Art Safari

We are delighted to be returning to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Jersey, for a  six night summertime painting break with artist and bird expert Mark Boyd.   This holiday is perfect for anyone wishing to hone their observational skills, with the opportunity sketch and paint endangered species with Mark, in surroundings that are created to mirror the animals natural habitat. Our Jersey days will be filled with a combination of wildlife sketching and painting at Durrell, and Island landscapes – the rocky coves of the north coast, and sweeping sandy beaches of the south coast, boats, lighthouses and castles.   We stay in the Durrell Farmhouse Hostel, the accommodation is simple and comfortable.  Wake-up to the exotic sounds of lemurs chirping and calling!  We will have passes to come and go, in and out of the park during opening hours.   Tour cost: from £835 per person sharing a triple bed room, single room supplement: £250 (now only 2 rooms available) Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

This is a wonderful 3-day summer workshop, spending lots of time outdoors and returning to develop our ideas in the Art Safari Studio.

Suffolk is a county of huge skies over a patchwork of fields, ancient hedgerows and winding narrow lanes. We visit some of the county’s castles to paint these magnificent monuments and to enjoy the changing skies.

Mary-Anne leads this short art break with demonstrations, exercises and one-to-one tuition time. Your sketchbooks will fill with happy images of Suffolk in summertime. Out and about, sketching and painting en plein air, we venture to parts of Suffolk that have enchanted artists, poets and authors over the centuries including isolated churches, water meadows, castles, woodlands and villages.

Cost £285 for 3 days of art tuition, refreshments and lunches

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Just when you want to throw yourself into painting your tutor reminds you about composition… We are thrilled to have Vicki Norman here in Woodbridge to showing how composition is the trigger for free, confident and energetic painting.

The three day Art Safari painting course emphasises the importance of composing your image before and during the painting process.  In particular thinking about matching colour and tonal values while keeping structure and a sense of fun and freedom within your paintwork.

Paint in oil, acrylic or watercolour for this eye-opening course.

“By focussing solely on the colours for a few minutes before you begin, you can allow yourself to concentrate on capturing the sense of light and the essence of the day through the temperature and balance of the colours. It can be a very satisfying process and is often one of my favourite stages in making a painting,” says Vicki. 

“Matching the colours before you paint on location has another great benefit for which I have often been grateful; if the weather suddenly changes, or the boat you are painting sails away, you already have all the information you need to complete a painting in your studio!”

Come to the Art Safari Studio to paint the Suffolk summer with Vicki and to put these lessons into practice.

Our evenings are social and make the most of the cultural activity of Suffolk.

Cost: £285 including lunches and refreshments.  

We visit Zambia at an exceptional time for wildlife viewing.  By late August, almost all of the animals have migrated to the riverside areas to get access to water and concentrations of game are at their highest.

Guided by expert safari guides, we set off on morning and afternoon game drives to sketch herds of elephants, lion, antelope and zebra, while midday is for relaxing and painting in our lovely lodge watching wildlife on the banks of the Luangwa River.

This extraordinary and beautiful wildlife area is a place to watch the world’s miracles of nature.  There are wonderful river landscapes, dry lagoons and gnarled trees to tempt any landscape painters too…   

Your art tutors, Mary-Anne Bartlett and John Threlfall are accomplished artists and seasoned Africa-hands; they will teach you how to look at the bush and respond quickly and graphically to the sudden arrival of moving animals.  

This is a nicely relaxed residential safari where you can dedicate your time to drawing Africa’s finest animals and return with full sketchbooks and memories of many happy sunrises and sunsets in a wilderness never to be forgotten. 

All standards are welcomed.

Tour cost: from £2141 per person sharing excl. flights

Single room supplement: £281 (2 spaces available) 

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Artist Roger Dellar is leading this new Art Safari itinerary to the historical coastal town of Chania in Crete, with its beautiful 14th Century Venetian Harbour.

Roger will tutor in oils for this Cretan Art Safari, with demos and tutorials looking at perspective, light, shadow and reflections.  This is a place Roger knows and loves and he will share his favourite painting spots in the narrow streets, squares and bustling market places, and on the harbourside.

We spend a day in the nearby foothills of the White Mountains, with long undulating views and ancient olive trees as our inspiration at Manousakis Winery. Tasting some organic wines with a delicious mezze lunch.

The early September temperatures should be pleasant for painting and relaxing in Crete.  Our base is a friendly, comfortable hotel in Chania old town and we will walk to nearby painting locations.

Tour cost: from £1283 per person sharing excl. flights

Single room supplement: £252

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Join Malawi specialist Mary-Anne Bartlett to discover its awe-inspiring Rift Valley landscapes, enchanting wildlife and welcoming culture. 

Arriving in the capital Lilongwe we will traverse Malawi’s central and southern regions, passing through varied landscapes; if you want to enjoy a natural paradise away from the crowds this is the place to be!

Steep escarpments and vast plains, idyllic tropical islands, languid waterways and rocky rapids, mature woodlands and floodplains dotted with ancient baobabs all form the backdrop for a focus on landscape painting and photography.  

We float on the Shire River painting hippos and fish eagles; we linger at an underground waterhole close to elephant, sable, and zebra; we enjoy the antics of warthogs, and keep our eyes open for the brilliant green flashes of the Lilian’s Lovebirds… 

This is a slow pace safari, with views to die for!

Tour cost: from £3882 per person sharing excl. flights

Single room supplement: £485

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Draw late summer birds, butterflies and meadows from life with Mark Boyd at Pensthorpe in Norfolk. Pensthorpe is an award-winning mix of nature trails, beguiling woodland walks, and a showcase for British wildlife and nature conservation.  The reserve is also a recognised national breeding site for many species, including Grey-Crowned Cranes, Long-Tailed Tits, Female Marsh Harriers, Kingfishers, Cormorants and Spotted Flycatchers.

Mark’s approach is very refreshing – he will help you find lines you never knew existed (and then lose them), he will make you think about colour and markings.  Above all he will give you a deeper understanding of birds and of your own approach to drawing and painting wildlife.

£70 per day or £130 for two days.

Call us on 013964 382235 to reserve your place.

Lindsey Bucknor returns to Woodbridge to take you out and about in Suffolk and explore your photography further.  The focus of this workshop is very practical and aims for you to take the best photos, using composition, light and technique to achieve photos worthy of framing later. 

Over this 2-day workshop, we will explore the photogenic Suffolk coast with our cameras, working on techniques for long exposures to capture movement at the tideline.  We will also visit the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary and spend time with the magnificent birds of prey – photographing a selection of owls and hawk’s close-up and on the wing. 

Cost £145 for two days tuition (lunch is not included)

Must be pre-booked on 01394 382235 or info@artsafari.co.uk

The Arctic autumn is a wonderful display of colour as the sunrises and sunsets become longer and longer, with yellows dissolving into oranges, often giving extraordinary mauves and purples in the fjords at low light.  The colours of the landscape are magnificent, and as the first snow arrives in September/ October, russet leaves give way to distant snowy mountains in the background.

As the nights begin to darken and if it is clear, there’s a good chance of seeing the glowing Aurora dance across the skies in luminous green bands – it’s quite simply breath-taking!  So, we hope you’ll be sketching stunning autumnal landscapes by day and the spectacular northern lights by night.  

Our base is a peaceful waterfront farmstead on Kvaløya island surrounded by beautiful north Norwegian wilderness, approximately 50 minutes from Tromso.  We have a light airy studio space at the Farmstead to work on our sketches, which enjoys panoramic views of the sea and mountains.

Artist tutor Karen Pearson will lead sketching walks into the surrounding countryside, take you to visit local art studios showing paintings, glass and ceramics, and take a trip into Tromso to some of her favourite sketching spots including the Arctic-Alpine Botanical Gardens and museums.  Walking and photography opportunities abound.

Tour Cost from £1165 to 1365 pp sharing (non-painting partner £1061)

Single Room Supplement from £365 to £467

(Room choices vary and affect the prices)

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Art Safari are delighted to be venturing to Southern Italy for the first time in October  with artist James Willis. We begin our painting days in Matera – the European Capital of Culture for 2019.  We stay for four nights at a boutique hotel in Sasso Barisano, in the historic heart of Matera.  This is a fantastic location for exploring and painting  the elegant architecture of this fascinating city, and visiting the ancient cave dwellings and rock churches carved into the Gravina Gorge.  James will take you to his favourite painting locations. In Puglia we are in the countryside at a stone Masseria (fortified farmhouse) for 5 nights, pale golden dry-stone walls shelter tranquil gardens and an inviting swimming pool.  With James’s guidance and contagious enthusiasm, sketchbooks will fill with views of white-washed hill-top towns, olive groves, vineyards, orchards and Trulli – traditional dry-stone huts with conical beehive roofs.  We visit a charming harbour to paint the ultramarine inshore octopus fishing boats in the Adriatic seaport of Monopoli. Tour cost: from £2507 per person sharing excl. flights (double bed only) Single room supplement: £300  Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Printing is exciting, totally involving and so very satisfying!  Come and learn all about simple print techniques and be amazed at how you can print a mini-edition of your work on this three-day course with artist Mary-Anne Bartlett at the Art Safari Studio in Woodbridge.

Mary-Anne will guide you through the process of printing with simplicity and style.  Working in woodcut, lino and monotype, you learn how to simplify your image and separate your colours to make both monochrome prints as well as layering different colours.  The design and cutting process is an exciting puzzle which will unfold in clear stages until you are ready to print – and then the magic becomes more and more intense as the print takes form.

Bring strong images from your sketchbook or paintings to work from and to create your own unique multiples.  You might have an image from an Art Safari sketchbook from around the world, a design that you want to develop, or simply a sketch of flowers in your garden that is just waiting to make it into print.

In the evenings we like to go out to nearby restaurants – optional/not included.

Cost £285 inc VAT for your tuition, and includes printing materials for workshop use, tea/coffee/cake

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.