About us…

 Lyn and I felt the need to relax away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life at least for a few weeks a year.

 We spent many happy holidays in Cannes in the Cote d’Azure and it was some years ago when we were searching for a holiday home in that area, we decided to take the long route home and see the “other” side of France.

 That journey took us through Languedoc and the Dordogne, through Brittany and Normandy and home. The following year we went the long way round again to Cannes, in order to stop off and make the journey down part of the vacation.

 Down the A75 early one morning we detoured off the motorway and followed a sign for the “Gorges du Tarn”.
That first sight of the Tarn through the early morning haze, and the amazing journey through the rocks and mountains of Lozere, changed our lives.

 Here, in a less well known area of France, lay a community that had not fallen foul of fast food and plastic hotels. An area that still lived as it did years ago, but now survived mainly on a tourist season. An idea was born and a change of life and pace took place.

 Lyn’s love of painting and the time to enjoy her passion gave way to starting an art school, and with this began our new way of life.

  As for me………well I love to see people happy. Good food and wine, conversation and now time for others is my reward. Life here is easier than in England  but never seems dull, and we have made good friends of the locals who allow us into their way of life.

Chris your resident tutor is a character, passionate about art and music, he also appreciates the diversity of engineering and, like us, fell in love with the area.

 Having taken Art as a degree he didn’t stop there. A need to know and understand his craft led to several teaching positions both paid and unpaid in order to assist in his passion for art and the artist.

 A skill for engineering also help fund his desire to paint and it was with this in mind that he took some “time out” with his faithful BMW motorbike to follow the journey of artists throughout Europe. In order to keep in touch with the technique and the basics, he followed the trail of some of the masters, getting better knowledge of their craft and revising both the way he painted and why.

 Chris maintains this sabbatical  was just what the doctor ordered, and his time spent in and around Europe studying at exhibitions where he could, refreshed an already vibrant imagination for art and expanded his repertoire. He maintains that art at street level, in the bars and cafes enabled him to sketch scenes he would probably have forgotten, and so increased his portfolio.

 

 

He has also found that being a tutor is a two way journey, and that as much can be learned from the beginner as from the masters.

 We feel that in Chris we have found someone who cares, not just about art, but in you ; the people who create it! 

 We are all happy to be here for you.

Lyn, Jess and Chris.

Footnote; Thanks and Dedications.

 

To Herman; who made the transition here achievable; Joe and Jacqui, who solved everything I couldn't and never gave up, and Dom; for understanding my wife and her website!