The Pleasure of Looking and Seeing: Painting

Join us for an invigorating one-day workshop with renowned artist Joanna Cole, designed to elevate your landscape painting skills and deepen your connection with the natural world.

From 10am to 12pm, embark on a creative walk from the Art School to a picturesque park, where you'll paint "en plein air," capturing the beauty of the outdoors in real time. After a leisurely lunch from 12pm to 1pm back at the Art School, spend the afternoon from 1pm to 4pm in the studio, translating your outdoor studies into a larger, more refined artwork.

Experience the joy of seeing and painting with fresh eyes, as Joanna Cole guides you through techniques for translating fleeting outdoor impressions into compelling studio pieces. This workshop offers a perfect blend of outdoor inspiration and studio refinement, providing a unique opportunity to enhance your landscape painting practice while enjoying the camaraderie of fellow artists.

About your teacher

Joanna Cole is a painter whose work transforms the mundane into the magical through a unique blend of continuous line drawing and vibrant colour.

Trained under Margie Hooper at the University of South Australia and a Masters graduate from UNSW, Cole’s paintings capture the ephemeral beauty of the landscape, with a focus on light, landforms, and tree shapes that morph through memory and repetition. Her plein air approach and studio practice are complemented by road trips and digital sketching, bridging the gap between reality and the imagined.

Featured in national publications and exhibitions across Sydney, Melbourne, and regional NSW, Cole’s work has garnered attention as a finalist in various prestigious art prizes.

Based in Gadigal Country, New South Wales, Cole uses bold hues – particularly pinks, reds, and yellows – to reframe our perception of nature and invite viewers to see the world anew. Her art is a dialogue between nature and human experience, inspiring contemplation through its vivid and thoughtful expression.