Residential Painting Holidays & Weekends Art Workshop With Paul TaggartTuition and Guidance for the artist in everyone
Holidays & Weekends 2008 Painting  Breaks and Weeks
PAINTING BREAKS & WEEKS SCHEDULE
COSTS, BOOKING AND PAYMENTS
PAINTING TUITION DETAILS
PAINTING TUITION VOUCHERS
TRAVEL AND LOCAL ACCOMMODATION
ICE-BREAKING AFTERNOON TEA

ICE-BREAKING AFTERNOON TEA

Eileen and I will be delighted to warmly welcome you to our home for an ice-breaking afternoon tea on the day before your Painting Break or Week.

This provides painting guests with the opportunity to meet and get settled with each other and to swap experiences. Just as importantly, it gives me the opportunity to ascertain your particular needs and what you are looking for in the painting days to come.

I take notes and incorporate those needs into my demonstrations to ensure painting guests leave us knowing that they can go further in their pursuit.

We round off the tea with a quick guide to colour mixing using the six basic colours in my painting palette.

TO BE PLACED ON THE MAILING LIST FOR 2009 PAINTING ACTIVITY BREAKS

Contact us for more information

Watercolours : Oils : Acrylics : Pastels

Dear Fellow Painter,

Could we, perhaps, persuade you to make 2008 the year in which to discover the Northern Highlands; not only as a place to visit, but also as a place that will undoubtedly inspire you? Just as it has stimulated me and my work as an artist, author and tutor.

Discover the Northern Highlands; not only as a place to visit, but also as a place that will undoubtedly inspire you

Let me share with you my passion for painting, along with skills acquired and developed through a professional career spanning thirty-five years.

It is my personal belief that professional artists should not keep the joy of drawing and painting to themselves.  In line with that belief I endeavour through my books, videos, courses and website to publish as much information as possible. To give help and encouragement to not only those who are starting out, but also to those who seek to develop. 

Even those who already paint should be encouraged to discover new ideas to help them develop their abilities further, whether it is in investigating other media such as watercolours, oils, acrylics, pastels, inks and gouache, or in manipulating familiar painting tools in a completely different way.

Drawing and painting has always figured large in my life from a very early age. Ever since I turned professional, it has been my pleasure to work with painters of all abilities, through finding their way from the first tentative steps with a pencil and brush to producing work of a standard that in some cases had never been envisioned.

Places on each break and week are limited to 5 people

Location

The area in which we live, a coastal region running along the eastern borders of Ross-shire and Sutherland, is known as one of the best-kept secrets in Scotland. Legend has it that in the 1800’s and early 1900’s, visitors from London would not reveal to friends and family their final destination for fear that this neck of the woods would become too popular and their little piece of heaven would soon disappear!!

This is an artist's haven - whether for a professional or for someone who paints for pleasure. Every day of the year, whatever the weather - this land provides a bumper harvest of subject and sprinkles its own unique magic.

Those attending are offered a selection of locations, which include
the picturesque harbour village of Portmahomack (an all-time favourite of our painting guests), the Versailles inspired gardens at fairytale Dunrobin Castle (an all-time favourite of visitors who flock there from around the world), the Sutherland cathedral town of Dornoch (an all-time favourite of golfers from around the world)

My painting breaks and weeks have been scheduled to take place at times
of the year which will give an extra dimension to painting out of doors.

The end of June brings with it the longest days in the year and up here we get longer days than elsewhere in the British Isles. In October the Autumn colours are magnificent and if 2007 is anything to go by, will provide our painting guests with an abundance of subject.

We are blessed with sandy beaches and rugged coastlines, seaboard villages and farming communities, remote hamlets only accessible by single track roads. Fields full of sheep and newborn lambs, sleek black Aberdeen Angus and shaggy-coated Highland cattle, not to mention swaying heads of golden barley. From May to August the area is thick with chrome-yellow blooms that weigh down the gorse bushes and broome, while for one short week in late spring, vast acreages of sea-pinks cloak the coastline and sea soaked inlets. Guests can stride to Tarbat Ness lighthouse and enjoy varying colours of lichen and rare mosses that change with the seasons, or walk along the seashore looking for seals and dolphins.

Non-painting guests will find much to enjoy, doing their own thing, or are equally welcome to join our merry band of painters. Paul TaggartTo you and yours we send best wishes, from both Eileen and myself,

 

But don't just take our word for it. Why not visit these parts, join us for some painting and experience the 'best kept secret' for yourself. And for non-painting companions there is so much to enjoy and participate in, so don't leave them behind.