Painting holidays South of France

Lots of quiet time for you to paint as you wish, free of distractions & worries, supported with some one-to-one individual tuition.
Structured lessons in the morning where the tutor teaches the skills of painting.

Typical Daily Time Table
8.00 – 9.00 : Breakfast
9.00 – 13.00 : structured painting session (with a coffee break)
13.00 : Lunch, Siesta
14.30 – 18.30 : Tutored painting time (with a tea break)
19.00 : Aperitifs & evening meal

Opt in or opt out as you wish, you paint at your own rhythm. The tempo is adapted to your needs.

Quiet, uninterrupted creative times …. not being called out by a person on business from Porlock.

Is The Art Course Right for Me?

The course is absolutely fine for absolute beginners. Just bring along your desire to learn, your paints & your holiday spirit, that’s all. We understand that you might be feeling apprehensive, but why not come & give it a try… pourquoi pas?

Two ‘absolute beginner level’ watercolours at the end of a weeks course.

Easy to understand tuition that ensured that we made real progress. – Sandy

I so enjoyed your enthusiastic introduction to painting. I have since joined an art class & been painting on a holiday at my cousin’s holiday home. Really loving this new found pleasure – Thank you! – Helen, Scotland.

Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect. – Alan Cohen.

Matisse on Beginner’s Mind : The effort to see things without distortion demands a kind of courage; and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he were seeing it for the first time.

Drawing Opens the Eyes

Once we start to draw, all of a sudden we begin to see again. Were we so blind? How could we have ignored the beauty, the intricacies of these ‘simplest things, ’ the convoluted network of veins in an oak leaf, the graceful curve of the clover’s stem, the starry splendor of humble dandelion, the voluptuous curves of a green pepper? . . . It is more than drawing pictures: it is a meditation-in-action on That Which Matters, a veritable breakthrough, an awakening from the years of non-seeing, from the coma of looking-at to firsthand seeing. It is as if the innocent eye of childhood is reawakened through the unjaded eye of the artist… The moment the eye opens up, all becomes equally fascinating, equally inspiring, equally pregnant with meaning. – Frederick Franck. Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing: Meditation in Action

The Basic Skills of Painting

In the structured lessons, you will learn or relearn the basic skills of painting. They are practical & hands-on where you experiment with the core components of painting:
Learn how to look in a way that will help you paint
Drawing
Tonality
Colour
Composition
Materials & Basic Techniques
How to paint ‘en plein air’ & sketch on the spot

The lesson on tonality was absolutely brilliant! The best presentation I’ve ever had. I now feel that I can deal with those tones in my painting. – Elizabeth

You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way. – Marvin Minsky

Advanced Level Painting Workshop

This workshop is flexible to your learning needs. You will:

Paint intensely either ‘en plein-air’ or inside the chateau or studio.
Have uncluttered time to focus on your own personal practice.
Be given help & suggestions with the practicalities & techniques.
Dialogue with a practicing mid-career painter, who will encourage the development of your personal style.
Making your next step can be difficult without support. When artists work in different places & contexts, a new flourish of creativity often follows as a response to this new input. The workshop hopes to give you this extra boost.

Painting is easy, until you know how. – Edgar Degas

By my teaching I hope to inspire you to personal activity and to help you find your way. – Robert Henri

It’s funny how you can keep being told something abstract for years and not fully hear it until something connects it to your own work and goals. Today I connected with the information better than ever before because of things you said to me during our workshop…….It’s an eye-opener to think of this key aspect of decision-making more consciously, and I’m grateful to you for raising my awareness of this. – Juliette, USA

Our Creative Origins

During the course we offer the possibility to visit a Prehistoric Painted Cave. To see these sanctuaries is a moving experience for artists. It will enlarge your understanding of ‘art’ & humanity. Adam will give a presentation on Prehistoric Art & Origins.

L’Art des Cavernes est l’enfance de l’art et non pas l’art de l’enfance. – Leroi–Gourhan.

We cannot get to the soul of the image without love for the image. – James Hillman. Inquiry into the Image