VICKI MCGRATH
Colour. Light. Everyday objects made extraordinary.
TWIN SHARE From €4,087 per person
PRIVATE ROOM FROM €7,442
ONLY TEN PLACES AVAILABLE
A MODERN IMPRESSIONISTIC still life & landscape MASTERCLASS in Acrylic and Gouache
This Thing With Colour
Spring | 20-26 May 2027
Vicki McGrath's work is bold, luminous, and completely her own. Colour that vibrates. Ordinary objects made extraordinary by someone who cannot look at the world without wanting to paint it.
Hundreds of thousands have followed her online, taken her courses, bought her art. They have studied how she mixes, how she simplifies, how she makes a single lemon feel like an event.
Ten painters will now spend six days painting alongside her in person.
This is Vicki McGrath's first in-person retreat in France. Exclusively at Chateau Charente. Ten painters only.
May in the Charente is long light and full gardens and colour everywhere you look. The kind of spring that gets into your palette before you have made a decision. It is exactly the season Vicki loves to paint.
Five masterclasses moving between acrylic and gouache. Value and light. Form and atmosphere. A single piece of fruit to a finished landscape.
Mornings painting. Afternoons to wander or return to the easel. Evenings around the table with new friends.
A dedicated studio, seasonal French cuisine, curated excursions, morning wellness sessions. Everything designed so the only thing you need to think about is your painting.
Vicki McGrath has one of the most devoted GOBAL followings in contemporary painting
Six nights of colour confidence, taught by the painter who will change how you see colour.
Vicki McGrath has built one of the most joyful, colour-driven presences in contemporary painting. Her online courses have reached painters worldwide. Her collaboration with Winsor & Newton has brought her work to new audiences. Her daily painting practice, shared openly and generously for over twenty years, has changed how thousands of people think about colour.
This is for the painter who gives their practice what time they can and knows, quietly, that it deserves more. If Vicki's work makes you want to pick up a brush, you belong here.
VICKI MCGRATH MASTERCLASS HIGHLIGHTS
Seeing Simply: Light, Value and Shape, Acrylic & Gouache
Before anything else, you learn to see. Vicki breaks down complex scenes into clear value masses, building the confidence to paint decisively from the very first session. A practical and grounding start, in both acrylic and gouache.
A Weeklong Masterclass of Bold Colour & Light
Fruit Still Life I: Colour and Form, Acrylic or Gouache
A single subject. A focused palette. Vicki guides you into colour mixing, temperature, and the quiet power of colour to describe form. Simple in premise. Surprising in what it reveals.
Fruit Still Life II: Light and Atmosphere,
Acrylic or Gouache
The subject returns. The possibilities expand. Working now with contrast, edges, and luminosity, you will push toward paintings that feel genuinely light-filled and alive.
Florals: Gesture and Movement, Acrylic
Flowers are unforgiving of hesitation. Vicki teaches you to work with loose, expressive brushwork and simplified shapes, capturing organic forms before the impulse is lost.
Gouache Landscape Vignette: Atmosphere and Design
The week closes with a small landscape-inspired composition in gouache. Strong shapes. Simplified forms. Depth and atmosphere built with restraint and intention. A fitting end to everything the week has built.
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.
"Colour is not decoration. It is structure. Once you understand that, everything changes.
It is going to be a fabulous week and I hope you will join me."
— Vicki
A PERSONAL NOTE FROM VICKI MCGRATH
See more of Vicki'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.
Discover more
Exclusive pre-sale registration for waitlist members starts on Monday, April 27, at 12 noon ET.
Retreat places are limited and fill quickly.
SPRING
20-27 MAY 2027
VICKI MCGRATH
