Expressive Painting in the Algarve Landscape

Course date is September 8^th - 14^th 2024
(Arrive on Sunday, taught course Monday - Friday)

Cost - from £1995 ( + £200 single room supplement ) for accommodation, food, tuition and materials.

Inspiration for your painting this week will come from your experiences of being in the beautiful coastal Nature Reserve at the Western end of the Algarve. A short walk from the fishing village of Salema, and the rugged untouched coves nearby, you will be staying at the villa of artist Ros Hodges where you will be treated to the most delicious food and relaxing surroundings, including a pool. During the 5 days you will be immersed in this spectacular, expansive landscape making paintings. Walking on the paths brushing past wild fennel, navigating between sun bleached plants, across hills down to the beach and sea you will make paintings that capture the place and fleeting experiences. Colour will be an important theme to explore; to give an equivalent to the glowing red earth, rugged vistas to the sea, the wiry, bleached vegetation and beautiful light. Even the invisible and intangible sensations of heat, breeze, birdsong, space and your mood can be translated into colour and marks.

Making the most of the early morning coolness, you will start each day with a walk. Going out before breakfast with a snack and drink in your little rucksack to make studies of the landscape as the sun comes up. This gives you more time to feel connected to the place and witness the changes and colours that come alive moment by moment. Using these studies and the experience you will return to the villa to work in your own space, sheltered around the house, where paintings can be developed. Emily will provide practical demonstrations and exercises to enable you to unpack how to go about this. There will be primed canvas, beautiful papers and sketchbooks available to work on. Generous quantities of oil paint or acrylics, inks, mediums and mixed media are provided.

You may take it as a stand alone course or you might want to combine it with the course running the previous week; An Artists Retreat - Walking, Drawing, Writing with Katie Sollohub. Sunday September 1st – 7th. A magical combination, as one will feed so beautifully into the other. (There is a 10% discount if you book for both courses).

Please be aware that to get to the sea and the more remote areas of landscape you will need to have the capacity to be able to walk and carry a day pack 2km and an ability to walk on narrow, uneven, hilly coastal earth paths. If this is not possible then the gardens and landscape that surrounds the house are also beautiful and full of inspiration.

See Course Details for more information

Gallery