The Art of Creating Something Unique to You, for the Artist in Everyone – March 2025 Blog Post #2 of 3
- artworkshopwithpaul
- Mar 22
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 2
Greetings from the Highlands of Scotland and our Steading studio, where we have been as busy as ever working on plans for 2025. However, not too busy to take some time out, getting out and about looking for subjects that would suit Module 2 when we start filming this summer for our newest tutorials, Paul Taggart’s Essential Sketching/Drawing and Painting Guides.
Whilst on a walk through a forest, high on a hill, Eileen and I spotted a beautiful lone tree, the perfect subject for one of the projects, perhaps. There we stood, debating its various characteristics – thank goodness the forest is not well-frequented, for passers-by would have been perplexed by the intensity of our conversation. Were the pinecones developed enough to give us edge, volume, colour/tone and texture? What about the leaf platforms and the trunks, not to mention the needles, the candles, the general form? These are all important things we take into consideration when deciding on a subject for any tutorial.
Then a memory surfaced to interrupt these thoughts and sent us on yet another path – one that led us back to 2012.
Many years ago, Eileen and I collaborated with our dear friend, the Master Japanese Garden Creator and Medallist, Robert Ketchell, on a painting and gardening weekend, at a National Trust property in Cheshire, England. The concept for this two-day workshop was to share Robert’s passion for creating gardens, but to do so on a miniature scale – to introduce those attending to the art of creating trayscapes, a highly regarded artform with a tradition that stretches back centuries.
Having created their trayscapes with Robert on the first day, the artists then joined me for the second stage of the weekend - a workshop in which they could capture their unique creations on paper, or canvas, in various interpretive forms and in whatever medium they wished.
After a satisfying and productive weekend spent getting their hands dirty in soil and paint, our guests left with their creative output of a trayscape and, an artwork and hopefully, a memory that they would never forget.
We too never forgot that time spent in their company and on one of Robert’s private visits to our home,here in the Highlands of Scotland, the three of us decided to resurrect that experience to share with our worldwide audience.
It is some while since we filmed these videos and first shared them online, our plans interrupted by the dreadful happenings on YouTube back then. But we have never forgotten those enjoyable days spent creating the videos and on one of Robert’s recent visits, decided to bring them out of storage – after all, our shared passion for our respective creative lives shouldn’t be buried away, when we had put so much effort into our collaborative work.
Eileen therefore got to work, browsing through our archive of RAW footage and has spent many, many, happy days curating Robert’s demonstrations of two unique trayscapes, which she had originally filmed in and around our stone Steading, before it was lovingly restored as our private studio.
DOWNLOAD them to OWN them and WATCH UN-INTERRUPTED at a TIME and a PLACE TO SUIT YOU via VIMEO - www.vimeo.com/artworkshopwithpaul/vod_pages
STREAM them on PATREON – www.patreon.com/artworkshopwithpaul/collections
The first of our newly curated box-sets – a suite of five videos – in which you are taken step-by-step through the process of creating a ‘still-life’ trayscape, in a one-hour video with Robert; which I have then used as the subject for a start-to-finish ‘still-life’ painting in acrylics, featured in four videos.
Box-Set Total Running Time – 5hours 3minutes
The second of our newly curated box-sets – a suite of seven videos – in which you are taken step-by-step through the process of creating a ‘landscape’ trayscape, in two, one-hour videos with Robert; which I have then used as the subject for a start-to-finish ‘landscape’ painting in watercolours – except, this time, I interpret the subject as if I was standing in the ‘actual’ landscape - featured in five videos.
Box-Set Total Running Time – 6hours 53minutes
As with all our tutorials, the filming is in real-time, with no editing out; you are taken step-by-step, from start-to-finish, through the process, with close-up shots capturing details – all films feature running commentary throughout
Follow-along with Robert and you will learn not only, how to ‘garden’ on a miniature scale, but also, how to plot your trayscape as you would the composition of your artwork – with a foreground, middle distance and background, to build a trayscape with depth, character and light.
Work-along with me on the still-life and/or landscape painting/s at a pace to suit you … and let your paints and brushes take you on this journey of discovery, one for which you have created your own, unique subject
We thank you for reading our latest news and for your continued interest in our work and, as ever, send best wishes, from Eileen and myself,”
Paul TaggartArtist, Author, Presenter, Producer
REGISTER ON OUR OFFICIAL WEBSITE to receive personal updates - https://www.artworkshopwithpaul.com
Paul Taggart’s Official Vimeo account - https://vimeo.com/artworkshopwithpaul/vod_pages
Paul Taggart’s Official Patreon account - https://patreon.com/artworkshopwithpaul/collections
NOTE : This blog post contains information pertaining to Paul W. Taggart and Eileen M. Tunnell and may contain copyrighted material. It should be read as protected by International Copyright law and DMCA.