Bush Studio

Dates: Thursday 6 – Friday 7 November 2025 (Term 4 Week 4)
Venue: Gibberagong Environmental Education Centre (North Turramurra)

Cost:

• $250 for metro students
• $187.50 for rural and remote students  NSW regional, rural and remote public schools list (DOCX 122.41 KB)

Bush Studio: visual arts camp provides an opportunity for public school students in Year 7 and 8 to be involved in an engaging, challenging and stimulating visual arts program led by an experienced visual arts teacher. 

The camp aims to provide students with an opportunity to observe, interpret and respond to their immediate environment at Ku-ring-gai National Park, Bobbin Head. Students will learn strategies to explore their immediate experience of the landscape to create preliminary works as departure points for resolved studio-based artworks.

Bushwalking in the Ku-ring-gai National Park will provide exciting opportunities for students to directly observe and visually document the subtle nuances of the natural environment using drawing and mixed media. Students will investigate ways to create sculptural works using natural found objects and use these sculptures to facilitate the making of drawings and monoprints. The program will culminate in an exhibition for families, friends and teachers.

Date: Thursday 4 – Friday 5 December 2025 (Term 4 Week 8)
Venue: Gibberagong Environmental Education Centre (North Turramurra)

Cost:

• $250 for metro students
• $187.50 for rural and remote students  NSW regional, rural and remote public schools list (DOCX 122.41 KB)

Bush Studio: artist in residence is a visual arts camp for students in Years 9 and 10, especially those considering further studies in visual arts. Students are given the opportunity to work alongside a carefully selected artist to observe, interpret and respond to their immediate environment at Ku-ring-gai National Park, Bobbin Head. Previous artists in residence include illustrator Patrick Shirvington (2023) and abstract, process-based artist Emily Besser (2024).

2025 artist-in-residence Nicole Barakat is a Kfarsghabi, Lebanese artist living on the lands and waters of the Gadigal People. Nicole’s creative practice is rooted in remembering and re-gathering her ancestral knowing. She works with deep listening and intuitive processes with intentions to transform the conditions of everyday life. Her artwork engages unconventional approaches to art-making, creating intricate works that embody the love and patience characteristic of traditional textile practices.  Her works include hand-stitched and hand-cut cloth and paper drawings, sculptural forms made with her own hair, cloth and plant materials as well as live work where she uses her voice as a material.

Date: Thursday 1 – Friday 2 May 2025 (Term 2 Week 1)
Venue: Gibberagong Environmental Education Centre (North Turramurra)

Cost:

• $300 for metro students
• $225 for rural and remote students  NSW regional, rural and remote public schools list (DOCX 122.41 KB)

Bush Studio: master class is a visual arts camp for students in Year 11, especially those studying Visual Arts, including related VET,  content endorsed, board endorsed and life skills courses. Students are given the opportunity to refine their skills in specific expressive forms as they work alongside carefully selected artists to observe, interpret and respond to their immediate environment at Ku-ring-gai National Park, Bobbin Head. 

Dedicated students are invited to work alongside artists Emily Besser and Hayley West to discover the intersection of painting, drawing and ceramics through dialogue between materials and artists' processes.  Experiment with numerous painting and drawing mediums in order to overcome preconceptions of their scope. Create dramatic juxtapositions through varied scale, density of brushstrokes and pigment, colour and texture as you harness the possibilities of paper as a surface. Refine hand building techniques with clay and explore surface treatments as you redefine their limitations. Be challenged to consider alternative sources of meaning in artworks through activities inspired by the narrative of the landscape as you resolve a process based collection of works.

Date: Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 August 2025 (Term 3 Week 6)
Time: 9:30 am – 2 pm
Venue: Field of Mars Environmental Education Centre (East Ryde)
Cost: $50 per student

Bush studio is a one day workshop for Stages 2 and 3. To meet demand the program will be offered on two separate days. 

Registrations through Field of Mars Environmental Education Centre

Bush Studio: visual arts enrichment is an invitation to students in year 3 to 6 to spend the day immersed in, and be inspired by, the unique urban bushland setting of the Field of Mars Reserve and to experiment with a range of mediums to make engaging and interesting artworks.

Students will be introduced to a variety of work by Australian contemporary artists, including First Nations artists, and begin to consider the wide range of perspectives and processes contemporary artists use when making their work. Students will be encouraged to work collaboratively at times, to rethink what drawing can be and do, and to play with the idea of permanence and ephemerality in their artwork. An online gallery at the end of the program provides a platform for students to showcase their artworks and artmaking process. Media used may include drawing, writing, painting, collage, clay and stop-animation.  

This one-day workshop is designed to extend participants' skills and artmaking experiences beyond the classroom. Teachers are encouraged to extend this opportunity to students who display a higher level of engagement in visual arts.