Breakfast in a hunting lodge in North Wales

We ran our first painting holiday nearly ten years ago. It was a huge success and so, encouraged by artists’ enthusiasm for painting and being together we’ve done something every year since. From the outset we determined that we would run our holidays as house parties, a template that we knew worked from our holidays with other families in shared villas when our kids were young.

Rather than having people staying in different hotels and eating at different venues we’re together much of the time, living ‘en famille’ but to a rather higher standard than usual. This provides the social glue and structure to make really memorable holiday experiences.

Other than you, two things are particularly important on our holidays, painting and food. We always have a tutor who is not only a professional painter but also a competent teacher, you will learn and challenge yourself. We also make sure that our catering is of restaurant quality to maintain our ‘esprit de corps’ as we enjoy wine, food and good company.

Once those important things are right, everything else seems to flow into place.

Our venues are impressive and enable us to be creative whatever the weather, wandering out and painting the natural environment around us or working indoors if need be.

Your experience is important to us, you’ll have a host on the premises, usually Simon Dunstan, who will look after you throughout the holiday.

We are not a travel agent so you will be responsible for getting to our venue, we will of course give you clear advice about the best ways of doing that. You’ll be invited to join a Whatsapp group with the other guests, which will make it easier to coordinate travel, the share of taxis and so on.

We hope that you will consider coming on a painting holiday or creative retreat with us.

Links to what we have to offer at the moment:

Country House Painting Holiday in Hampshire – June 2024

Painting Holiday in Provence