Arts Retreat with The Sticks in Dorset
Escape to Dorset for an unplugged arts retreat with The Sticks!
Arts Retreat with The Sticks in Dorset
Join us for an in-person arts retreat with The Sticks in beautiful Dorset to help fight the winter blues. Dive into creative workshops, and connect with fellow art lovers and nature. Whether you're a pro or just love messing about with paints and crafts, this retreat is all about fun, inspiration, and making cool stuff together in harmony with the natural landscape around us. Don’t miss out on this chance to recharge your creativity in a stunning spot!
At the heart of this retreat is a shared focus on creative practice as a way of observing, understanding and responding to the natural world. Through drawing, mark-making, writing, conversation and quiet study, participants are invited to slow down and pay close attention to the patterns that surround them, in moss and bark, in weathered stone, in shifting light and repeated forms across the landscape.
Inspired by Mwathi’s ink-based practice and the rhythms found in nature, sessions explore repetition, variation and texture as creative tools. Rather than working towards polished outcomes, the emphasis is on process: noticing how patterns form, dissolve and reappear, and how these rhythms echo our own internal states.
Winter provides a powerful backdrop for this retreat. Bare trees and quieter landscapes reflect a natural pause, a moment of rest and preparation before spring returns. Through observing these winter patterns, participants are encouraged to recharge, reflect and gently gather creative energy, using the start of the new year as a time to set intentions without pressure.
This retreat positions creative practice not as production, but as attentiveness: a means of tuning in, recording impressions and building a deeper relationship with place. The intention is to leave with a renewed sensitivity to pattern, seasonality and symbolism, tools that can be carried back into everyday creative life.
Winter reminds us that rest is not the opposite of growth, it is where growth begins!
About the location:
This Victorian conversion provides basic bunk-bed accommodation for up to 12 people and is set on the south coast of the island with its own garden, beach access and views of the Purbeck Hills.
Your journey here will see you cross the seas from Poole Harbour to arrive on this wildlife-rich island where you’ll be greeted by one of our holidays team. After all the visitors go home, make the most of having your very own island. Wander through woodland, explore the heathland and discover Brownsea Island’s bird-filled lagoon. It's in these quieter times that you're more likely to spot the island's red squirrels!
Escape to Dorset for an unplugged arts retreat with The Sticks!
Arts Retreat with The Sticks in Dorset
Join us for an in-person arts retreat with The Sticks in beautiful Dorset to help fight the winter blues. Dive into creative workshops, and connect with fellow art lovers and nature. Whether you're a pro or just love messing about with paints and crafts, this retreat is all about fun, inspiration, and making cool stuff together in harmony with the natural landscape around us. Don’t miss out on this chance to recharge your creativity in a stunning spot!
At the heart of this retreat is a shared focus on creative practice as a way of observing, understanding and responding to the natural world. Through drawing, mark-making, writing, conversation and quiet study, participants are invited to slow down and pay close attention to the patterns that surround them, in moss and bark, in weathered stone, in shifting light and repeated forms across the landscape.
Inspired by Mwathi’s ink-based practice and the rhythms found in nature, sessions explore repetition, variation and texture as creative tools. Rather than working towards polished outcomes, the emphasis is on process: noticing how patterns form, dissolve and reappear, and how these rhythms echo our own internal states.
Winter provides a powerful backdrop for this retreat. Bare trees and quieter landscapes reflect a natural pause, a moment of rest and preparation before spring returns. Through observing these winter patterns, participants are encouraged to recharge, reflect and gently gather creative energy, using the start of the new year as a time to set intentions without pressure.
This retreat positions creative practice not as production, but as attentiveness: a means of tuning in, recording impressions and building a deeper relationship with place. The intention is to leave with a renewed sensitivity to pattern, seasonality and symbolism, tools that can be carried back into everyday creative life.
Winter reminds us that rest is not the opposite of growth, it is where growth begins!
About the location:
This Victorian conversion provides basic bunk-bed accommodation for up to 12 people and is set on the south coast of the island with its own garden, beach access and views of the Purbeck Hills.
Your journey here will see you cross the seas from Poole Harbour to arrive on this wildlife-rich island where you’ll be greeted by one of our holidays team. After all the visitors go home, make the most of having your very own island. Wander through woodland, explore the heathland and discover Brownsea Island’s bird-filled lagoon. It's in these quieter times that you're more likely to spot the island's red squirrels!
Artists
Mwathi Gakonga
Cristina Silva
Aya Lazizi
Good to know
Highlights
- 1 day 22 hours
- In person
Refund Policy
Location
South Shore Lodge
Brownsea Island Poole Dorset
Dorset BH13 7EE
How do you want to get there?
Agenda
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Bound by Nature - Sketchbook Binding Session
Bound by Nature introduces participants to a Japanese-style stab binding technique as a slow, tactile way to begin the retreat. Led by Cristina Silva, an interdisciplinary designer and maker working across spatial design, ceramics and community-led practice, the workshop invites participants to create a handmade sketchbook to use throughout the retreat. Cristina’s practice centres care, conversation and material exploration, and this session is designed to encourage intentional making, treating the sketchbook not as a finished object, but as a companion for observation and reflection as the new year begins.
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Following Patterns
Mwathi is an ink-based artist whose work explores pattern, repetition and natural rhythms through close observation. On Brownsea Island, he will lead a guided study of the patterns found in the landscape, encouraging participants to slow down, look closely and respond through simple mark-making.
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Holding Still
Holding Still is a guided journaling session that invites participants to pause, reflect and gently take stock at the start of the new year. Using the handmade sketchbooks created earlier in the retreat, this session offers quiet time to write, sketch and note observations without pressure or expectation. Inspired by the winter landscape, bare trees, slower rhythms and moments of stillness, the session treats journaling as a creative practice rather than a task. Prompts encourage participants to notice what feels settled, what is resting, and what might be quietly forming beneath the surface as the year begins.This is not about setting rigid resolutions, but about holding space: for thoughts, intentions and ideas to emerge naturally. Holding Still supports rest, clarity and gentle intention-setting, allowing participants to recharge creatively before moving forward.