Our September 2013 Painting Holiday -Photos and Update

 We had yet again a great bunch of people joining us on our September painting holiday and were delighted to have another full house! As well as welcoming many new faces it was especially nice to see some familiar ones and thank you to Rosie and Hunter who had recommended us to friends - hope we lived up to expectations!
 

Rock and the Camel Estuary was our first location on the North coast . A favourite place, where we had taken our first group to, back in April 2011. The weather was glorious and made for an ideal painting morning with the ever changing lines of the golden sandbanks and the transparent blues and greens of the Camel river against the back drop of the green hills speckled with lemon and pink flowers.
 

It was then onto the Longcross hotel, for a delicious lunch before heading off for an afternoon of painting and sketching at the beautiful national heritage spot of Port Quinn. Many of the group were fascinated by the intense colours and formations of the natural rocks and stones while others chose to explore the dramatic wild rugged cliff tops.
 

  

 

On day two, we were in for a few surprises when we visited Charlestown , as they were in the middle of filming a Norwegian children's pirate movie, Captain Sabbertooth. Once Ashley's teaching got under way, even the film crew were interested in Ashley's tutorial and it was the first time we had encountered Charlestown with the odd palm tree thrown in for good measure! It still retained it's charm and character and there was some interesting work emerging. Once again a BIG thank-you to The Pier House Hotel for our hearty lunch, who never fail to look after us.
 

Our next stop was Polruan. It almost wouldn't be the same without a rain shower and although we were tempted to make a detour to the pub, it cleared up enough for everyone to enjoy the walk and viewpoints to the 12th century Blockhouse ruin and the climb to the top of St Saviour's Hill  for a panorama of the coastline.
 

As always, Ashley then stepped it up a gear once in the studio over the next 2 days . Colour was big on the agenda and the group warmed up with a variety of colour exercises. As well as having fun - the canvases used would later be transformed into paintings inspired from the coastal landscape from our 2 days out on location.

 Ashley continued to challenge the group encouraging them to try out new techniques using different objects to make marks. It was great to see people working in a variety of ways. Some on the floor, others splattering, dripping or spreading paint. By the end of the last day there was some really nice pieces of work made and most people had paintings that were quite different to anything they had done before.







Steve Walsh's Painting

Barbara Heseltine's Painting



Rosemary Graham's Painting's



Birgit Ackroyd's Painting

Avenda Burnell Walsh's Painting

 
 
 


  


By Friday evening we were really ready to enjoy our celebratory evening at Asquith's restaurant in Lostwithiel, (After a quick pit stop to the 13th century Globe Inn) . Thank-you Graham and Sally,  the service and food was amazing once again and it was a fantastic end to a wonderful week of painting with lots of hard work, fun and great company. Thank-you all for signing up to 'Freedom in Painting in the Cornish Coastal Landscape'. We do hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as we did and that we might see you again soon!

Denise & Ashley

  We now have our dates for 2014:  12th - 17th May & 22nd - 27th September 2014.   If you are interested in finding out more or would like to be included on our mailing list for information on courses/holidays or exhibitions, contact denise@ashleyhanson.co.uk or call 01208 77656