Yes! Beginners are welcome. Why? Because most of the teaching and coaching happens before we even get to the workshop experience. You will learn the essentials of my technique, and everything you need to know through full access to my tutorial platform. I will make sure you know the basics, and intermediate level techniques that will make the workshop a wonderful and inspiring adventure.
This is a 7 day adventure artist workshop. I do not have any desire to stay cooped up inside a studio painting all day. Because of this, we have included at least one experience a day to get us outdoors and into nature. Here are the prices (USD$)
7 NIGHT, 6 DAY ALL-INCLUSIVE PACKAGE
Private Standard Accommodations: $6,500
Private Premium Accommodations: $6,700
Shared Accommodations: $5,500
Non-artists partner: $2,950
INCLUDES:
Airport Transportation to and from Bozeman, Montana
Lodging at Skyline Guest Ranch
All Meals and Non-Alcoholic Beverages
Multiple Wildlife Safaris into Yellowstone National Park with Expert
Guides and Professional Wildlife Photographers
High-end spotting scopes, binoculars, and field gear are provided for all
excursions
Horseback riding options, including a backcountry ride into Yellowstone
Guided hikes with Hiking Equipment
Use of Moose Ridge Cabin as an Art Studio
Live Music, Wagon Rides, Evening Campfires, Specialty Chuckwagon
Dinners, Etc.
NOT INCLUDED:
The only things not included in the above pricing are their air transportation
to the Bozeman airport, alcoholic beverages, art supplies, guide gratuities
The workshop goes beyond what I teach on my platform. This is my masterclass, where I take the foundation of what I have taught for beginners and intermediate artists and push it further into an advanced mastering of the artist's personal experience.
We capture the moment, and do more than simply copying the reference material. We paint the feeling, we manipulate the light, the colour and the essence of what we have witnessed onto canvas. We are not here just to paint a pretty picture. No, this is something more intimate and intense than that. You cannot do this from within your studio. This is what the masters of old did to fully immerse themselves in their project. They breathed the same air, watched the moments before and after the shutter captured the reference and then translated that into a master painting.
I will teach you how to find your independent voice as an artist, within the painting and reconnect you with your core inspiration. This cannot be taught in a class, or a video. This is what being an artist is all about.
I was born in South Africa, in 1991, and moved to Zimbabwe where I experienced wildlife as a child in a way I believe a very small portion of the world is privileged to. This closeness to nature at such a young age laid a solid foundation in my creative soul that stuck with me despite having to move suddenly at age 9. We moved to New Zealand for a few years, which is where I entered a school art competition at age 13, winning the overall prize for the top artist in the school. It became clear that art wasn’t just something I was good at, but something that I was uniquely gifted in.
I was 14 when my family and I moved again to Zambia. Here, we lived on a farm with no electricity and had a very limited social life. With nothing other than a pencil and some old notebooks, I began to draw the birds that surrounded us. Each drawing getting more and more detailed. Although very isolated, living in Zambia allowed me to focus on the discipline needed to achieve the highest possible outcome with my work. I started doing paid commissions at age 16 and was quickly running out of spare time after school to keep up with the demand.
I completed a diploma in Fine art in New Zealand, however, I didn’t fit in with the academic art that the university seemed to model, and so I dropped out and moved to Australia which is where I established my business at age 23. It was also here that I met my now-husband, and it seems that my love story became entwined with my professional story. We became focused on creating artwork that was both stunning to look at, and of incredible quality. I found that I not only loved the continual challenges involved in finding the best possible ways to create incredible paintings and packaging, but that the business aspect of making it a full-time career was exciting.
I remember the impact of my first major sale of an original painting in 2016. I had quit full-time work as a receptionist to dive into being an artist, and after three months of no sales, I had $0.86 to my name. I had put everything I had into setting it up, and I was at a point where I couldn’t afford to go on. It was 10 pm on a weekday, and I finally received an email saying that my life-size grizzly bear had been sold for $3,000.
The most fulfilling aspect of what I do now is working with other artists and coaching them through tutorials to push their technical skills to where they want them to be. I have never had a truly traditional exhibition as my work has been sold directly to private collectors through my social media platforms. In 2017, a drawing I had done of an elderly chimpanzee was selected as a finalist in the David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year Award.
Today, I have two young children and live in South Australia with my husband. I work out of my home studio and am creating realistic wildlife paintings that cannot be found in a photo. I am driving my work to be more than photorealistic and pushing the boundaries of realistic wildlife into a world of surrealism in a subtle and stunning way. The original paintings I create this year will be innovative and exciting. I look forward to seeing the direction my work takes as it continues to grow.