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arts · Thursday 27 August 2026 · 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM 
Drawing the Landscape Workshop
At Wexford Arts Centre · High Street, Wexford, Co. Wexford
At Wexford Arts Centre · High Street, Wexford, Co. Wexford
If you have ever looked out at the Irish countryside and wanted to get it down on paper, this four-day intensive at Wexford Arts Centre is a practical place to start. The Drawing the Landscape Workshop runs across the last days of August, taking participants from basic landscape composition through to developing a personal mark-making style - outdoors, in the actual Wexford landscape, not just from photographs pinned to a studio wall. It suits complete beginners as much as it does practised artists who want to push their observational drawing further.
The workshop alternates between sessions inside the arts centre and outdoor drawing in the surrounding area. In the studio you work on the fundamentals - composition, perspective, how to read a landscape and decide what to put in and what to leave out. Outside, you put those ideas into practice, sketching directly from the scene, which is the core discipline of plein air drawing.
The pace is intensive rather than casual: four full days, 10 AM to 4 PM, with tutor guidance throughout. All levels are genuinely welcome - beginners work alongside those returning to a practice they put down years ago. A materials list goes out once you book, so you arrive knowing what to bring. Numbers are kept small enough for individual attention, so pre-booking is essential.
Wexford Arts Centre itself is worth knowing about. Established in 1974, it occupies a building that dates to 1776 - a former cornmarket and town hall in the neoclassical style - and is the oldest regional arts centre in Ireland.
Wexford town is well served by Bus Eireann from Dublin, Waterford, and Rosslare, with the stop a short walk from High Street. By road it is roughly 90 minutes south of Dublin on the M11/N11, and about an hour from Waterford via the N25. Town-centre parking can be tight; the Redmond Square multi-storey is the most practical option and is a five-minute walk from the arts centre.
Wexford town sits on the estuary of the River Slaney and the quays, the narrow medieval streets, and the surrounding farmland and coast give you exactly the kind of landscape you will be practising all week. There is more to see in Wexford and across Co. Wexford.
Heading to Wexford Arts Centre in Wexford? Wexford has plenty more to see. Read the Wexford area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.