ART WORKSHOPS WAIKANAE

THE ARTIST SESSIONS

WEEKLY ART WORKSHOPS

The Artist Sessions ran successfully from my Wellington studio for 7 years, with two different groups meeting on Mondays and Thursdays. Now that I have settled into my new studio in Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast, one group has been meeting on Tuesday mornings since 2022. The Sessions give artists the opportunity to work on their own projects in a well- equipped studio, with tuition, group discussion and critique available. An extensive range of GOLDEN paints and products are at hand with advice and guidance on their use to enable you to explore your every painterly whim! Each session is three hours long, available in blocks of six. These groups are aimed at people who have fairly well developed art practices and can initiate their own projects. Please make contact if you are interested.

Click here for more information.

Click here to read what participants have to say.

Click here to read The NZ Artist Magazine Article

TOPIC BASED WORKSHOPS FOR 2025

SCROLL DOWN for dates, costs and details of the following workshops:

DRAWING IN THE STYLE OF….Portraits
PART SEEN PART IMAGINED (Botanical water media painting)
EXCAVATING LIGHT IN DRAWING AND PAINTING
PAINTING LANDSCAPE GREENS
ART NOUVEAU DESIGN - Charles Rennie MacIntosh Inspirations
GELLI PLATE MONOPRINTING
WOMAN IN GOLD - Gustav Klimt inspirations
WORKING WITH COLOUR
AIR-BRUSHING WITH HIGH FLOW

DRAWING IN THE STYLE OF……Portraits

Location and Dates: This workshop will take place on Saturday May 10th from 10am – 3.30pm and Sunday May 11th 2025 from 10am-1.00pm at Morag Stokes Artist Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost: $230

This workshop runs over one and a half days, with all materials provided. It aims to expand upon your existing drawing skills, with the human face as our focus. It is ideally suited to people who would like to develop their own style by looking at a wide range of approaches to drawing, and is suitable for any level of drawing ability, from complete beginner to accomplished artists. Inspiration will come from a diverse range of artists, many well-known, including Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Ralph Hotere, Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse and many more. You will choose a small selection of images to study and replicate, to get a feel for that artist’s style. On the second day, you will move towards making your own self-portraits in the style of your choice from a mirror image, incorporating your own personal mark making. A wide selection of drawing materials and surfaces will be available for you to try. They include graphite, charcoal, pastels, inks and High Flow acrylic (ink-like paint). Drawing tools will include pens and pencils of different types, quills, fine brushes, and extrusion bottles. You will also get a feel for mark making on some unusual acrylic gels and pastes which make interesting grounds for drawing, such as Fine Pumice Gel, Coarse Molding paste, Acrylic Ground for Pastels, Silverpoint Drawing Ground, Micaceous Iron Oxide and Fibre Paste. Place numbers are restricted to 6.

Materials:

What is provided:
All the art materials and surfaces you will need are all provided, including drawing tools, mediums and grounds.

What you need to bring:
You may choose to bring any portrait images of artists whose work inspires you. On the Sunday, you may also like to bring anything that you want to accessorise your self-portrait image (ie. hat, earrings, scarf, glasses) – all optional.

Lunch and refreshments: There will be a 50 minute lunch break. Bring your own packed lunch or visit one of the cafes in Waikanae town, a few minutes drive from the studio. Tea, instant coffee and nibbles will be provided for you to help yourself to throughout the day.

How to register: You can register your place in this course, and receive payment details, by contacting Morag Stokes at jubileems@gmail.com or telephone 027 380 3282. Your place will be confirmed when payment in full is made.

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PART SEEN PART IMAGINED (Botanical Watermedia Painting)

Location and Date: Full day workshop - Saturday 6th December 2025 from 10am – 4.30pm at Morag Stokes Art Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost: $180

This workshop, inspired by the botanical watercolour paintings of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, will introduce you to QoR watercolours and High Flow acrylics for painting floral studies. Mackintosh’s watercolour style often involved leaving some areas of his drawings understated, simply as linear suggestions rather than painted passages – “part seen and part imagined”. You will consider the work of other artists who deliberately leave parts of their work understated and make similar decisions as you develop your own water media studies from a range of botanical photographs and actual flowering plants. You will work from pen or pencil drawing to painting. Bringing flowers from your own garden is encouraged. This workshop is suitable for beginners to water media painting, as well as more experienced artists.

Materials:

What is provided:
All the art materials and grounds you will need are all provided. This includes Bockingford Cold Pressed Cotton Fibre Paper (200g), High Flow paints (acrylic), QoR watercolours by GOLDEN and a variety of pens and pencils will be available. Caran D’Ache Aquarelle watercolour pencils are also available as an option to working with paint.
What you need to bring:
It would be great if you could bring some flowers and plant materials from your garden, in a small vase. If you don’t have a garden, don’t worry – I’ll have some on the table.

Lunch and refreshments: There will be a 50 minute lunch break. Bring your own packed lunch or visit one of the cafes in Waikanae town, a few minutes’ drive from the studio. Tea, instant coffee and nibbles will be provided for you to help yourself to throughout the day.

How to register: You can register your place in this workshop, and receive payment details, by contacting Morag Stokes at jubileems@gmail.com or telephone 027 380 3282. Your place will be confirmed when payment in full is made.

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EXCAVATING LIGHT IN DRAWING AND PAINTING

Location and Date: This workshop will take place on Saturday 19th July 2025 from 10am – 4.30pm at Morag Stokes Art Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost: $180

In this workshop we will work with OPEN Acrylic paints for painting in the morning and charcoal for drawing in the afternoon. Reductive (or subtractive techniques as they are sometimes known) have been used by many artists over the years, such as Edgar Degas and Frank Auerbach, to create moody, expressive artworks. This technique starts with a completely dark covered surface and areas are gradually erased back to light, creating a range of values which allows form to emerge. As the piece develops, the charcoal or paint can be added back to intensify the low lights, bringing the work to completion through the interplay of reductive and additive mark making.

You will learn about slow drying OPEN acrylics which can be worked and reworked for extended periods without drying out. Your surface will be MDF board covered in a ground of textured Molding Paste – a minimally absorbent covering which makes paint removal easy and leaves wonderfully expressive marks. During the afternoon, you will work on paper with charcoal and learn how to excavate light with a variety of erasures, to create moody imagery.

Materials:

What is provided:
All the materials you will need will to make two art works will be provided, including fixative for the charcoal work. Please note that fixative can only be used if the weather is suitable to spray it outside the studio for health and safety reasons.
What you need to bring:
Your painting, on a 20cm by 26cm board, will still be wet when you leave due to the drying time needed for OPEN Acrylics. You may wish to bring a box or tray to prevent it from slipping around in your car

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MIXING LANDSCAPE GREENS

Location and Date: This workshop will take place on Saturday 20th September 2025 from 10am – 1pm at Morag Stokes Art Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost: $110

This colour mixing workshop will be of particular interest to landscape painters and those who like to represent the greens of nature in their work. We will focus on creating palettes which work well for foreground, mid distance and distant greens. Green can be a difficult colour to get right in landscape work as is doesn’t ‘travel’ well from near to far. Some very far greens are scarcely green at all, with their saturation, value and hue changing as they recede into the distance. You will learn how to create greens that give this sense of aerial perspective. You will also learn how to create the brightest and cleanest colour mixes, greens in particular, from a Modern (Organic) colour palette.

Materials:

What is provided: All the art materials and surfaces you will need are all provided, including top quality GOLDEN acrylic paints.
What you need to bring: Just yourself and any snacks that you may require to get through the morning.

Refreshments: Tea, instant coffee and biscuits are provided.

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ART NOUVEAU DESIGN - Charles Rennie MacIntosh Inspirations

Location and Dates: This weekend workshop will take place on Saturday 5th April from 10am – 4pm and Sunday 6th April from 10am – 3pm, 2025 at Morag Stokes Art Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost: $250

This workshop spans a weekend in April with all materials provided. It will look at some of the design elements in the work of Charles Rennie MacIntosh, a Glasgow born architect, designer, artist and one of Scotland's most influential creative figures. We will look at some of his works to identify the basic design elements he became famous for during the Art Nouveau period – a contrast between strong right angles and floral-inspired decorative motifs with subtle curves, elongated forms, flowing lines, restrained colour, symbolism, geometric patterns, and emphasis on the rectilinear. You will play with those elements to make your own MacIntosh inspired designs, coloured with options from QoR water colour, Fluid Acrylics, and coloured pencils.

Materials:

What is provided: A selection of papers to chose from for the developed work, sketch paper, pens, pencils, scissors, shape templates, and a variety paints to choose from by GOLDEN (High Flow, Fluids, SoFlat, QoR) and coloured pencils.
What you need to bring - Just your lunch.

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GELLI PLATE MONOPRINTING

Location and Dates: This workshop will take place on Saturday 8th March 2025 from 10am - 4.00pm at Morag Stokes Art Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae.

Cost: $180

This workshop will show you the techniques you will need to make a range of monoprints using the latest synthetic gelatine plates from Gelli Arts. Using a variety of stencils, masks, stamps (some commercial, some home-made), and pressed leaves you will work with GOLDEN’s OPEN Acrylics to make your multi-layered prints without a printing press. You can then take them a stage further using High Flow paint in paint pens or with brushes. These prints make beautiful art works and are also ideal for use in collage, scrapbooking and greeting card making. Gelli prints can also be incorporated in layers into your regular paintings – the possibilities are endless! In creating several small art works on paper, you will learn about working with transparent and opaque paints and the outcomes of layered colour mixing. You will also use iridescent colours for some special effects. Class numbers are limited to 6 and the day is suitable for beginners to art as well as experienced painters and print makers.

Materials:

What is provided:
All paints (GOLDEN OPEN acrylics and High Flow) and print making equipment will be provided. I also have a wide selection of stencils, stamps and texturing materials available for your use. There will be a variety of papers available to work on, including cartridge paper and Bockingford cold pressed cotton fibre paper.

What you need to bring - You may also like to bring the following optional items: Any brushes you have for fine detail painting using ink-like paint. This is optional as paint pens will be available. If you have your own stencils and stamps, bring them along. Gelli printing can get messy, so please dress appropriately

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WOMAN IN GOLD - Gustav Klimt Inspirations

Location and Date: This course of 4 x 2.5 hour evening classes will take place on Thursday 23rd and 30th October and Thursday 6th and 13th of November from 6.30pm - 9pm, 2024 at Morag Stokes Artist Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost: $230

This course is 4 x 2.5 -hour evening classes with most materials provided. Some of you may have seen the movie WOMAN IN GOLD staring Helen Mirren. It’s about the Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer, by Gustav Klimt, which was stolen by the Nazis, recovered in more recent time, and is now in New York. Fascinating story –fabulous painting! If you’d like to have a go at creating your own ‘Adele’ inspired work, this block of evening classes is for you. You can get as funky as you like with your re-invention of this work, have some fun with a collaged face and hands and do all the elaborate bits with metallic paints, pens and needle tip bottles. You will learn about and use a range of top quality GOLDEN Iridescent paints in Heavy Body, Fluid and High Flow to make a pattern bank and use it in developing your work on pre-gessoed black cartridge paper.

Materials:

What is provided: All of the materials you will need, with the exception of 2 gel-pens, will be provided. This will include wet strength cartridge paper, sketch paper, metallic painted swatches and envelope for making a pattern bank, paints, pens, brushes, and extrusion bottles. You will use paints from GOLDEN’s Iridescent range. Tea and coffee is available as required.
What you need to bring - You will need to bring 2 gel pens UNI-BALL SIGNO ROLLERBALL GEL INK METALLIC, one in gold and one in silver, available from Gordon Harris.

Refreshments: Tea, instant coffee and biscuits will be provided for you to help yourself to whenever you feel inclined during the evenings.

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WORKING WITH COLOUR

Location and Dates: This day-long workshop is scheduled for Saturday 23rd August 2025 from 10am-4.30pm at Morag Stokes Artist Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost $180

This workshop is about mixing colour to produce satisfying and exciting colour combinations in your paintings. We will work with top quality GOLDEN acrylics and you will learn about how to achieve overall colour harmony in your work. We will also cover working with complimentary colours, ‘loud and quiet’ colours and our personal colour cravings. The workshop will be more about practice than theory, although special attention will be given colour value (its place on a grey scale) and chroma (brightness). You will also learn about the pigment realities that are often neglected in theory based colour teaching – in other words, pigment selection for the cleanest and brightest possible mixes. The morning will concentrate on developing your own personal palette and by the afternoon you will be using this palette in an abstract painting inspired by the exciting dance-like colour works of Chinese artist Mimi Chen Ting.

Class numbers are limited to 6 and the day is suitable for beginners to art as well as experienced painters.

Materials:

What is provided - All paints and mediums from the top quality GOLDEN Artist Colors range will be provided, along with the cartridge paper and drawing paper required for exploring colour combinations and developing your painting ideas. Pencils, brushes and palettes and palette knives will be available for your use, but it would be good to bring the brushes you normally use for painting on a small scale.

What you need to bring - You will need to bring a pre-primed canvas panel measuring 12” by 16”. You can get them from The Warehouse and Office Max. (Please note that a canvas panel is not the same as canvas on stretcher bars) If you have your own brushes for working on a small scale, you might prefer to bring them along. If you would prefer to use your own paints rather than mine - that’s fine, bring them along.

Lunch and refreshments: There will be a 45 minute lunch break. Bring your own packed lunch or visit one of the cafes in Waikanae town, a few minutes drive from the studio. Tea, instant coffee and nibbles will be provided for you to help yourself to throughout the day.

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AIRBRUSHING WITH HIGH FLOW

Location and Date: This workshop will take place on Saturday 1st February 2025 from 10am – 4.00pm at Morag Stokes Art Studio, 14 Morepork Drive, Waikanae. Tel. 027 380 3282.

Cost: $195

Always wanted know how to use an airbrush for your painting, fabric or craft projects? During this workshop you will use masking to make layered images with GOLDEN’s airbrush acrylics (High Flow), while learning how to control the paint and air flow. You will also use interference fluid paint with airbrush medium to create special effects on 3D objects. There will be no spirit or lacquer mediums used. I will be hosting this workshop to be taught by Fifi Colston whose skills as an artist and teacher I cannot recommend highly enough. It will be an honour to collaborate with her to put this day together. She airbrushed professionally as a commercial artist for 20 years, and now uses it for her wearable art, costume and props projects. She knows all the tips and tricks! Class numbers are limited to 6 and the day is suitable for beginners to art as well as experienced painters.

Materials:

What is provided - All paints, 3D objects, airbrushes, compressors, simple dust masks to wear during spraying and most other materials will be provided, along with refreshments. The studio will be well ventilated for this workshop, but some of you may wish to bring your own protective masks.
What you need to bring -
a pre-primed canvas panel measuring 12” by 16”. You can get them from The Warehouse and Office Max. Gordon Harris are no longer selling this size. (Please note that a canvas panel is not the same as canvas on stretcher bars).
A sharp scalpel blade available from Gordon Harris
You should also bring warm clothing as windows will be open during spraying and we can’t rely on a mild winter day!

Lunch and refreshments: There will be a 30 minute lunch break. Bring your own packed lunch or visit one of the cafes in Waikanae town, a few minutes drive from the studio. Tea, instant coffee and nibbles will be provided for you to help yourself to throughout the day.

How to register: You can register your place in this workshop and receive payment details by contacting Morag Stokes at jubileems@gmail.com or telephone 027 380 3282. Your place will be confirmed when payment in full is made.

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TRAVELLING WORKSHOPS

The following workshops are available and can be run to order if you are an art club or society or would like to get a group of arty friends together:

ACRYLIC ADVENTURES, my overview day. You will use a wide variety of acrylic paints, pastes, gels and grounds. This is a good place to start if you’re new to acrylics and want to make sense of what’s on the shelves of your local art store. Click here for more information.

PAINTS WITH PANACHE focuses on interference and iridescent paints and uses NZ Paua shell as inspiration. Think of the look of oil on water and you’ll get the idea. Add some glitz and glamour and you’re there. Click here for more information.

USING OPEN ACRYLICS will give you a chance to explore these new, slow drying paints and their applications. OPEN paints have much in common with oils, and many oil painters who dislike working with solvents are finding them a good alternative. Click here for more information.

COLOUR MIXING WITH ACRYLICS will show you who to mix colour and understand how pigments combine. From the brightest hues to muted shades, you will leave with a great resource for your future paintings. What you will learn about pigment mixes applies to acrylic, oil and watercolour painting. Click here for more information.

ACRYLIC DIVERSIONS FOR WATERCOLOUR PAINTERS (two days) is aimed at experienced watercolour painters who are already comfortable with their style and technique and would welcome some creative possibilities for diversifying with acrylics. Using your tried and tested watercolour methods, you can step outside of the box with acrylic fluid and airbrush colours and a variety of acrylic grounds, including Yupo paper. There are a LOT of advantages! Click here for more information.

WHAT’S NEW IN ACRYLICS AND WATERCOLOUR will introduce you to the possibilities of the latest in acrylic and watercolour products. You will work with QoR (highly pigmented watercolours with an entirely new binder), High Flow and Fluid acrylics, all of which are great for watermedia work. You will experiment with these paints on watercolour and synthetic papers as well as various acrylic grounds. In addition, slow drying OPEN acrylics will be used to make prints without a press using Gelli-Arts printing plates. Click here for more information.