A little Swiss escape… 

Hi everyone,

First of all, my apologies for a second blog post this week! I promise you, I am not suddenly becoming one of those serial posters who appears in your inbox every other day. 😂

Things are just very busy behind the scenes at the moment, with lots of plans and exciting things being organised for 2027. And because there are quite a few announcements coming together, I’m trying to share them as they become available rather than keeping everything under wraps for months.

So… bear with me! I promise there is method in the madness.

And today, I’m taking you to Switzerland.

I’ll be returning to Basel in April 2027 to teach at Bettina’s beautiful studio, Kunstfreiraum — and this will be my third year there. Every time I’ve taught in Basel, we’ve ended up wishing we had just one more day. There is always more to explore, more layers to add, more conversations to have… and, of course, never quite enough time!

So this time, we decided to go for it: four full, immersive days in the studio.

Almost a retreat, but still very much a hands-on encaustic workshop.

The studio itself is wonderful — spacious, professionally equipped, with beautiful hot plates and plenty of room to spread out and work. And one of the great pleasures of teaching there is having access to a generous selection of R&F products. If you know me, you’ll know how much I love working with R&F materials, and having so many colours and products available to explore is a real treat.

For this workshop, I’ll be bringing one of my favourite themes to explore at the moment:

Layers of Light — Distilling the Landscape with Light and Form

We’ll be looking at one of the things that makes encaustic so special to me: the relationship between transparency and opacity.

We’ll play with layers, light, colour, mark-making and underpainting, while simplifying and deconstructing the landscape. Rather than trying to reproduce what we see, we’ll explore how to distil a landscape down to its essential shapes, rhythms and atmosphere.

And because four days gives us a little more breathing space, there will be time to experiment, make mistakes, follow interesting tangents… and see where the work takes us.

We’re also trying something new this year. Accommodation options will be available, making the workshop more accessible to people travelling from further afield. You can come for the workshop, stay nearby, and make a little art escape of it.

And if you’re travelling to Basel, why not arrive a little early or stay a few extra days? Basel is such a wonderful city for art, museums, galleries, architecture, food… and wandering around with no particular plan.

And naturally, there will be our traditional farewell dinner — this time across the border in Alsace, France.

Because apparently I can’t organise a workshop without involving food somewhere along the way. 😂

And then there’s Swiss chocolate.

I should probably confess here that Swiss chocolate was responsible for knocking me off the keto diet two years ago.

Can I blame Bettina and her wonderful students?

Yes.

Absolutely.

I have no regrets.

So, if four days of encaustic, landscape, light, good company, Switzerland, France, and possibly dangerously good chocolate sounds like your kind of adventure, registration is now open.

The workshop is already around half full, so if you’re thinking about joining us, I wouldn’t leave it too long.

I’d absolutely love to see some familiar faces again — and to welcome some new ones too.

I hope to see you in Basel in April 2027!

ISABELLE