What do artists want?  Time and space to focus on painting?  Tutor input, support and feedback? Freedom from everyday chores and pressures?  This is what we aimed to provide at our first art retreat at Darley House in September.  Contemporary artist Ella Clocksin encouraged us to develop more fluent brush work and widen our vocabulary of visual mark-making on this retreat suitable for all levels entitled ‘The Artful Scribbler”.

Guests arrived on Monday afternoon and the retreat ran until Thursday pm.  Morning sessions began at 9.30am, after a leisurely breakfast.  The tuition included structured studio work and individual sketching and development time, dispersed with tea breaks and a delicious lunch. After tea and cake in the drawing room we could continue our work, take a private tutorial with Ella, or unwind.  Evenings were spent savouring the flavours of our exquisite fine dining experience and chatting in front of the open fires.

Charlie our chef at The Private Chef Company treated us to a constant flow of delicious food, and the perfect weather meant that we produced lots of work in and around the delightfully mature Victorian gardens of Darley House.

We are holding our next retreat, ‘Painting Light, after Turner’, 9 – 12 November 2016. At the time of writing we have one non-resident place left. We are planning next year’s retreats in June, October and November and exact dates are to be confirmed.  There are ten places available for each retreat which can be either residential or non-residential.

If you would like to make an earlybird reservation or investigate giving this as a gift for someone please contact Ella.