A Painting Holiday in the Dordogne

January 10, 2008

A relaxed painting holiday in the Dordogne where you will have a lovely time painting, drawing and seeing the sights…
Do you fancy a friendly, hands-on painting holiday where you can soak up the French life and learn to paint or draw the way you’ve always dreamed?
Do you feel frustrated by not being able to translate that beautiful view, building or still-life into an accomplished masterpiece?

‘Learn to Paint in France’ is run by English chef Jim Fisher and his wife, Lucy. Jenny, their fifteen year old daughter, goes to the local school at Montignac.
They live in a converted barn in the rolling Dordogne countryside, and it is from here that they run their cooking and art holidays.
They have worked hard to build their extremely popular cookery school and art holiday business, but thoroughly enjoy the challenge and experience of providing relaxing and fun activity holidays for their guests.

Learn to Paint in France offers you painting courses and holidays in the most beautiful part of France.. The Dordogne.

Learn skills that are already within you…
Well, our experienced friendly artists say that it’s all about showing you how to really ’see’ with artist’s eyes, and being able to build a successful painting while they gently tease out skills that are already in you!
In just a few idyllic days you’ll learn to paint and draw with skill and flair, enhance your painting technique and have a lovely time in great company and peaceful surroundings.
All subjects and media covered…
Between them, our tutors cover the complete range of subject matter:

  • Landscapes
  • Portaiture
  • Still-life
  • Animals
  • Buildings and architecture

and the most popular media:

  • Watercolour
  • Gouache
  • Acrylic
  • Oil
  • Pencil and charcoal
  • Mixed media

We’re friendly, English-speaking and cater for all skill levels…
Our great value painting holidays prices (starting from just £120 per person)are conducted in English and are designed to cater for all skill levels. So, whether you’re an outright beginner, keen amateur or budding professional, you’ll always be in good company.

When you email us, or phone 0033 [0]553 302405, we’ll have a chat about what you want to achieve. Then, we’ll tailor the course to suit you and your fellow guests by gathering together similarly skilled painters on the same course. How simple is that?!
So, if you enjoy painting among friendly like-minded people in a warm relaxed atmosphere, come and learn to paint with us because you’ll quickly feel very much at home.

For more information about “Painting in the Dordogne” please visit: http://www.learntopaintinfrance.com/

Written by admin · Filed Under Activities, Art & Literature 

Race to save moulding Lascaux cave paintings

January 2, 2008

By John Lichfield in Paris

 

The French government is taking emergency action to rescue the world’s most celebrated prehistoric cave paintings from a second fungal invasion in seven years.

Each day until 8 January, experts are treating the caverns at Lascaux in the Dordogne – nicknamed the Sistine Chapel of pre-history – with a fungicide to try to check a gradual spread of spots of grey and black mould. The caves will then be closed to all but essential visitors for three months.

An air conditioning system, installed just before a similar fungal attack seven years ago, is to be replaced. Some scientists believe the introduction of the machinery was misconceived and may be partially responsible for the fungal invasions.

Other experts blame global warming for increasing the temperature in the caves. Others point to an increased level of human activity in the caverns as part of an ambitious attempt to create an exact computerised record in three dimensions of the 17,000-year-old paintings of bison, wild cattle, deer and other animals.

Whatever the explanation, the French government has decided to take no risks and to accept the advice of a committee of experts which met at Lascaux, in south-western France, just before Christmas. The fungicide will be sprayed on the stricken areas of the cave walls. The three-dimensional survey will be halted. The air-conditioning unit will be replaced.

No public visits to Lascaux have been allowed since 1963 but almost all visits by scientists and historians will be banned for at least three months.

Officials from the French government’s department of historic monuments and experts from all over the world have been quarrelling for years over the best way to preserve the paintings. Last September, the “International Committee for the Conservation of Lascaux”, infuriated Paris by writing a letter to the UN cultural body, Unesco, asking for the caves to be included in the official list of world heritage sites “in peril”.

The French government has minimised the scale of the new fungal attack. Officials say that the invasion is much smaller than the blankets of white fungus which spread over the walls of the caverns, and some of the painting, in 2001 and 2002. On this occasion, only small areas of pre-historic drawings have been touched and none has been damaged. Scientists fear, however, that the second attack, so soon after the first, is a warning that the micro-climate in the caverns has been permanently altered in ways which may be difficult to reverse.

The American scientist Laurence Léauté- Beasley, president of the international Lascaux committee, has called for the management of the caves to be taken out of the hands of the French government and entrusted to a “higher scientific body”. She accuses French authorities of “improvisation” and “lack of scientific thoroughness”.

The Lascaux paintings were discovered by four teenagers in September 1940. The 600 images of bison, horses, wild cattle and ibexes, some at rest, some running or jumping, are regarded as among the finest cave paintings in the world. It is thought that they were painted between 15,000 and 17,000 years ago by hunter-gathering people who crushed minerals to create drawings in red, ochre, brown and black.

Written by admin · Filed Under News