Four Young Artists Painting at Mawgan Porth

What a lovely way to spend part of a family holiday in Cornwall… sitting together on Mawgan Porth beach, looking out across that wonderful view and learning to paint it.

These four young ladies are all related and were holidaying together, so their art lesson became something they could enjoy and experience together. There was plenty of fun and giggling, but also a surprising amount of learning going on behind those little paintings!

We looked at the colours within the sea and sky, the changing light, the horizon and the landscape in front of us. Rather than simply copying a finished picture, they were learning to look, observe and understand what they could actually see.

That is an important part of the way I teach art. The painting we create during a lesson is the starting point. Once you begin to understand why something looks the way it does, you have choices… and that knowledge can be taken into your own artwork long after the lesson has finished.

By the end, we had four young artists, four individual paintings of Mawgan Porth and lots of smiles.

And perhaps the loveliest part is that each of them now has her own little piece of Cornwall to take home… not something bought from a shop, but a memory of their family holiday that they created themselves.

Art at the Beach lessons at Mawgan Porth are suitable for different ages and abilities, from complete beginners to young artists who already love drawing and painting. It is a chance to enjoy being creative outdoors while beginning to understand some of the fundamentals that artists use to make sense of the world they see.