Your Holiday

As a practicing artist I always used my trips to Andalucia to take time out and re engage with my creative processes.  This region of Spain is so rich in artisan culture and ancient artwork that is only natural to want to emulate some of it.  Your stay here at Getaway and Create will allow you the time, space and perfect setting to do just this with a well experienced tutor.  Just 20 minutes drive from the heart of the fantastic city of Cordoba and it's glorious sites, you will find our house in the Sierras.  Our patios and balcony offer the most fantastic views over the mountains looking towards Portugal.  Here you have the ideal setting to relax, to process all you have experienced on the sightseeing days into your own unique art.  You will leave Cordoba with tangible, lasting reminders of your trip and new skills to explore further at home.  

Each Craft Day at the house will be preceded by a day of inspirational sightseeing, which will be directly pertinent to the next day's activity.  

Provided in your booking price is :-

Complimentary transport from the city to the house and trips 

Accomodation for 8 nights

8 continental breakfasts

8 evening meals with wine or beer or soft drinks

4 lunches (lunches on day trips are not included)

3 craft workshops outlined below

If you have ever visited Spain before you will have no doubt seen a multitude of beautiful tiles adoring houses, cafes and hotels.  Here in Cordoba you will find much of these have an Arabic influence of pattern and are often in the lush colours of Spain.  Using some of this type of printed patterns for influence, or using your own designs, you will learn how to make a simple printing block.  As many tiles use a repeat pattern to join them together you will also be learning a little about this process.  This one block will allow you, using special ceramic paints, to print your pattern onto a tile surface over and over so you will end up with a set of four finished pieces.  

 This is a great technique to make use of all those fantastic photos you take on your holidays or just ones of your dogs (I have thousands). You do not need to be a skilled painter to turn these photos into unique canvasses or block pictures. We will start by selecting a photo that you want to use as your finished work of art and discuss any cropping needed to provide a great composition, taking into account some golden rules to make an image pleasing to the eye. You image will then be transferred onto a surface of your choice and will be worked on using a variety of mediums to create your original work of art. We will be using photos taken on your first few days as a base to work from so remember to get snapping anything that inspires you.  

During this craft day you will first learn how to use simple jewellers’ pliers that every jeweller has in their tool kit. With these you will learn to form wire and start the day by making a simple pair of bead earrings. As you are in Andalucia and as recycling is becoming more and more important in our lives, we will be working with recycled aluminium next. You will learn to emboss the metal in the fashion that you will see in many Moorish items sold in the region and these surfaces will be used as the central parts of your larger jewellery project. To mount these you can choose from encasing them in polymer clay or adding them to already formed pieces of wood or beads. You will then use the original wire forming skill you learned to turn these central sections into finished, unique jewellery pieces.