Join artist and tutor Chloe Briggs with life model Ioi Choi, alongside like-minded passionate makers for a week of creative experimentation in mixed-media. Overlooking the Pyrénées mountains, this incredible setting will provide endless inspiration. Combined with focused expert instruction, Chloe’s workshop aims to inspire long lasting joy -
motivating you to take on new works with confidence and ambition.
About this course:
Chloe Briggs is known for ‘Drawing is Free’: a project which brings people together from around the world to draw as a group, as well as her successful Patreon where she encourages an open approach to drawing. Cultivating joy in this way, she aims to remove the judgement which so often can hold us back from true creativity.
Atelier Clos Mirabel are delighted to be welcoming Chloe back for her third Creative
Retreat. This week will be richly packed with activities as Chloe offers her skills and knowledge to the group. You will be encouraged to respond intuitively to the gardens and landscape around you, through drawing and developments in a range of other
mediums.
Chloe will be working with artist / dancer / model, Ioi Choi who has been her
collaborator for many years. Their intuitive and unorthodox approach to the life-drawing sessions on this course will open up new ways of drawing the figure and inspire you to connect with your own body through the process.
Programme Outline
Saturday
4.00 – Check-in time from 4pm onwards.
Guests arrive, settle in and explore Clos Mirabel
6.00 – Welcome drinks and dinner
Sunday
8.30 – 9.30 Buffet breakfast of local and regional produce
10.00 – 1.00 Introduction to the week with Chloe and Ioi. Prompts for going into the garden with sketchbooks to draw from our senses. Methods for experimental mark-making is shared and a focus on looking, feeling and the sounds and rhythms of nature.
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch at Clos Mirabel
2.00 – 4.00 Experimental marks made in the morning become the inspiration for the life-model. We continue to open what a free approach to drawing could be.
6.00 – Aperitifs before 4 course dinner in the Manor House
Monday
8.30 – 9.30 Buffet breakfast of local and regional produce
10.00 – 1.00 Seeds – Growing a drawing. Working closely and from observation from seeds / seed pods collected in the garden. These mediative drawings will be taken through a process of transformation and will grow.
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch at Clos Mirabel
2.00 – 4.00 The morning ‘Seed’ drawings will inspire the model’s poses and how she grows, unfurls, moves.
6.00 – Aperitifs before 4 course dinner in the Manor House
Tuesday
8.30 – 9.30 Buffet breakfast of local and regional produce
10.00 – 1.00 Alternative Anatomy of a Flower’ prompts for drawing the plants and flowers through making connections to the body. Warm-up exercises in the studio and research in the garden.
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch at Clos Mirabel
2.00 – 4.00 Life-drawing. The body as a Flower. Experimental ways of working with and from the morning’s flower studies to create hybrid forms.
6.00 – Aperitifs before 4 course dinner in the Manor House
Wednesday – Free day (Lunch is not included)
8.30 – 9.30 Buffet breakfast of local and regional produce
10.00 – 6.00 Free day. You can work on your own project, visit Pau, or spend a few hours browsing through the rich collection of books, catalogues and journals Chloe’s personal collection, Clos Mirabel have lots of lovely books too.
6.00 – Aperitifs before 4 course dinner in the Manor House
Thursday
8.30 – 9.30 Buffet breakfast of local and regional produce
10.00 – 1.00 The Tree: drawing demonstration for sustained study of a chosen tree in the garden. Close, patient looking and drawing from nature encouraged as a form of mediation.
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch at Clos Mirabel
2.00 – 4.00 Continuation of the morning’s life-drawing.
6.00 – Aperitifs before 4 course dinner in the Manor House
Friday
8.30 – 9.30 Buffet breakfast of local and regional produce
10.00 – 1.00 1:1 meetings with Chloe with a focus on how to maintain a creative practice back home and beyond the retreat.
Work developed independently for presentation later in the day
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch at Clos Mirabel
2.00 – 4.00 Work developed independently for presentation later in the day
6.00 – ‘Drawing is Free’ portrait session, exhibition and Aperitifs before 4 course dinner in the Manor House
Saturday – Buffet Breakfast and departure (Check-out 11am)
Non-participating guests: we are more than happy to welcome non-drawing guests, accompanying partners, family or friends. There are plenty of activities to experience around Clos Mirabel, that will make your holiday unforgettable Click here for more information.
The Art Studio, offers a spacious open plan layout of 75 m2. It is available at all times during your stay. Click here for more information.
