Rosa Botanical Art Fair
1-4 May 2026
West dean Gardens and College
Hello,
Would you like to visit one of the most beautiful gardens in the UK? The first week-end in May would be a great time to do so… West Dean Gardens and College are hosting a botanical art fair, organising special tours of the gardens and more unusually, tours of the house. Usually this magnificent house is not open to the public, so this is a great chance to have a peak inside. I am ready to bet you will find it even more beautiful than you had imagined.
I have been teaching there for more than 20 years and I am still in awe at West Dean’s breathtaking beauty, but even more the atmosphere, something I have never felt to this extent anywhere else. As you walk through the house, in every room, around every corner, there is something exciting and creative going on… A quartet rehearsing in the old library, some people quietly weaving on the huge looms in the workshops, a student playing the grand piano in the Oak Hall during their lunch break, a luthier making a violin upstairs while a group of artists are painting in watercolours on the floor below… And in the background the splendour and quiet of the South Downs only disturbed by birds all around and sheep in the hills. West Dean is a magical place.
I will be at West Dean during most of the fair:
Friday I am teaching a whole day course on Basic Watercolour Techniques.
Saturday I will be demonstrating for the Society of Botanical Artists at 2 pm as part of their exhibition, in which I am also taking part.
Sunday I will run 3 taster botanical painting sessions in the workshops.
Here is a link to my Friday course
This is a link to my taster sessions on the Sunday
And this is a link to the Rosa event on the West Dean website
If you are around, it would be a pleasure to see you…
Sandrine
Sandrine Maugy 