Sarah Spackman RBA ROI is one of Britain's most respected still life painters. Decades of looking hard, mixing honestly, and understanding colour at a level most painters spend a lifetime chasing. Her paintings are quiet in their presence and impossible to walk past.
She has exhibited across the UK and Ireland for forty years, her work held in private collections worldwide. A member of the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters: two of the most rigorous peer-elected honours in British painting.
Six nights at Chateau Charente. Five masterclass mornings. Ten painters only.
Sarah works directly and individually with each painter. Watching, responding, teaching from what she sees on your canvas. Not a demonstration observed from a distance. She is beside you, understanding what you specifically need and pushing you further than you thought you could go.
Five mornings of that quality of attention changes how you paint.
Southwest France in June means long light, full gardens, and the kind of stillness that makes you want to paint. The market, the garden, the Chateau itself become part of what you see and what you paint.
A dedicated studio, seasonal French cuisine, curated excursions into the Charente countryside, and morning wellness sessions. Everything designed so the only thing you need to think about is your painting.
that the only thing you need to think about is your painting.
SARAH SPACKMAN
Observation. Tone. Colour.
Still life taught by one of Britain's most respected painters.
TWIN SHARE From €4,087 per person
PRIVATE ROOM FROM €7,442
ONLY TEN PLACES AVAILABLE
A still life MASTERCLASS in oils
The Considered Palette
Summer | 16-22 June 2027
RBA ROI
Sarah Spackman is an award winning still life artist.
Sarah Spackman trained at Byam Shaw School of Art and Camberwell School of Art. She has been working and exhibiting as a professional artist since 1986 - over four decades of sustained, serious practice.
She is a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. These are not prizes or competitions. They are lifetime peer elections, made by some of the finest painters in Britain, based solely on the quality of the work.
Sarah has exhibited continuously across the UK and Ireland, with solo shows in London, Oxford, Cornwall, and Dublin. Her work is held in private collections worldwide and in the contemporary art collection of Allied Irish Bank.
Her online courses with Winslow Art Center have reached painters across the world. She has taught in France, Italy, and throughout the UK.
What that means for you is simple. You are spending a week learning from someone her own peers consider to be among the best in Britain at exactly what she is about to teach you.
sarah spackman MASTERCLASS HIGHLIGHTS
Mixing Colour
Understanding colour from the ground up
The week begins not with a canvas but with colour itself. Sarah takes you through the principles of mixing - the methods, the relationships, the surprises. In the afternoon the group visits a local market. You are not shopping. You are looking. The colours you find there will inform everything that follows.
A Weeklong Masterclass of Still Life Techniques
A Single Fruit
Limited palette - tones, values & primary colour
A single piece of fruit. A limited palette. It sounds simple and it is not. Working with primary colours and close attention to tone and value, you will discover how much is possible with how little - and begin to understand the discipline that underpins Sarah's entire practice.
Colour and Form
Using the full palette to build depth
The fruit returns. Today the full palette opens up. Working with the complete range of colour, you will learn to use it as a tool - to create form, to suggest depth, to make a painted object feel present and real.
A Simple Still Life
Composition and the full palette
A modest arrangement of objects. Everything learned this week brought to bear on a single composition. Mixing, tone, form, colour - all working together now. Looking at how to set up a still life and why composition is the decision everything else rests on.
Your Painting
Colour as the final instrument
The final morning. Returning to the paintings and asking one question: how can colour make this more alive? Sarah works with each painter individually, showing how colour - used with intention - can transform a painting at any stage. The studio is full of painters doing the best work of their week. This is what it was all for.
Please note that the masterclass workshop plans may change due to weather and lighting conditions.
No kit list.
No luggage anxiety. No compromise.
Everything you need is waiting for you. Professional-grade materials chosen specifically for this retreat by this artist. Easels for every format. Every supply at the quality level you'd choose yourself.
The materials are part of the experience. Everything chosen. Everything ready.
Nothing to source, pack, or carry through an airport. You arrive. You paint.
Materials Included
Morning Wellness
Begin the day with an optional Tai Chi session or gentle stretching in the gardens. Breathe in the crisp country air as the sun warms the chateau’s stone walls.
Gourmet Breakfast
Savour a beautifully prepared breakfast featuring eggs made to order, house-made granola, creamy chia pudding, seasonal fruit, artisan breads, and freshly-baked pastries, alongside cold-pressed juices and an elegant espresso and tea bar.
Intimate Masterclass with Master Artist
Picnic Lunch
Gather with fellow guests for a relaxed picnic-style lunch al fresco - or take a beautifully packed basket back to the studio to linger in the flow of your painting.
Evening Aperitifs
Gather as golden light falls across the gardens. Each evening features a signature cocktail inspired by the season, accompanied by elegant hors d’oeuvres.
Chef's Dinner with Wine Pairing
Dinner is candlelit and unhurried. Each evening, the menu travels to a different region of France - Burgundy, Alsace, the Basque Country, Provence - the food and wine chosen together to tell the story of a place. It is a way of seeing France without leaving the table.
The evenings are otherwise unstructured. The garden, the studio, early to bed, more time in the studio. Whatever the week needs.
WHAT TO EXPECT - A DAY ON RETREAT
Choose Your Afternoon
Immerse yourself in the rhythms of French life: meander through a local brocante or market, join our chef for a hands-on cooking workshop, relax in the chateau with a book, or continue painting at your own pace.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
- 5 immersive half-day masterclasses with our master artist
- One-on-one guidance and group critiques
- Professional studio materials and plein air setup.
- 6 nights in refined accommodation
- Choose from deluxe suites with ensuites and sitting areas, suites with ensuites, or beautifully appointed rooms
- All include Parisian linens and the same unhurried care as the rest of the house.
- Seasonal breakfasts, picnic lunches, refreshments, snacks and 3-course dinners
- Evening aperitifs with a daily seasonal cocktail or mocktail
- Wine pairings with dinners.
- Curated excursions to brocantes, village markets, family-owned vineyards, and the storybook towns of the Charente
- Nature walks, wellness sessions, and painting en plein air
- All transport included.
- Easels & Tripods
- Paints (specific to the artist)
- Canvases / Boards
- Paintbrushes
- Everything you'll need, so you can just arrive and paint.
A PERSONAL NOTE FROM SARAH SPACKMAN
"I am very much looking forward to leading this painting retreat in the beautiful Chateau Charente.
It will be a week where we can focus on the beauty of colour and the many possibilities it offers in painting.
The local markets and the garden will offer much inspiration, and with this small group of painters I will be able to offer plenty of one to one help and guidance to enable you to develop your own work.
It will be fun and I hope you can join me."
— Sarah
See more of Sarah's work on Instagram
ABOUT CHATEAU CHARENTE
Why painters come here
Chateau Charente was built around one idea. That ten painters, one celebrated artist, and six nights of genuine individual attention is the combination that actually changes how you paint.
Not a large group with a demo at the front. An intimate week where the artist knows your name, your work, and exactly what you need to hear.
Southwest France, where the light changes with every season and rewards it every time. A studio stocked with professional materials. A garden, a brocante, and evenings that feel like they belong to another era.
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