Drawing Workshop Retreats
Do you love to draw and paint? Have you ever wanted to spend a day making drawings of plants, trees, leaves, flowers, seed pods and other wonderful parts of the environment? Then these workshops are for you! Each time we will spend a day in my studio making drawings from life and exploring drawing techniques to capture the likeness of them including observational, gestural and blind-drawing, using line, tone, shape, negative space, as well as expressive gestural mark-making. It is a time to be adventurous with your drawing and to enjoy learning new things.
I will provide the materials that will make drawing so enjoyable - a range of hot-pressed, cold-pressed and weighted card, as well as some of my favourite materials and pigments. Along the way I’ll share some of the things I’ve found most helpful and enjoyable when drawing things from the natural world and will demonstrate a few of these.
By the end of the workshop you will have become knee-deep in drawings, conversations, and drawing encounters, and have experimented with a range of materials and techniques. You’ll leave with at least one gorgeous-frameable developed drawing to remember your time here by.
Each workshop is limited to 4 people and I hope to create a retreat-style environment with lovely surroundings, good bites to eat, and a generous place to draw and connect with others. I hope that you will find it to be a fun and meaningful time. These workshops are aimed to cater to adults [I hope to offer workshops for children sometime soon!]
2025 Workshops
Saturday 31st May, 10am-3pm
Saturday 28th June, 10am-3pm
Saturday 26th July, 10am-3pm
Cost: $310 per person [Includes all materials and a light lunch]
Location: Amanda’s studio in Raglan
Please email using the contact form to register your interest
*If there is not a full class then it’s possible that the workshops may be postponed
A little bit about me
Alongside making paintings I’ve taught workshops with Atelier Gallery in Nelson and at Ramp Festival in Kirirkiriroa, as well as papers at WINTEC Te Pūkenga’s Media Arts degree programme.
Previous workshops
Saturday 22nd February 2025, 10am-4pm - Botanical Drawing
“Really enjoyable, friendly workshop, accessible to different levels of ability and not at all intimidating. Would recommend to anyone with an interest in art.”
“Thanks Amanda for the excellent well planned and organised drawing workshop you held recently in your lovely studio environment where you you took us through a great assortment of of exercises exploring various materials and processes , ( some of which I hadn’t used or done before), so by the end of the day we felt we had had a very positive experience, an enjoyable day, gained valuable information, added to our skill set and all expressed we would like to return to do more. ”
“I thoroughly enjoyed the Drawing Workshop hosted by Amanda. Amanda provided a delightful space for the day, as well as a most enticing array of tools, papers, ideas, and objects to inspire. Amanda was encouraging, and inspiring - all in all, a jolly good teacher. I really enjoyed the day, and have been enthusiastically creating since I returned home.”