Autumnal Colours
I regularly see painting holidays advertised as activity breaks for Irish hotels – particularly during the autumn season. I suppose this is for two very good reasons; the first being that the hotel wants to fill their rooms in the quieter period of the year and the second being that autumn (or ‘Fall’ if you prefer) colours are probably among the favourites for many acclaimed artists and ‘would be’ artists.
However, few hotels actually go into specific details about these courses; which is why I was very taken with the Renvyle House Hotel autumn painting course. John Hoar, the art teacher, is a prize winning watercolourist, based in Devon. John is quite precise with his advice to bring Winsor and Newton paints and specifies the colours of Raw Sienna, 
Burnt Umber. In addition he also suggests bringing ‘rigger’ watercolour paper (Bockingford or Arches 140 lb). This amount of detail has to impress and I get a definite feeling that this course will attract those eager painters who are keen to attain artistic achievement. Who knows, perhaps one of those attending might end up as a newly minted Claude Monet or Jackson Pollock at some future date!
The date in question for this painting course is Sunday 15th October and you can opt for a 2, 3 or 5 day course, which includes some field work (weather permitting and wellies essential!). Unfortunately I will be abroad during that period but would be very interested in featuring some feedback from an attendee on my Blog.
For more information and rates visit Renvyle House Hotel website. After all the location of Renvyle House is the perfect landscape for a painting course and you can just imagine all those autumnal colours oozing from the wild Connemara landscape and dripping artistically onto your page!
