Workshop Programme 2022/23

Our Workshops are aimed at providing new skills, inspiration and tuition alongside giving you the chance to relax and feel nurtured from the minute you set foot in the door!  All of our Tutors are also working Artists, ensuring you get a unique and informative experience from attending one of our courses.   Workshops are suitable for all ability levels unless otherwise stated.

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 THE MIXED MEDIA WINTER GARDEN
 Tutor - Robin Wu
 19th & 20th November 2022

Come and celebrate the garden in winter on this 2 day, studio-based course!  The garden will be brought indoors in  all its glory for you to work from in a large scale studio set-up.  We will explore a variety of mixed media processes as we look at more experimental ways that we can respond to  natural forms through line, mark, collage and print-  letting both our materials and intuition guide us towards making a more organically growing garden based work!  VIEW MORE

 INTENSIVE 3 DAY MENTORING 
Tutor - Jemma Derbyshire
25th - 27th November 2022
24th - 26th February 2023

This intensive 3 day course is aimed at Artists with experience, who wish to inject fresh life into their practice.  The course is aimed at pushing you forward in your own personal work, and it is vital that you come armed with a body of work that you wish to develop or push further. (more information on this will be provided on booking) The first day will involve working through a number of tasks set by the Tutor, aimed at freshening up your thinking, and challenging old habits....VIEW MORE

 BACK TO BASICS - THE HUMBLE PENCIL
 Tutor - Jane Couroussopoulos
 21st & 22nd January 2023

 Often, in the excitement that comes with experimenting with unusual materials and discovering unexpected combinations, the simplest materials can be overlooked and underestimated. The pencil, that most portable of tools, perhaps the first thing a lot of us picked up to draw with as children, is also the drawing tool that many of us forget about, other than for planning and underdrawing. It can also be the drawing tool that some find daunting and unforgiving compared to charcoal: that relatively small point of contact with the paper. How to draw on a big scale? How to vary and enliven the markmaking? And lastly....VIEW MORE

PUSHING PLACE
Tutor - Kittie Jones
11th March 2023

​During this intensive one-day drawing workshop, students will be encouraged to explore how to make dynamic drawings of the landscape around the Paintbox Studios focusing on scale. We will not only be working with large and small formats but also considering how composition can make a landscape feel close-up or expansive. From small, intimate sketchbooks to expanded drawings, each format brings new challenges and demands a fresh and unexpected response. A number of materials will be introduced including graphite, charcoal and pastel and we will spend time looking at how they can be used to create...VIEW MORE

 SOFT PASTELS - AN ADVENTURE IN BUILDING UP COLOUR
 Tutor - Jane Couroussopoulos
​ 18th & 19th March 2023
 
Soft pastels are an often misunderstood medium. The assumption that they are delicate and once down on paper, unchangeable, means that they are sometimes used timidly and unadventurously and on a small scale. They are treated with almost too much respect....!  In this two day workshop, drawing from a still life set-up in the studio, students will learn how to use pastels vigorously, and gesturally. They will learn how to build up the delicate medium and mix colours into bold and lively compositions....VIEW MORE

 PAINTERLY PORTRAITS
 Tutor - Kim Scouller
 22nd & 23rd April 2023

​This is an intensive two-day painting workshop based around Kim’s approach to portrait painting. You will be encouraged to work quickly and intuitively from the model making small painterly oil sketches, which explore the expressive qualities of oil paint using a ‘wet in wet’ method.  The workshop begins with preliminary charcoal sketches, looking at the head from all angles to help get to know the unique characteristics of the sitter. This leads into making painted tonal studies where participants can concentrate purely on form and getting a feeling for the paint. Next, working on a chosen scale...VIEW MORE

CAPTURING THE CHANGE
Tutor - Kittie Jones
29th & 30th April 2023

Taking our inspiration from the coastline on the doorstep of Paintbox studios, we will spend time looking at different ways to record what we see and experience, to help us better understand the shifting nature of place. Each day our starting point will be the great outdoors, with a series of fast and slow drawing techniques focussing on the changing shape and character of the shoreline. Back in the studio we will work with a variety of drawing materials including charcoal, pastel, ink and collage, to construct drawings that reflect the particular qualities of a place without necessarily being a specific view. We will consider ways of working with...VIEW MORE

NATURAL FORM - AN EXPLORATION
Tutor - Eleanor White
6th & 7th of May 2023

On this course students will begin by observing simple plant forms; pot plants, branches and stems that have been liberated alongside natural forms of all shapes and sizes will act as inspiration. Through the use of experimental drawing methods you will draw from direct observation paying particular attention to the character and personality of the form. The course will develop a playful sense of composition by drawing and overlapping to see what shapes arrives from combining images and media. From this a colour palette will be chosen to build a mixed media painting that has the same sense of expression as the initial direct drawings.  VIEW MORE

TRANSLUCENCIES IN ACRYLIC
Tutor - Owen Normand
20th & 21st May 2023

This course will take a fun and informal look at painting in translucencies in acrylic. It will teach students practical and satisfying techniques of layering acrylic paint to produce intense, lustrous finishes that mimic those of traditional oil painting, without the drying times.  Day one will consist of talks, demonstrations and experimentation. Students will conduct several experiments to give them a hands on understanding of opaque vs translucent pigments, optical mixing of colours and how varnishing can reinvigorate a painting that has gone dull and flat as it has dried. VIEW MORE

 DRAWING INTO PAINTING
Tutor - Dominic McIvor
27th & 28th May 2023

Delve into creating energetic drawings and paintings on this 2 day mixed media workshop taught by Dominic McIvor!
This Workshop will involve working outside in the beautiful surroundings of Cockenzie House on the first day.  You will learn how to create lots of dynamic drawings and process the abundance of information in the gardens through energetic mark-making!  On the second day, you will have the opportunity to develop these studies further into acrylic mixed media paintings, exploring the use of collage to create shape, new marks and layers!  VIEW MORE
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 ABSTRACTING THE LANDSCAPE
Tutor - Jo Perkins
3rd & 4th June 2023

Develop your skill in translating the landscape in an explosion of colour!  Join Jo Perkins for two days of intensive colour, mark and expression!  Using a mixed media approach, you will work towards creating a colourful abstracted landscape and take home a toolbox of skills to use in the future.

You will be working both in the beautiful gardens surrounding Cockenzie House and in the studio using photos for reference. It will be a weekend revelling in all the fabulous inspiration that nature has to offer!  VIEW MORE

 UNDER THE TREES
 Tutor - Lara Scouller
​ 17th & 18th June 2023

Over two days, Lara will guide you through the different stages of composing and tackling the wealth of natural subject matter on site at Cockenzie House gardens, including plants, flowers and trees!
The wide variety of textures and colours which are found in the gardens will be explored through soft pastels.
An emphasis on observational drawing will run throughout the workshop with reference to artists who use similar materials and subject.  VIEW MORE