There was the briefest moment late on Sunday afternoon when, standing back from the easel, paintbrush in hand, I almost felt like an artist. What I had produced was by no means accomplished but I was beginning to see what it could become.
It may sound like a modest achievement, but before signing up for a weekend Discover Painting course at St Ives School of Painting I had not put a brush to canvas since my GCSEs almost 30 years ago. Even at school I tried to avoid painting, so I knew the weekend would push me out of my comfort zone.
The pre-course nerves were compounded by the setting. Aside from chronic over-tourism, which the small Cornish town suffers all summer, St Ives is best known for art. Peter Lanyon, Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham are among scores of notable painters associated with the town, now home to both the Tate’s westernmost outpost and a museum and sculpture garden dedicated to Barbara Hepworth.
The School of Painting, set within the famed Porthmeor Studios, is a long-established part of that heritage – and all the painters mentioned above worked here at some point. It’s the dream artists’ studio: high ceilings, walls stacked with paints and palettes, and large, angled Atlantic-facing windows flooding the place with light.
My nerves were clearly shared by the eight others on the course, a mix of men and women aged between about 30 and 60. As we introduced ourselves on Saturday morning, we each owned up to varying levels of ineptitude. In contrast, Ilker Cinarel, our artist tutor, was all confidence on our behalf. We were not there to create a finished piece, he said. We were there to play, and to learn about processes of painting. Our imagined masterpieces would have to wait. It was a sentiment he would come back to several times over the two days, whenever he noticed we were taking things too seriously.
The school offers a range of courses – from oil painting to printmaking – for all levels. The Discover Painting course is described as “a fast track into painting from the heart” and in keeping with this we were at work – or, rather, play – quickly, at desks equipped with papers, paints and materials. We started small, knocking out pencil and charcoal sketches of a still life of pots. There was no time to wonder how bad our attempts were as, no sooner had we taped them to the walls, we were on to the next activity, mixing acrylic paints and creating colour palettes that ran from lightest yellows to forest greens, from deep reds to vibrant blues.
Mixing paints was a complete change of pace, part of what Ilker described as “the Zen part of painting”, though by the afternoon we were back to painting rapidly, first with a variety of brushes and then creating different textures with palette knives, sponges, thin sticks and pieces of card.
By the end of the first day, when I retired to The Quarterdeck, a one-bedroom apartment minutes from the studio, with views across St Ives harbour, I was tired enough to be glad I could order in a pizza.
By the second day, after an early morning swim at Porthgwidden beach and breakfast at Porthmeor Beach Cafe, the atmosphere in the studio had shifted. We were loosening up as we broke out the easels and moved onto larger canvases, drawing together the various techniques we’d practised. My still life sketches started to morph into something more abstract, close-ups of two sections of pots now beginning to resemble two planets colliding, all swirling blues and greens.
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“You will fail and fail and fail,” Ilker told us cheerfully as he moved between the desks, offering small suggestions and encouragement. He pulled down a large art book from a shelf to show us the 40 or 50 attempts Henri Matisse had made before getting his painting of a reclining nude “right”. It was liberating to feel I didn’t have to be good at something for a whole weekend.
A hush descended over the studio in the final two hours, contented concentration etched on our faces. Even if it was for just a few minutes, I suspect each of us forgot we had entered the studio on Saturday morning feeling we were frauds who had mistakenly been handed paintbrushes. Back home, I was even tempted to frame one of my attempts and hang it in my office.
The three-day Discover Painting course at St Ives School of Painting is £395pp. Accommodation was provided by Aspects Holidays; three-night stays at The Quarterdeck from £466.50
Wyl Menmuir is the author of The Heart of The Woods (Aurum, £16.99), available at guardianbookshop.com for £15.29. Delivery charges may apply
