I am Kimbra Taylor and I run a private drawing and watercolour painting atelier.

I offer a range of art courses and workshops including online courses, face to face classes and private-workshops showing beginner adults how to draw and paint with watercolour. You can do weekend and one day workshops, learning how to draw line drawings of complex flowers with relative ease. I am a commissioned portrait artist and exhibit and sell my work, locally and nationally. You can view my work in my online gallery.

It is my great joy to show you how to draw and paint by slowing down and anchoring in your right hemisphere. All you need is your willingness to show up and allow, as your small self (the left hemisphere) opens to moments of a more expansive state, where inspiration, presence and authenticity aren’t something you need to strive for but reveal themselves already within you when the noise of the mind softens.
 

CREDENTIALS

I graduated from the Wellington School of design with a Diploma of Visual Communications and gained a teacher’s certificate from Christchurch Training College. I worked as an illustrator and visualiser in publishing and advertising for several years. I went on to work as a freelance illustrator specializing in magazine, fashion and book illustration and was employed as a tutor at the Wellington School of Design in illustration, graphic techniques and life drawing.

I worked as a children’s book illustrator for Thomas Nelson publishing and have many published books. I have tutored at Whitireia Polytechnic, Weltec, the Wellington School of Architecture and Massey University where I taught life drawing, general drawing, illustration and perspective.

I attended the 2018 NZ Mindfulness Leadership Conference and in 2019 attended Bruno Cayhoun’s mindfulness retreat. I have worked with Stephen Archer, one of NZ’s foremost meditation teachers.

In 2024 I gained The Happiness Trainer Course certificate run by Marci Shimoff.
 

AWARDS

Finalist in the 2014 Parkin Award.
Finalist in the 2010 Adam Award National Portrait Exhibition. Her portrait, “Girl with a Blue Hot Water Bottle” was one of forty selected to tour the country.
Merit award at the 2010 Kapiti / Horowhenua Annual Review Exhibition – Select/ED.
2009 winner of the Gordon Harris best painting award at the NZ Splash National Watercolour Exhibition.
Studio Artist in the Kapiti Arts Trails.
 

I am currently working on a series of New Zealand native bird paintings.