MOROCCO PAINTING & DRAWING TOUR
with
MIKE STANIFORD & DEBBIE MACKINNON
28 March – 11 April 2026

This 14 day tour will traverse a large part of southern Morocco, from the ancient city of Marrakech over the High Atlas Mountains to the edge of the Sahara.

Debbie Mackinnon & Mike Staniford will share their skills and expertise in drawing and painting, finding a balance between site seeing and art making. We will work with drawing mediums and watercolour paints or gouache on paper ‘en plein air’ to create a series of drawings as well as some more resolved paintings.

Both Mike and Debbie enjoy using travel sketchbooks and Debbie will show participants how to make an exciting mixed media concertina sketchbook. Mike will focus on plein air studies and fast watercolour sketchbook drawings.

Subjects will include the urban and rural landscape, interiors and architecture, the natural environment and the people of Morocco.

Some days will involve guided tours or long drives through spectacular landscape, visits to local artisan workshops, museums, cultural highlights and more, while other days will devote more time to art making.

 

 

ABOUT DEBBIE MACKINNON & MIKE STANIFORD

A renowned art couple, Mike Staniford and Debbie Mackinnon work as a team and will bring their combined experience in drawing and painting to this art adventure in Morocco. Both artists have a design background, extensive exhibition history and teaching experience and enjoy travel and working ‘en plein air’.

DEBBIE: ‘A frequent traveller, creating an exciting sketchbook is essential for exploring new places around the world – drawings always leave me with powerful memories… Turning on my observational eye is a conscious choice – finding unexpected glimpses of colour, the effects of rapidly changing light and weather on a subject and constantly shifting around to find interesting perspectives. I am a landscape painter, but with an abstracted edge. I like to work ‘fast and loose’ in my sketchbooks on location. My works are not ‘views’, but a combination of elements that I have observed, challenging the conventional notion of realism.

I am always inspired by the fleeting beauty of flowers and plants – my love of nature often leads me to walk and draw in gardens, where I can be lost in deep shade, peering into a pond and watching light flicker across the leaves. In my mind this is a ‘floral landscape’.

My mixed media drawings and paintings always contain multiple moments and perspectives, including a lot of time.’

 

 

 

 

MIKE: ‘Sketchbooks are an important part of my practice. You can come across the most extraordinary scene or subject when you least expect it when travelling. A ‘scribble pad,’ allows me to make those quick diverse gestural marks when I am literally on the move and which may only afford me a few minutes. There’s something incredibly valuable about recording a place in just a few marks, where the hand and eye have to make snap decisions about what to keep and what to leave out.

Watercolour and gouache are my favourite mediums and perfect for capturing the colour and energy of place. Sketches quickly become paintings. I love their fluidity and encourage artists to let the brush dance across the paper. I’m looking for that dialogue with the landscape, to distill down the complexity of a scene and to give you a sense of the emotion, as well as the topography of the land.

 

MORE ABOUT THE TOUR
Perched on the North West tip of Africa, Morocco is endowed with a rich and complex cultural history where the indigenous Amazigh (Berber) people maintain a strong connection with the land and their ancient traditions and lifestyle,

The warmth and good humour of the people in Morocco is immense and the insights into the Islamic world, Amazigh spirituality and contemporary life fascinating. Accommodation is provided in the most comfortable traditional guesthouses, where we will enjoy the extraordinary delights of Amazigh food, hospitality and traditional music.

The tour is not an intensive workshop as we aim to give you an immersive experience of this unique place, together with an opportunity to travel and work with Mike & Debbie.

Traveling with like-minded people and an experienced team of co-hosts including Australian artist/curator Rita Lazauskas and professional Amazigh Guide Abdenabi Imelouane, the program offers an innovative and creative way to explore a new place that is stimulating, supportive and safe.

CONTACT ACT to book