La Clusaz painting weekends

Our relaxing informal watercolour weekends are perfect for individuals or groups who would like to learn watercolour painting or who would like to improve their techniques, as well as learn new ones.

One of the most important aspects of watercolour painting is colour mixing. Our courses offer tuition in colour appreciation, watercolour techniques, tone and hue and much more. They also involve painting outside - en plein air - to capture the true beauty of the scenery!

Our September 2011 weekend painting holidays will be tutored by ,Sonia Hawes,Lionel Playfordand Joanne Boon Thomas,

Sonia Hawes has sketched in South America, Antarctica, China, and Europe amongst other places and has a great enthusiasm for encouraging students to have a go and to discover their potential.

She is a qualified teacher and has run Adult learning classes in art, life drawing and creative writing for over ten years. She runs workshops for local authority events and art groups, takes part in The Big Draw and Northamptonshire Open Studios, paints in watercolour, pastel and acrylic and runs summer art days from her home in Eydon.

Her painting weekends aim to give individual and group help to students of all abilities to enable them to go home with sketches, small paintings and photographs which can be used as a starting point for further work. She also includes tutorials on sketchbooks and the use of different materials. 

Lionel Playford is a practicing professional artist who specializes in landscape drawing and painting. He exhibits regularly in galleries across Northern England and occasionally in London.

Over the past 18 years Lionel has taught a variety of subjects in painting and drawing since he graduated in Fine Art from the University of Northumbria in 1991. He currently teaches for the Centre of Lifelong Learning with Sunderland University and for Higham Hall in the Lake District. Lionel has experience making art with a wide range of people of all ages in settings as varied as public art galleries, factories, banks, schools, local art clubs and most frequently in adult education.  

Joanne lives in the North West of Lancashire a self-taught artist specialising in Watercolour, an experienced qualified adult education tutor running many popular watercolour workshops throughout the North West area. Joanne is a professional artist with many years of teaching experience. Joanne demonstrates Watercolour techniques for various Art Societies as well as tutoring painting holidays in the UK and abroad, and is a regular contributor to The Leisure Painter Magazine.

I have always loved to paint, draw, and create. I feel the need to paint every day. I was encouraged at an early age by a teacher who recognised my love of drawing and since that time creativity has always played an important role through out my life. For me the qualities I am looking for in a great piece of work are, pleasing composition, harmonious colour, interesting textures and a quality of light. I am a great believer in painting 'Plein air' I love nothing better than to be on site collecting ideas and reference that I can use to create later paintings from. I find watercolour ideal for capturing the transparent effects of light and mood, it can be exciting yet unpredictable. This all adds to the excitement, the challenge I suppose is part of the attraction.