soft eraser and putty rubber

About the Tutor

Alison Philp is a Scottish visual artist and nature writer based in North Fife. She holds a BA (Hons) in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art and an MFA in Art and Humanities from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. She completed the Turps Correspondence Course in 2024 with Creative Scotland bursary support. 

Her practice is rooted in direct observational drawing from living subjects, working outdoors rather than from photographs. Her most recent solo exhibition, Cura, was held at Dundee Botanic Garden (Jan 2026), supported by a Visual Artists and Craft Makers Award from Fife Contemporary. She writes about art, landscape and the natural world on Substack, and has published criticism in The Skinny and the Dundee University Review of the Arts. 

She has worked as a community art educator for over twenty years, with organisations including the National Theatre of Scotland, Perth and Kinross Council, the Byre Theatre Memory Makers Dementia Group, Haydays Art and Leisure Club, and ArtMoves Fife. In 2020 she completed the Drawing Ecologies module with Tania Kovats at DJCAD, which has been a continuing influence on how she brings observational drawing into community settings. 

She teaches drawing as she draws: with close attention, genuine curiosity, and a belief that learning to look carefully at the world is one of the most sustaining things a person can do.