As many of you will know, I’ve been running animal sculpture workshops here in the UK for a number of years now. In the past I’ve run these in partnership with other studios, but this year I decided to bring the workshop side of the business in-house with the help of Simon, my husband and business partner.

We decided to base our UK workshops in our home village of Bratton Clovelly. We have exclusive use of the refurbished village School Room (built in 1856), situated in the centre of the village and affording wonderful views over the Dartmoor National Park. It gives us a comfortable, spacious area for up to 10 students to work while I provide instruction and demonstrate different techniques.

We have just completed our April 2019 workshop and I’m pleased to report it was a great success. As usual, I had 10 students from a variety of backgrounds, some complete novices, some more experienced. They all came prepared to sculpt an animal of their choice, having been briefed in advance on how to research their subjects.

Thank you for such an amazing workshop. I learned so much. Your input makes all the difference. Please thank you husband for the lovely food.

After a short presentation, explaining my background and experience, I spent some time demonstrating the building and modelling techniques my students would need to bring their animal sculptures to life. As well as these basic techniques, I teach my students the importance of observation, which is critical to capturing the fine details and behavioural traits of our subjects.

Over the course of the next three days, with a mixture of group and one-to-one instruction from me, my students were able to produce a very impressive body of work, and they all returned home pleased with their progress.

All my UK animal sculpture workshops include a delicious home-cooked lunch, home-made cake and refreshments. Students are invited to visit my private studio, observe my work at close hand, tour my kilns and see how I manage the glazing, firing and finishing processes.

For a small additional charge, I offer a basic firing and finishing service exclusively for my workshop students, as few of them have access to their own kilns. When the work is fired and cleaned, it is either collected in person from the studio or I can arrange shipping on request.

Our UK animal sculpture workshops are always very popular and our 2019 programme sold out within weeks. We’re investigating the possibility of adding some additional dates and we’ll be running more workshops in 2020.

You can signup now to receive priority advance notification of forthcoming animal sculpture workshops (note: if you’ve already contacted us about workshops you may already have been added to the mailing list).