Robbie Laird is an award winning innovative painter, teacher, and juror. Her paintings captivate the viewer with an exciting balance of flowing ambiguity and varying amounts of specific detail. Using large brushes and flowing paint, her work dances on the edge of abstraction in areas but pulls you back in others. She sometimes uses the unique qualities of flowing transparent pure watercolor to create mysterious rhythmic works, while in other pieces she incorporates a variety of other watermedia.
She says, “My paintings provide a journey into the spirit of natural connections. I want to entice the viewer to explore beyond a literal depiction to the rhythm and intimacy within a subject. My continuing source of inspiration is my lifetime interest in the cycles and connections in nature.”
Robbie’s workshop at Petit Rousset promises to be filled with the inspiration, encouragement, and excitement for which she is known. Not only will your time in France be filled with memories of a lifetime, you will return home inspired to paint in new and exciting ways that are your own.
Laird is a signature member of Watercolor West, National Association of Painters of Acrylic, and a full-juried member of SLMM (the Society of Layerists in multi-media), and is affiliated with several other art associations nationwide. She is a highly sought after workshop instructor and was named as one of 20 Great Teachers of the last twenty years, by American Artists’ Magazine.
After completing her Masters degree in Art Education, Laird became a Fine Arts curriculum consultant, giving workshops for teachers throughout California, the United States, and abroad. She is the Director of The Kanuga Watercolor Workshops in North Carolina.
We will capture our impressions of France both outdoors and in the new studio!
Journal sketching…
Painting en Plein Aire…
Studio Instruction and painting…
What's Included:
Lodgings
All breakfasts
8 dinners
Transfers from/to Bordeaux, and all transportation by private coach
Entry fees for included sites, ample time to enjoy optional ones
Private & Group Instruction & Critiques
Itinerary
Independent Arrival in Bordeaux
Depart U.S.A. on overnight flight to any European gateway city. Catch a connecting flight to Bordeaux. If you fly into Paris, the TGV fast train is an option.
Day 1
4:00 p.m. Meet our Private Coach in Bordeaux for the scenic, two-hour drive into the Périgord and Petit Rousset. Welcome Dinner.
A sampling of our Destinations
Our explorations of the towns and villages described below will often be on bustling Market Days. We’ll visit other villages as serene as stage sets, waiting for us to bring them to life. We will also enjoy a guided visit to a cave with prehistoric paintings, a medieval fortress, a Renaissance chateau and a water mill where they make paper by hand, the old fashioned way.
Petit Rousset – Our home, a 17th century farmhouse, provides many opportunities for painting, sketching & relaxing – in the studio, in the garden, on the terrace, by the pool.
Eymet – Our ‘hometown’ is a 40-minute stroll from Petit Rousset, past rows of grapevines, fields of sunflowers and meadows of grazing cows. This bastide has a perfectly intact 13th century center square which bursts with activity on Market Day. Little streets radiating off the square are dotted with houses made of wattle and daub. As we explore, we’ll learn about the medieval conflicts that gave rise to the region’s many bastides.
Bergerac – The town made famous by the poet-Musketeer, Cyrano, is now the capitol of the wine-growing region. At an earlier time, its fame rested upon its tobacco production. A museum of this now much maligned weed documents 15th century globalization. We’ll visit Old Town, with its medieval houses clustered along the banks of the Dordogne River. Nearby is the fairy tale Renaissance Chateau de Monbazillac. We’ll visit the chateau then taste the golden, mellow wine of the same name.
Les Eyzies – The capitol of Prehistory, we’ll visit a cave embellished with polychrome prehistoric paintings.
Beynac – We’ll visit the village with the Chateau at its summit. Built during the One Hundred Year’s War, the Chateau de Beynac perches high atop a cliff dominating the Dordogne River. Now we marvel at the views of the valley below, but its imposing profile attests to its original military purpose.
Sarlat – Founded as an Abbey Town, when Charlemagne visited, he brought a fragment of the True Cross with him. Nearly all of Sarlat’s restored town houses were built during its years of greatest prosperity, from 1450-1500, giving it a rare architectural unity preserved by the Loi Malraux.
Monpazier – Hailed as the most perfectly preserved bastide in Southwest France, the 13th century houses surrounding its totally intact market square, are identical in size, unique in appearance.
Final Day – St. Emilion – After breakfast, depart for Bordeaux. En route, St. Emilion, a favorite of both medieval popes and English kings, in 1999 it was classed a world heritage site, the first vine-growing area to achieve this status. After free time in St. Emilion, Coach drop off at Bordeaux airport and/or train station. Onward journeys after 4:00 p.m. are advised.
