Landscape and Meditation Retreat

31 March - 2 April 2023, Kapiti coast

Paint your heart out at this gorgeous private retreat near Otaki and experience yourself as a connected creator. This weekend retreat will give you a method for creating landscape from life as well as an invaluable mind management technique to accompany you on your entire creative journey. 

This workshop is a unique, first time offering that rests on the connection between meditation and painting by observation, exemplified by landscape painting practice. Students will be invited to explore landscape painting techniques rooted in observation as well as building up a skill set for staying present. So much of art is created ‘in a panic’ or oriented to the end result. This workshop emphasises ‘process’ as a way to understand art making. It will also give you all you need to begin your own daily meditation practice and to be able to get more present, release stress, and discover more peace.

Don't miss this exclusive opportunity to join a small group of people combining art and meditation in the serene surrounds at Samadhi.

The cost of $899 covers all teaching in art and meditation, two nights’ shared accommodation and all meals.

Workshop: Self-portrait from Life

31 May - 3 June 2021, 9.30am-12.30pm, WELLINGTON

Join us for a four-day intensive workshop to learn self-portraiture from artist Tatyana Kulida.

Learn an approach to a self portrait from life as an original selfie. Contrary to a naive belief that self portrait is an exercise of vanity, a self portrait is an opportunity for deep introspection, being with yourself as well as a liberating experimentation opportunity with style, materials and ideas without the demanding presence of the sitter.

During the four days we will cover:

• Set up possibilities (3 different ways) 

• Creating a 3 dimensional portrait and anatomical considerations 

• Flesh tones mixing for those interested in colourful representations 

• Composition and expression 

• Materials and techniques 

Workshop fee: $400

The workshop fee includes 12 hours of instruction in a very small group; demonstration and personal critiques throughout the project, and basic supplies like A4 sheets of paper, graphite pencils or oil paints if you choose to paint.

Flower Arrangement and Painting Workshop with Tatyana Kulida & Vanessa Prockter from Woodstock Florist

16 November 2019, 10am-3pm, WELLINGTON

To celebrate NZ Flowers Week 2019, join us on Saturday 16 November to learn arranging and painting beautiful NZ grown flowers! Explore movement, texture and colour palette with Vanessa of Woodstock Florist as you select and arrange the flowers and take the idea straight into painting learning with Tatyana Kulida in her Anthesis Atelier. Seeing flowers as masses and grouping values and colors you will learn to handle the complexity of painting a floral arrangement.

We will spend the morning arranging, then toast our floral emersion with some nibbles and move on to painting in the afternoon. In the end of the day you will take home both your arrangement and the painting, feeling like a floral superstar!

All materials provided. No previous painting experience required.
Workshop fee: $380

Secrets of the Old Masters: Gilding and Materials

20 - 22 September 2019, WELLINGTON

Discover the materials and best practices used by the Old Masters in this 3-day workshop that illuminates the origins of Western art making.

Control and preparation of one’s materials opens up the world of limitless possibilities, experimentation and full involvement into creation of art. While increasing your understanding of the raw materials, physical/chemical interactions of components, learning through demonstrations and hands-on participation, this weekend will take you all the way into traditional water gilding and almost anything else you ever wanted to know! All you need to bring with you is curiosity and your favourite notebook and pencil, we’ll provide materials, tools, and extra supplies for you to take home afterwards.

$400 course
$200 gilding materials kit to take home

Landscape Painting Retreat in a Medieval Castle in France

22 - 29 June 2019, FRANCE

Join us for a magical week of painting, food and wine in a luxurious Medieval castle in Livers-Cazelles, France. 

This exclusive artists’ retreat is a unique opportunity to fully immerse yourself and your senses in French art and history with daily painting classes and visits to the surrounding villages. The castle stands alone at the end of a path, surrounded by fields and countryside, and has a pool on one side for a relaxing morning swim. During the week we will visit famous Medieval villages, enjoy wine tasting in Gaillac, explore Cordes-sur-Ciel built in 1222, and uncover the local artistic heritage of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the Toulouse-Lautrec museum in Albi. For a taste of local cuisine, our French chef Marie-Madeleine will bring us a homemade lunch and wine to wherever we are painting each day. Three evening meals are also included.

A course fee of US$1900 covers lodgings in the castle rooms, painting classes and supplies, daily picnics of French specialities, wines, and three evening meals. Artists should however bring their own brushes. 

During the week you may rent a car for a small per diem to explore the local surroundings further as there will be free time each day for lounging by the pool or for simply enjoying a good book at the castle terrace. Spouses are very welcome to attend for a reduced fee of US$1500.

Easels, pigments, and palettes will be provided. Each artist should however bring their own brushes.

Ecorche: Artistic Anatomy with Jason Arkles

5 - 7 April 2019, WELLINGTON

Friday 10am-5pm
Saturday 9am-5pm
Sunday 9am-3pm

18 hours of instruction total, 1 hour lunch break daily.

This three-day course is designed to get the student to actively learn and apply artistic anatomy. Each student will complete an ecorche figure (a figure with no skin, revealing the bones and muscles underneath), muscle by muscle, over a provided skeleton 1/3 life size. That includes every muscle in the face. The complete skeleton resulting from the course is for each student to keep as their home reference. 

This course is designed for a 'quick and dirty' approach, condensed in three days. By enabling the students to think of muscles in terms of groups and functions, rather than as stand-alone lumps and bumps on the surface of the model the course jumpstarts students’ mastery of human form. The course is perfectly suitable for both sculptors and painters alike! 

After last year’s success, sculptor Jason Arkles will lead this class by discussing and modelling each muscle alongside the students, and with the aid of video and digital presentations.

Armature fee $300 + course fee $450

Mastercopy: Girl with a Pearl Earring

Monday 14 - Friday 18 January 2019, 10am - 1pm, WELLINGTON

Create your very own copy of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring - arguably one of the most famous paintings of all times. Through Vermeer's masterpiece you have a chance to explore the process of accurate drawing, flesh tone mixing, color harmony, subtlety of edges and as such receive an insight into painting ideas and language that is common across styles and periods and applicable to any artist's own studio practice. Copying masterworks is one of the best ways to assimilate painting techniques and advance your studio practice as well as gain a further insight in appreciating master works

This is a five half day intensive class with 3 hours of painting a day, 15 hours of instruction total. Price for the workshop is $500 (or $1150 if combined with the Portrait intensive workshop). A non refundable deposit of 50% is due upon registration.

Portrait Intensive: Painting a Portrait from Life

Monday 14 - Friday 18 January 2019, 2-5pm, WELLINGTON

Learn how to paint a professional portrait from the ground up! In this course students learn techniques, approach and materials used by of some of the greatest portrait painters of all times. With an emphasis on drawing (with paint), we will paint the portrait in sight size giving consideration to anatomical features, mixing a flesh tone palette, shape design, edges, composition and the sense of the “inner world” of the sitter. Studio set-up provides one model per every two students, allowing close access to the model while giving painters the ability to carefully study the features while composing the painting. Through daily brief lectures and progressive demonstrations, the instructor reveals techniques, concepts and insights passed on from Velázquez to Sargent and now to you!

This is a five half day intensive class with 3 hours of painting a day, 15 hours of instruction total. Price for the workshop is $750 (or $1150 if combined with the Mastercopy workshop - see details below). The price INCLUDES a model fee. As we will paint a life-size portrait, a model will be provided for each pair of students. A non refundable deposit of 50% is due upon registration.