DRAWING with PLACE, Orkney Islands, Scotland

Orkney Creative Retreats with The Museum of Loss and Renewal
Lead by artist, curator and educator Tracy Mackenna

DRAWING with PLACE 2026
7 nights/8 days Workshop in the Orkney Islands, Scotland

Sat 04 July – Sat 11 July 2026
£1350.00 GBP

Time and space, curated with care, for six people to explore drawing and mark-making in the remarkable environment of the Orkney Islands.

Drawing with Place

DRAWING with PLACE invites you to take the time to slow down by experiencing and investigating place through drawing. All forms of drawing are encouraged, activated through experimentation, play, trial and error. Being and working in the ancient environment of the Orkney Islands will stimulate deep consideration of time, perspective, and personal and environmental well-being.

There are just six places available, and participants will be accommodated in 5-star rated self-catering accommodation in the village of Palace, in Orkney’s ancient heart of Birsay.

DRAWING with PLACE is a retreat that has been carefully designed to provide structured workshops that explore and question what drawing is and can be. It will suit all those who are developing, extending, and challenging their drawing practices. Support and encouragement are at the heart of the week, under the careful guidance of award-winning educator, artist, and curator Tracy Mackenna. We welcome participants who think through drawing and for whom drawing is a way to investigate and understand place, and from practitioners who have a strong interest in drawing as an area of practice.

Our Creative Retreat is designed to help you step out of your daily routine, to decelerate, so you can focus your energy through creativity and rest, heightening senses and increasing inspiration. The retreat will give you dedicated time and space to explore your own creativity through a careful balance of guided workshops and uninterrupted personal hours.

Your Week in the Orkney Islands

DRAWING with PLACE will encourage and support you to be inventive and experimental, to have fun and take risks – all the while being attentive to your remarkable surroundings and your own needs. 

The Creative Retreat offers a carefully balanced itinerary with workshops that focus on historical and contemporary ways of drawing, discussion, presentation, making and sharing. Participants will be introduced to the natural landscape and to Orkney’s world-class archaeological sites. By walking, listening, looking and making, participants will activate drawing and mark-making in multiple ways.

Every morning we will step on to the beautiful coastal environment that includes the St Magnus Way pilgrimage route, inspired by the life and death of Magnus, Orkney’s patron saint. At the Atlantic Ocean, just a few minutes walk from your accommodation, Birsay Bay’s 400million year old rock structures reflect how landmasses have moved, and how glacial erosion has sculpted the islands that we know today as Orkney. Intricate and immersive patterns will draw us in whilst the scale of the coastal masses help us consider perspective, climate change, and future scenarios. These locations, along with RSPB reserves and world heritage archaeological sites, will be the sites for a series of tailored drawing exercises. Indoor working spaces next to your accommodation will enable you to experiment, get mucky and test ideas.

Each afternoon is time for you to explore by walking, working indoors or outdoors, reading, recording or simply just being and digesting the morning’s experiences. Late afternoon gatherings are moments to share and discuss and are optional, so you can choose to shape the space, pattern and time you need during this week. Evening gatherings by the shore are an invitation to converse and reflect while watched by the seals in the hypnotic beam of the Brough of Birsay’s Stevenson lighthouse.

A Welcome to Orkney

The Orkney Islands are a truly special place, with a unique mix of both calming and dramatic natural environments. The Creative Retreat is centred in the area of The Palace, Birsay – Orkney’s ancient capital – in the islands’ West Mainland. Birsay has sustained communities of Neolithic peoples, Picts, Vikings, and Scottish Royalty and today is home to a multi national community. Outstanding sites include prehistoric and Norse settlements on the tidal island of Brough of Birsay, and the ruins of the Earl’s Palace in the village.

Information about how to travel to Orkney can be found on the web page tabs. Arrive on the first day to a warm welcome from Orkney resident Tracy, and settle into your accommodation. Evening activities include drinks by the Atlantic ocean – a few minutes walk from your accommodation – introductions, and orientation, all in the spirit of relaxing conversation. 

Your Tutor

Tracy Mackenna is a highly experienced, award-winning artist, curator, educator and publisher. Drawing and mark-making run through everything that she does, including framed work for exhibition, large-scale site-specific installation, illustration, note-making and annotation. She works individually and in collaboration and her passion is gathering people together to create new types of energy that can lead to the unexpected.

Through Tracy’s experience and generous approaches she will share ways of working, uses of materials, and ideas around thinking and engaging with Orkney for you to build into your own practices.

Post-Booking Information

You will receive confirmation of your booking within 48 hours.

The web page tabs contain useful information about the retreat, your journey to the Orkney Islands, and about Orkney.

A 50% non-refundable deposit of the full price is required at the time of booking. The balance will be due 6 weeks prior to your retreat. We will email an invoice link to you and payments can be made securely by credit/debit card through our online platform.

Before your arrival, a detailed schedule for the week will be emailed to you.

To help you with your travel arrangements, you should be in Orkney for check-in to accommodation from 16:00 on the first day of the Creative Retreat. Check-out is by 10:00 on the final day.

Walking in Orkney is glorious and varies from soft grassy paths to sandy beaches to rocky shores. Please do come prepared to walk, taking variable weather conditions into account. If you have any access needs, please do let us know.

You will be staying in 5-star rated self-catering accommodation, in single rooms in the ancient village of Palace in the Parish of Birsay. Work spaces are a few minutes walk from your accommodation. The wonderful and very well-stocked Palace Stores round the corner is run by Gordon, who is welcoming and accommodating, and the store can provide all you will need for a week’s stay. Sarah’s vegan bakes are renowned throughout Orkney.

Basic materials such as a range of papers, pencils and charcoals will be provided, so be sure to bring your preferred papers, sketchbooks and tools.

To give you ample time to experience the environment in your own way, our daily sessions will start at 10am and finish at lunch time. There will be multiple optional occasions for gathering and sharing in the late afternoons and evenings.

Itineraries may change slightly due to weather.

Please read the Booking Conditions tab on the web page which include our Terms and Conditions and Cancellation Policy before booking.

By acknowledging these conditions at the time of booking, you agree to and are bound by them.

Any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to email Tracy at tracy@tracy.mackenna.studio