Departure date:
Date : 22 to 29 June 2008 - 7 nights

 Price: €920 per person (without flight) Single supplement €120

 

This tour is running in conjunction with the St.Jean tour. This means that partners who do not paint can walk with Jonathan. The tour is held at the summer solstice when the Couserans celebrates this important time of the year with folk dances and early summer festivals. There will be an opportunity for art students to participate including an evening out in Sentein where we eat with the locals and join in the dancing and festivities on the day of the summer Solstice. Art students can also take a day off to walk with Jonathan if they wish.


The course
The course is for painters of all abilities: from beginners needing tuition and support to experienced painters looking for the challenge of new settings in the company of fellow enthusiasts.
The course is based at Les Clos Enchanté, a 200-year-old mansion in Castillon en Couserans, a village in the Ariège, a remote and beautiful department in the Central Pyrenees

The tutor
We are very pleased to have Monica Ismay Horn as our new tutor for our painting holiday this year.
Monica was brought up in Jamaica in the West Indies. She did her art training in Falmouth Art School and the Royal College of Art. She has taught various forms of art (sculpture, batik, print, and paper making) to many age groups for over 20 years including; Oxford community education and St.Clare’s School Oxford. She now works in her own studio where she gives private tuition as well as working on her own paintings.
“I usually work in watercolours and acrylics, with occasional forays into oils, oil pastels, and pastels”.
“I am essentially a lyrical painter, influenced by the environment of my native Jamaica, as well as by the landscapes of Canada and England. I seek to celebrate nature, concentrating on the harmony of relationships to achieve a rhythm and balance in my work”.
Monica will take her students (all levels are accepted) through a number of techniques to do with colour, texture, and pattern. Using different subject matter and a number of different locations you will learn many interesting and useful ways to paint and draw.
Website (http://www.ismayarts.co.uk) gives more information, showing examples of her current work.





 
 

A typical day
The day begins with breakfast between 8.30am and 9am. At breakfast you can help yourself to cereals, fruit, pastries, and occasionally a cooked breakfast. Coffee, teas, and fruit juices will be offered.
At around 9am you will be taken to the place where you will be working for the day: either into the garden or park of Le Clos Enchanté or you will be taken by minibus to the bustling market at St Girons or to a local village or up into the mountains.

With or without Monica’s’ involvement, depending on your preference, you will work on the task that you (and Monica) have chosen until lunch time. If you are at Le Clos Enchanté, there will be a buffet lunch, cold meats and a salad with wine, cheese and a dessert. If you are elsewhere, you will be provided with a picnic.
In the afternoon, the painting resumes although some take the opportunity to put down their brushes and walk off into the surrounding area. Work normally finishes at around 4pm.
Between 4pm to 6pm people have time to themselves. At around 6.30pm the group meets in the library over a pre-dinner drink to learn about the plans for the next day’s activities. On four of the evenings, dinner is taken at Le Clos Enchanté; on the other three evenings the group will be taken by minibus to a local restaurant.
On one of the days, there is no tuition and students are free to use the facilities at Le Clos Enchanté or, for an extra cost, to join an excursion into the local area.
At the end of the course an open-air exhibition of students’ work will be held in the park.

The cost
The price, based on two people sharing a room, is €920 per person for the seven-day painting course. There is a supplement of €120 for the single-occupancy of a room with more than one bed. The cost for non-painting partners, sharing a room, is €695.
A non-refundable deposit of €150 per person is payable on booking; the balance is due four weeks before departure.
Telephone bookings (call + 33 5 61 04 64 47) can be made at any time but the best time to call is between 3pm and 7pm French time. We are one hour ahead of UK time.
We are bonded by the French 'habilitation tourisme' scheme (No. HA 009 02 0003) which guarantees the security of the deposit and the advance payments made to book holidays with Jonathan's Tours.

The price includes:
Accommodation; breakfast, lunches and four evening meals; excursions to such places as St.Girons’ vibrant market, the ancient town of St.Lizier and the flower-filled meadows of the Pyrenean foothills, five days’ tuition; transfer to and from Toulouse airport (we do one transfer on the arrival and departure days, please check your arrival and departure times with us).

The price does not include:
Flight ticket; personal insurance; the excursion on the free day; lunches on arrival and departure days and three evening meals. The lunches and evening meals should cost between €20 and €35, including wine.  There are low-cost flights to Toulouse from Gatwick (British Airways and easy Jet), Birmingham and Bristol (Flybe). Ryanair fly to Carcassone from Stansted, East Midlands and Liverpool. Try www.cheapflights.co.uk



book the painting course in the Pyrenees in June 2008