Painting Trees – From Suggestion to Definition!
With Tony Windberg
10-16 November 2025
Spend a week really getting to know your trees in an environment sure to inspire creativity!
Learn the art of ‘less is more’ from an expert in the field, artist Tony Windberg. Create convincing foliage, bark, and everything in between by effectively combining suggestion and definition.
From the ground up, trees offer valuable lessons in light, form, colour and texture. Nature is also a reminder to slow down and take a breath! Bring your paints and brushes (this workshop is suitable for both acrylics and oils) and make the most of the time and space to indulge, relax, and soak up some inspirational approaches to painting.
There’s a world of ways to apply paint, and Tony will start you off on the journey of ‘loose to tight’ by demonstrating how effective brush, knife and rag techniques can expand your language of mark-making.
We’ll also get out and about to sketch local striking wheatbelt trees in their natural environment using found charcoal with paint washes. Learn how to capture the essence of their forms, from sinewy lines to subtle colours. Play with compositional possibilities and take rubbings of tree surfaces for later inspiration.
Indoors, in fun hands-on ‘textural adventures’, you’ll begin by underpainting and working into gesso. Then take texture further with natural ingredients sourced from the bush. Tony will share his methods for making his unique natural paint mixes by adding 21st century acrylic binders to bind and stabilise materials such as ash, charcoal and earth pigments. There’s something deeply therapeutic and satisfying about sieving and grinding materials - you’ll be hooked!
Making your own mixes connects beautifully to the subject and encourages the element of surprise. The material’s unpredictability is its asset. You’ll learn how to build on ‘happy accidents’ and tap into the power of suggestion. Giving up control and letting nature take its course is a theme Tony uses extensively in his own artwork. He will demonstrate how this approach sets the path for the paint layers above, enhancing a realism that echoes natural processes.
Overlaying your textural foundation with traditional painting methods such as thin colour washes, dry-brushing, and glazing will create complex, intriguing paintings full of life, energy and vitality.
Finally, you’ll put this all together in a main painting (or have a couple on the go!) and learn the art of adding ‘strategic detail’. Get to know your brushes’ capability too – you may be surprised!
Along the way, colour mixing and matching exercises will reveal what colours are truly in leaves and bark. The observation of sunlight on and through foliage will lead to enlightening lessons on translucency and opacity. Understanding how the angle of lighting reveals the surface and structure of tree trunks will help give a sense of solidity and focus, while using the ‘magic ingredient’ of reflected light will breathe life into all your paintings.
About
Tony Windberg is a professional artist who has shared his knowledge and enthusiasm for art with students for over 3 decades.
After completing his B.A. (Fine Arts) degree from Curtin University in 1986, Tony began his exhibiting career with a sell-out show focussing solely on trees. Since then, the natural world and the landscape has become the setting to explore ideas about our relationship with and responsibility for our planet.
Tony has had numerous solo exhibitions and received significant WA and national art awards. He has been selected for many interstate group exhibitions, including the Fleurieu Biennale Art Prize, the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, the Heysen Prize for Australian Landscape and The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize. His artworks feature widely in public, corporate and private art collections. Tony is represented in WA by Art Collective WA.
Tony works in a wide range of traditional painting and drawing media. He also continually explores new and unconventional materials and techniques and has a particular fascination for using natural materials such as earth pigments, ash and tree resins to connect to his subject.
A popular teacher, he combines a deep respect for painting tradition with a sense of artistic adventure!
His artwork can be seen at www.tonywindberg.com
Materials List
A Materials list will be emails to you upon confirmation of booking.
Price
$1740 includes 6 nights of accommodation, meals (full board), 5 days tuition, late access to studio, airport transfers and field trips (If applicable). For a full list of inclusions/exclusions click here.
To apply please complete the below application form and an invoice will be sent to your email within 48hours of applying.
To view our cancellation policy please click here.