• Daily workshops with Zoe Sernack
• Accommodation – choose from our bures at the front (Ocean View bures), or at the back (standard rooms) – or ask us about our two bedroom villas.
• Meals : breakfast, lunch and dinner – a mix of local Fijian and Indian food and international recipes
• Excursions:  snorkel on the fabulous coral reefs, bathe in glorious waterfall, revel in the abundant nature of the landscape and experience the rich Fijian culture.

You just need to buy your air ticket and art materials, and leave the rest to us.

PS Bring along your non-painting partner too – there’s plenty for them to do whilst you’re painting, and they can join all the organised excursions on your programme too.

This week-long course explores abstract landscape through observation, experimentation and intuitive painting.

Students will spend time looking closely at the surrounding landscape through sketching, mark-making and visual studies. These observations will become the starting point for exploring shape, colour, texture, layering and composition.
Through demonstrations and hands-on exercises, students will experiment with simplifying and transforming what they see rather than simply reproducing the landscape. These ideas will then be developed into paintings on wooden boards, working intuitively and allowing each piece to evolve through layers.

As the course runs over half-days, the emphasis is on experimentation, learning and developing ideas rather than producing a large number of finished works.

Students will work across several pieces throughout the week, allowing them to build confidence and discover their own approach to abstract landscape.
By the end of the week, students should have a collection of sketches and collage studies, several developing works, and approximately 1–2 resolved paintings, depending on their experience and pace.

Most importantly, the week is about experimentation, play and enjoying the process of making. Students will leave with new ideas, techniques and a creative process they can continue exploring in their own studio practice.

My practice is driven by a desire to slow down and reconnect with the natural world. I am interested in the places we move through every day—the bush, waterways, gardens and open spaces—and the layers of life, memory and energy held within them.

Through abstracted landscape, I explore what sits beneath the surface: root systems, shifting light, textures, movement and the quiet intelligence of nature. I work intuitively, building and removing layers of acrylic, carving and mark-making into timber to create surfaces that feel both familiar and dreamlike.

My aim is not to depict a particular place, but to evoke a feeling of being there—to create a moment of pause and recognition. I hope my paintings encourage people to look more closely at the natural environments around them and to feel a sense of connection, calm and possibility within those spaces.

Day 1 – Morning sketching and mark-making outdoors

We begin outdoors with simple pen-and-paper exercises, exploring dots, dashes, lines and movement before moving into shapes, botanical forms and landscape. The focus is simply on looking closely and responding to what is in front of us.

Day 2 – Studio day

Working with card, paint, glue and Stanley knives to create collage studies.

Day 3 – Continuing with the collage work

Layering and developing ideas, experimenting with layering, shape and composition. These studies become a way of playing with ideas before committing them to a painting.

Day 4 – Back outside

For sketches of plants and landscapes. The collage work would of helped students become comfortable with getting down big shapes and compositions. We would then prepare boards ready for painting for the next day.

Day 5 – Painting on boards.

Day 6 – Continuing with the paintings

Continuing with the paintings, exploring further layers, mark-making and texture, with the option to incorporate some wood burning as another way of working into the surface

Painting on wood gives me a strong, tactile surface that allows me to build up layers of acrylic, but also to scratch, carve and etch back into the surface. I can add and remove, reveal and obscure, creating a sense of depth and history within the painting.

There is also something meaningful about painting the landscape onto a material that comes from the natural world. For me, the board becomes part of the painting — not simply a surface to paint on, but another layer of the work.