A new Art Safari itinerary with artist James Willis for 2019, painting medieval hilltop towns and the rolling countryside of Tuscany over Easter, before transferring to magical Venice.

We fly to Florence Airport and stay at our pretty Villa in the Tuscan countryside near Cortona for seven nights.  In April the Tuscan hillsides are gloriously green, peppered with wildflowers and swathes of yellow and mustard broom.  

Cortona is perched high on the hillside of Mount Egidio, surrounded by olive groves and age-old cypresses, it’s a walled town and dates back to Etruscan times.  We make painting excursions in our mini-bus to nearby towns and villages in the Tuscan hills, painting landscapes, Renaissance inspired building, Monasteries, ancient Churches and Abbeys.   

On 24 April we drive to Venice.  We are staying at a hotel in a 14th-century Palazzo on the Grand Canal for five nights, a short distance from Rialto Bridge.  In Venice we will walk and take vaporettos to our painting locations, capturing reflections of Venetian life in our sketchbooks. Bellissimo!

Tour cost

Small single rooms from £3576 excl. flights

Large single rooms from £3938 excl. flights 

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Discover the excitement and satisfaction of painting with oils on a two day workshop with artist Roger Dellar. 

We’re delighted to have Roger to teach here in coastal East Anglia.  He’s a master in helping others develop painting skills.  Under Roger’s practical guidance you find poise and assurance in your painting as well as new creative observation.  Following the progression of a painting through the duration of the workshop means that you will have a firm understanding of oil techniques.  We also know that you will be inspired by the beautiful riverside surroundings.  

In his demos and tutorials Roger gives tips on how to compose and how to handle aspects of oil painting to make vibrant paintings, sharing his techniques for colour mixing, paint application, brushwork, tone, capturing light and reflections. 

The immediacy of oil painting is exciting and rewarding, and this workshop is suitable for all standards.

We will be working outside and in the Art Safari Studio, where we will have refreshments and lunch to keep us fuelled.

Workshop Cost £190 per person for 2 days tuition including light lunches and refreshments at the Art Safari Studio.

Spring is such a good time to paint outdoors!  The skies are often so powerful and the light so dramatic and bright on vibrant spring colours. 

We are delighted to have Julia Cassels here in Woodbridge to lead this short Suffolk art break with demonstrations, exercises and one-to-one tuition time.  Plan to arrive on Monday evening, and paint until Friday lunchtime.

Out and about, sketching and painting en plein air, venturing to parts of Suffolk that have enchanted artists, poets and authors over the centuries, river estuaries, isolated churches, and the serene gardens and deer park of Helmingham Hall.   

We will have some wet weather options at our locations just in case!

Your sketchbooks will fill with happy images of Suffolk in late spring. 

The Art Safari Studio is on the quayside in the Market Town of Woodbridge, Suffolk, with fabulous views of the Deben Estuary from the elevated deck.  The iconic Tide Mill is just a few steps away and the mysterious Anglo-Saxon burial site at Sutton Hoo is just across the river.

Enjoy the company of your fellow artists with fulfilling days of artistic exploration and convivial evenings.

Workshop Cost: £375 per person for tuition and one lunch and refreshments at the Studio, and entry to Helmingham Hall Gardens.

Join artist Mary-Anne Bartlett to whirl around the galleries of Vienna to sketch the city and to see many masterpieces of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  From the Secession to the Albertina, from the Opera to St Stefan’s Dom, from the wonderful Museum’s Quarter to the gardens and galleries of Schoenbrun and the Belvedere, this is a grand city full of character, as well as “Kaffee und Kuchen”. Vienna lives and breaths art and vitality.  It’s an exciting place to sit in a cafe and start drawing – buildings, people and activity.  Decorative architecture from  Baroque to Jugendstil by fits comfortably next to bright modern slabs of colour with no ornamentation. 

The Austrian way is to embrace new style and design – in art, fashion, food and design.  The city’s streets, galleries, bars and parks are full of people enjoying the spring.  We have time to explore this delightful city with our sketchbooks, taking in exhibitions as well as some of Vienna’s most treasured attractions.  Klimt and the Secessionists, Schiele and contemporary art will all feature in our gallery visits. One of the highlights of the week is a visit to sketch the Lipizzaner’s practising at the Spanish Riding School. We stay in a comfortable hotel in the historic centre, walking to nearby painting locations.

Tour cost from £998 per person sharing Single Room Supplement £336

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

We visit Zambia at a cooler time of year.  Shelly Perkins will be running a full week of painting in South Luangwa National Park, which supports one of the highest concentrations of game anywhere in the world! 

This relaxing residential course is a wonderful opportunity to study wildlife in depth, improve your field sketching techniques and your plein air confidence.  

Our knowledgeable safari guides are passionate about wildlife, experienced with artists and help us to explore and understand the ecology of this unspoilt wilderness.  Our days will be governed by what is happening in the animals lives and by what our guide leads us to each day.  We will spend time in the national park and also work up sketches back at our Safari Lodge on the banks of the great Luangwa River.

We will sketch, paint and photograph impala, giraffe, zebra, baboons, and shy leopards in woodlands of Miombo and Mopane.  Shimmering rivers and sweeping oxbow lagoons, pods of hippos and flocks of water birds will fill the pages our sketchbooks and doubtless fuel months of artwork afterwards…

This Art Safaris is challenging and great fun whatever your level of artistic skill; non-painting partners are also welcome to join.

Tour cost: from £1963 per person sharing excl. flights

Single room supplement: £281

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Travel to Orkney to paint mesmerising landscapes, coast and wildlife with Art Safari tutor John Threlfall on Orkney from 2 – 9 June 2019.

There’s a glimmering brilliance to Orkney in June.  It’s joyously decorative as if it’s been storing all its light, energy and colour until now!

John is really looking forward to taking this Art Safari to some of his favourite painting locations.  We will spend our time island hopping, visiting the most amazing bird colonies and walking on glorious beaches, interspersed with stone circles and ancient dwellings….   

Our base is in Kirkwall, in a simple but comfortable hostel right on the harbour.  We will be taking over the whole this 8-room hostel, giving us the freedom to spread out and use all of the space for living and painting. 

Tour Cost from £850 per person sharing

A room of your own (only four available):  single supplement £200

Transport Costs (not included): A share of transport costs will be added based on a sliding scale from £90 per person in a shared 9-seater vehicle if there are 8 people in the group or up to £180 per person if there are only four people in the group. 

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Join artists Mary-Anne Bartlett and Mark Boyd for two intensive days of studying animals.  It’s rare to have time to think too hard about the anatomy of an animal when it’s moving around its natural environment so we’ve ingeniously devised a day of anatomical drawing in the Natural History Museum in Tring followed by a day of studying animal movement at Whipsnade Zoo.

On the first day we concentrate on the skeletal structure by studying the exhibits in the Museum from the menagerie collected in Victorian times, along with the beautifully presented static displays.  The skeletons and stuffed creatures make fantastic educational subjects.  Tring is part of the Natural History Museum in London. 

On the second, it’s a day at the zoo to study movement.  Whipsnade, part of ZSL London Zoo, is home to many large mammals as well as birds and amphibians, all of which will enliven our drawing sessions by moving out of position frequently.

Cost £155 for two days (excluding entrance tickets)

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

Join artist and explorer Mary-Anne Bartlett on this new and very exciting Art Safari to Yunnan Province, China.  This 15-night painting holiday starts in Kunming, ‘City of Eternal Spring’ and winds through village and towns on the Ancient Tea Horse Road to the mountain paradise of Shangri-la.  Yunnan is both breathtakingly beautiful and incredibly culturally diverse, and every part of this journey is a feast for the painter’s eye.  Your sketchbooks will be filled with images of snow-capped mountains and wildflower meadows, richly decorated temples and quaint courtyards, many styles of traditional costumes and scenes from traditional rural life. 

This is an unspoilt and quieter part of China, far removed from the bustle of its modern cities. Accompanied by our local English-speaking guide we will learn about the many ethnic minority cultures – including Bai, Dai, Naxi and Tibetan each with their own distinct language, traditional dress, food, traditions and architectural styles, making this a real voyage of discovery! 

Along the way there will also be plenty of opportunities to sample some of the many local delicacies such as ‘crossing the bridge noodles’, ‘Yunnan eight bowl’ or Ba Da Wan served on special occasions,  and Yak butter tea! China – 12-27 June 2019 – detailed itinerary

Tour cost: from £4885 per person sharing excl. international flights Single room supplement: £1400 Call 01394 382235 to book your place.  

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

We are celebrating the life of Edward Fitzgerald, one of Woodbridge’s most famous (and wonderfully eccentric) former residents.  He is most widely remembered for his translation of the Rubaiyat, a selection of poems originally written in Persian and attributed to Omar Khayyam. He also loved sketching and dabbling in watercolour.

We begin with a welcome gathering on Monday evening at Woodbridge Tide Mill for sun-downers and canapes, accompanied by some verses from the Rubaiyat – setting the scene for the days to come.  

Karen leads this short art break with demonstrations, exercises and one-to-one tuition time. Your sketchbooks will fill with happy images of some of Edward Fitzgerald’s favourite places in Suffolk. Out and about, sketching and painting en plein air, we will spend time at the pretty Market Hill in Woodbridge, on the banks of the River Deben Estuary, at Little Grange, and in the peaceful seclusion of Boulge Church where a Persian rose (raised in Kew from hips collected at the tomb of Omar Khayyam in Naishapur) is planted at the foot of Fitzgerald’s grave.

Cost £375 for art tuition, refreshments, picnic lunches and Tide Mill evening

Call 01394 382235 to book your place.

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.