This week long residency is for anyone wishing to use drawing to expand their practice, giving dedicated time and a generous space to commit to making your work. This might be a space where you choose to work large and experimentally, or it might be a space to spread out and look at lots of your work together, making helpful connections so that you can develop it further. It will be a space where you are supported and inspired by the company of other artists. We learn from each other.

Embodied Drawing - An experimental 2 day drawing course embracing the physicality of drawing on a large scale - using your own body, gesture and sensation as your subject. Using the generous space of the Seawhite studio there is almost no limit as to how large you can go. This course is for anyone wishing to expand their drawing practice and find new limits, beyond the scale of your average drawing, by working large, freely, involving body and breath.

November can be a wild month, especially here on the South coast in a studio so close to the sea. A good time for embracing the weather and moving the body, making large gestural drawings inspired by the energy of this place. Come and immerse yourself in the experience, whether taking a walk by the water’s edge or sheltering in the studio, and translate those invigorating sensations into marks on the page.

Drawing in the winter light is a very special experience, with the low sun casting long shadows, exaggerating and distorting forms. In this workshop we will draw with charcoal using only natural light, into near dusk, when the edges of things start to dissolve and the space feels mysterious and magical. 

This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the gardens at their best. Spend two days making large drawings, and 3 days painting, looking for structure, colour and texture, listening to the sounds. You will be guided through specific exercises using rhythm and repetition, aimed at easing you into abstract painting by building up layers of colour, evocative of the multitude of textures and sounds of the garden. Painting with acrylics/oils/gouache or mixed media, you will make large scale layered, abstract compositions.

Come fill a sketchbook in 2 days, working directly on the beach. Be inspired by the sea and the senses - wind and salt on your skin; the sound of waves, and people’s voices; the twisting flight of sea gulls; shifting pebbles underfoot.

Using ink, pastels, drawing materials, mixed media and some collage, you will be encouraged to play and let loose in long concertina sketchbooks, moving back and forth in them like the tide. This maybe a new approach to the sketchbook for some, letting it unfold, working non-chronologically, layering, changing, going with the flow, observing the accidental.

This retreat is set in the beautiful coastal Nature Reserve at the Western end of the Algarve. A short walk from the fishing village of Salema, and the rugged untouched coves nearby, you will be staying at the villa of artist Ros Hodges where you will be treated to the most delicious food and relaxing surroundings including a pool. During the 5 days you will be immersed in this spectacular, expansive landscape, using walking drawing and writing to travel through it, absorb it, and engage creatively with it. You will be gently guided and supported in the space throughout by Katie NB. All of your materials, food and shared accommodation* are included in the price.

Have you ever wondered how to maintain the freshness of your sketchbooks while making a painting? It’s not enough simply to copy. Instead, the sketchbook itself has to become the subject, a fresh source of inspiration, to be walked through like a landscape, to surprise and inform you, to pick and choose what you want from it. This course is suitable for those with some drawing and painting experience and a basic understanding of their materials, or those willing to experiment from the outset.

Come fill a sketchbook in 2 days, working directly on the beach. Be inspired by the sea and the senses - wind and salt on your skin; the sound of waves, and people’s voices; the twisting flight of sea gulls; shifting pebbles underfoot.

Using ink, pastels, drawing materials, mixed media and some collage, you will be encouraged to play and let loose in long concertina sketchbooks, moving back and forth in them like the tide. This maybe a new approach to the sketchbook for some, letting it unfold, working non-chronologically, layering, changing, going with the flow, observing the accidental.

This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the gardens and work freely in a concertina sketchbook for 2 days. Treating the sketchbook as a place to play and experiment with mixed media, working directly in the garden, surrounded by colour, shape, texture, sounds and smells. You will undoubtedly feel alive and refreshed by the experience and will create an exciting, expressive, full to bursting sketchbook.

In June the Prairie Garden is just beginning to grow into itself, with a sense of emergence, of burgeoning growth. On this creative workshop you will be experimenting with making marks and simple abstract compositions. Daubs of colour, painting with fingers, homemade tools and natural materials.

Drawing with all your senses, using pencils and coloured pastels in the cathedral itself, you will be encouraged to make expressive and experimental studies on a small scale as you directly experience the immensity of the building. Back in the studio you will be encouraged to make large, expressive drawings, using meditation and memory to bring back a sense of the space.

Use rhythmical process to build up marks on large piece of paper, responding to sensation of deep immersion in nature, evoking sounds, smells, view.

April can be a wild month, especially here on the South coast in a studio so close to the sea. A good time for embracing the weather and moving the body, making large gestural ink drawings inspired by the energy of this place. 

Come and immerse yourself in the experience, whether taking a walk by the water’s edge or sheltering in the studio, and translate those invigorating sensations into colour and marks on the page.

Drawing interiors can be a rich and rewarding subject, full of history and human presence, as well as of architectural interest. Rather than relying on perspective, this course encourages a multi-viewpoint approach, making small studies in situ, from which will come large expressive drawings in the studio.

This week long residency is for anyone wishing to use drawing to expand their practice, giving dedicated time and a generous space to commit to making your work. This might be a space where you choose to work large and experimentally; it might be a space to spread out and look at lots of your work together, making helpful connections so that you can develop it further. It will be a space where you are supported and inspired by the company of other artists. We learn from each other.

(photo credit: Sarah Ketelaars)

Drawing is spontaneous, immediate and inventive. Drawing thrives on improvisation. Drawing can tell a story, be a record of time. Drawing doesn’t need to be confined to a sketchbook or an A1 piece of paper. Drawing can be on the wall, off the wall, can be a line travelling through space, a mark following edges, a pattern going around corners, a shadow, a space, a shaft of light…. Drawing defines space, with marks on a surface, whether flat or 3 dimensional. Imagine the freedom of having a room just for drawing on and in. This is exactly what this course offers, your own room for drawing.

Embodied Drawing - An experimental 2 day drawing course embracing the physicality of drawing on a large scale - using your own body, gesture and sensation as your subject. Using the generous space of the Seawhite studio there is almost no limit as to how large you can go. This course is for anyone wishing to expand their drawing practice and find new limits, beyond the scale of your average drawing, by working large, freely, involving body and breath.

November can be a wild month, especially here on the South coast in a studio so close to the sea. A good time for embracing the weather and moving the body, making large gestural drawings inspired by the energy of this place. Come and immerse yourself in the experience, whether taking a walk by the water’s edge or sheltering in the studio, and translate those invigorating sensations into marks on the page.

Imagine, 5 days immersed in the beautiful Sussex Prairie Garden

2 days working in a sketchbook, a space to play and experiment, mixing mark making with observation. 3 days painting where you will be encouraged to bring a similarly exploratory approach with your materials (acrylic and gouache work best with mixed media, oils an option if you are familiar with them)

This course uses meditation as an integral part of the creative process, focusing on drawing and painting as an experience, increasing your sense of connection to the visual and sensory world.

Spend one day drawing in charcoal, graphite and chalks, and one day painting with gouache, acrylics and mixed media, making large scale layered, textured, abstract compositions.