Pen and Wash with Lizzie Connor : 15 – 22 July 2023
per person
A fabulous week of painting.
Pen and wash is a gorgeous medium, and if you’ve never tried it, you’ll be entranced at the way it combines the suggestive elements of watercolour with the firm lines of pen and ink. It can be applied to figurative painting or, just as easily, to abstract pieces to produces strong, evocative images.
Course Confirmed: We look forwards to seeing you in Fiji!
From $2550 - Price includes:
- Daily workshops with Lizzie Connor with personal attention
- Accommodation – choose from our bures at the front (Ocean View bures), or at the back (standard rooms)
- 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.
Painting course
- creating a number of different pen sketches of a diverse range of topics
- using a range of different tonal areas created by making lots of different lines and marks
- then overlaying lightly coloured wash or washes over selected areas of the drawing to emphasise focal points in the drawing.
Drawing materials to be played with will be felt tips, biros, and Indian ink and pens.
TESTIMONIALS
Over the last few years I have attended a number of art retreats around the world. Lizzie’s approach was both highly educational and lots of fun. I was new to pen and wash and to Fiji so didnt know what to expect. What I found was a beautiful location, wonderful people and lots of gentle guidance and encouragement from Lizzie. Perfect!
Penny Weir
Lizzie is an expert! I’m always learning something new from her……..and she manages to make her classes relaxed, inclusive and so much fun.
Caroline McGirr
This was pen and wash exercise, a very first time experience and quite a challenge for me. Lizzie was ever helpful with demonstrating and explaining techniques on different art surfaces using and experimenting with many different inks. Each day she took us in a new direction with a new focus and lovely locations to observe. I found Lizzie to be a very friendly and patient person who is also a very accomplished artist in the use of other art mediums. I have no hesitation in recommending her services as an art tutor.
Una Robinson
Lizzie’s course each day was on different parts of the island, taking in the beauty and surrounds of Savusavu. Lizzie is a very easy going , patient teacher with a wealth of knowledge in art, we learnt about applying water colours, washes, drawing, sketching, sometimes taking us out of our comfort zone and trying things we may usually not try. Improving our skills , making new friends and having fun doing something we all had in common, art! Classes where usually in the mornings, with the afternoons usually filled with different activities, like a drive into the country side to a gorgeous waterfall and swimming hole, visiting a local village for traditional welcoming, songs and dance. Going out to meet a local soap maker and learning of his home, his ancestors who owned his land before him, and his traditional craft of soap making. Free days in the village of Savusavu to wonder as you please. It was the perfect mixture of combining an art class and being a tourist and seeing some of the sites.
Michelle Tipper
Teacher Lizzie Connor
Originally from Sorrento in Victoria, Lizzie Connor now lives at Mudjimba on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. She runs classes and workshops for both children and adults and conducts workshops in and around the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane at various galleries and facilities, and at her home studio at Mudjimba.
Summary & Pricing
Dates: 15 – 22 July 2023
Teacher: Lizzie Connor
Content: Pen and wash: drawing and watercolours
Programme: Daily morning workshops of 3 hours
Suitability: All levels
Excursions and extras: Visit to waterfall, beach picnic, village visit
Food: Three meals a day.
Itinerary: Arrive Savusavu Saturday. Course starts morning Sunday, ends evening Friday. Depart Savusavu Saturday morning.
Materials: A list of materials to be purchased for the course is given below .
A wash is a term for a visual arts technique resulting in a semi-transparent layer of color. A wash of diluted water colour paint applied in combination with drawing is called pen and wash. Normally only one or two colours of wash are used.
If students are not so keen on drawing, or not confident this could be a great way to up you skills with drawing, but using paint mediums as well. Pen and wash is a lovely free way of working, where the brush work is soft and loose, as is the pen work, but the pen work also is the element that holds the images together and gives them strength.
Using lightweight materials it makes this process perfect for for travel journaling or quick inspired sketches with some colour added – for example if you are sketching at the Copra Shed at Savusavu and there is a lot of movement and colour, pen and wash allows you to work fast and capture this. Or if you have more time to spend on creating an image of a micro view of a shell or coral on the beach, pen and wash allows you to capture the textures you see, and support that with the addition of subtle colours from the water colour wash.
What To Bring
Here’s materials you’ll need to bring.
Small set of watercolour paints containing:
- Alizarin crimson
- Cadmium Red Light
- Cadmium Yellow Deep
- Cadmium Yellow Light
- Ultramarine Blue
- Pthalo Blue
- Black
- Brushes: 2 x round brushes Size 3 and 6 synthetic bristle and a good watercolour mop.
- Water container/rags
- Graphite pencils– 4B or 6B
- Black biros, and a couple of fine felt tip markers.
- A3 size water colour paper pad
- A3 size canvas pad. (Pen and wash can be pretty amazing on canvas) we will be doing lots of sketches!
Accommodation
Additional Adventures
What to do in your free time.
We’ve arranged a number of excursions as part of the course (see Programme tab on the menu bar above). We also offer a range of other activities inside and outside of Daku Resort (please note that unless they are part of the programme, some activities, such as massages and those requiring equipment hire, may have additional costs).
What to do in your free time.
We’ve arranged a number of excursions as part of the course (see Programme tab on the menu bar above). We also offer a range of other activities inside and outside of Daku Resort (please note that unless they are part of the programme, some activities, such as massages and those requiring equipment hire, may have additional costs).
Our location : Savusavu, Fiji
During this week, you’ll enjoy the rich culture and unspoilt nature of Fiji, the place where happiness comes naturally. We’re in Savusavu in Fiji’s North – known as the Hidden Paradise because it really is! We’ll take you out to snorkel on the beautiful coral reefs, to plunge into fresh waterfalls, to visit traditional Fijian villages where you’ll see a deeply hospitable corner of Fiji.
We’ve got a full programme planned – with some spare time to just relax.
Our accommodation: Daku Resort
We’re located at Daku Resort near Savusavu in Fiji. It’s a small and comfortable resort: you can choose from Ocean View bures, or standard room rear bures.
Ocean View bure
Standard room – rear bure
Included
AccommodationAll Workshop FeesDining & MealsLectures & ExcursionsTransfers from Savusavu AirportNot Included
Alcoholic BeveragesEquipment & SuppliesFlights/TravelNon-Course ActivitiesTravel Insurance
From Our Gallery
Pictures from previous courses.
Pen and wash is a fresh and fun way of combining some watercolour technique with your drawing skills.
Saturday
- Arrive in Savusavu.
- 6.00 pm Welcome ceremony
- 7.30 pm Dinner
Sunday
- 9.00 am – 12.30 pm Workshop: Looking at skies / drawing clouds. You'll be setting up for drawing/painting “en plein air”, using a viewfinder to choose your composition/s, and learning about different mark making with pens and how to apply the wash over the pen marks. Using hatching and cross hatching methods to create texture, shadow and shape.
- 1.00 pm Lunch
- Afternoon: Free time
- 7.30 pm Dinner
Monday
- 9.00 am - 12.00 pm Workshop: Beach at Daku Resort. You'' ne using a viewfinder to choose your compositions, looking at the colours on the beach, sky, the water, the landscape across Savu Savu Bay, investigating aerial perspective (colour diminishing and cooling over a distance), and finally drawing in pen, adding washes as required, shading, hatching and cross hatching.
- 1.00 pm Lunch
- 2.00 Handicraft display and tapa making demonstration: some of the local women will come to display and sell their jewellery. One of them will give a demonstration of making tapa – the decorated Fijian bark cloth.
- Afternoon: Trip to Savusavu Town to see local market and shop. Savusavu town is a mileaway – 5 minutes in a taxi. We will send you in by taxi and then leave you to wander round and make your own way back by taxi – it’s $4 Fijian (US$2).
- 7.00 pm Dinner
Tuesday
- 9.00 am – 12.00 pm Workshop: The Micro Landscape. You'll be looking at micro views at Devodara Beach with our viewfinder i.e. sandpatterns, shells, textures, shadows, using black biros, and using felt tip pens. These will bleed a little when the wash is applied, creating some interesting and free flowing effects. You'll also be exploring each medium, and combinations of media for colour impact and texture.
- 1.00 pm Picnic Lunch and swimming at Devodara Beach or Buli Kula. Return to Daku approx. 3.30 pm.
- 7.00 pm Dinner
Wednesday
- 9.00 am - 12.00 pm Workshop : Biro, ink and felt tipped pens. you'll be using biro and felt tip pens and coloured washes, using Indian Ink and brush, wetting areas of ink down to soften areas of the image, exploring gestural drawing (fast quick marks to capture movement – expressive drawing), and doing drawings of the market place, the stall holders and the harbour.
- 1.00 pm Lunch
- Afternoon: Trip to waterfall: this is about 25 minutes’ drive and is a beautiful natural fall where you can plunge into the cool clear water and swim.
- 7.00 pm Dinner
Thursday
- 9.00 am – 12.00 pm Workshop: Garden drawings with a difference. You'll be putting washes down first in bold areas of colour then drawing with one of more of each of the drawing mediums available., creating some studies of the garden which will be abstracted, and creating some studies of each others' work.
- 1.00 pm Lunch, followed by a trip to local village to sketch….and then see the traditional meke dance performed with an entrancing energy by the villagers.
- 7.00 pm Dinner
Friday
- 9.00 am – 12.30 pm Workshop: Last day! You'll be choosing your own subject to draw in whichever medium or mediums. Or choose from the portfolio of work completed during the week and develop a drawing from that, then finishing off work before lunch.
- 1.00 pm Lunch
- 7.30 pm Final Fijian dinner
Saturday
Tour Location
