Summary: Through mindful observation, material exploration, and connection to the landscape, learn to paint from within. This immersive retreat offers the tools and space to replace imitation with authenticity and trust in your creative process.
Full course description:
These retreats are open to both beginners and experienced artists—anyone who wants to paint with more freedom, explore new materials, or engage in deeper, meaning-driven conversations about art and the creative process.
The emphasis is not on adhering to a particular method or art school, but on
exploration, spontaneity, and personal growth. You will be encouraged to develop your own visual language, lean into your natural way of making marks, and discover a style that feels authentic rather than imitative.
Whether you are just beginning or have painted for years, the retreats offer space to experiment, reflect, and reconnect with why you make art in the first place.
Leaning into your own artistic voice can be daunting. Many people hold back—constrained by ideas of what “good art” should look like, or by a lack of confidence in their skills and materials. This retreat offers a structured and supportive space to move through those barriers.
Over five days at Château de La Napoule, you will explore what inspires you and the marks you naturally bring to the canvas. Each day begins with meditation to help you approach the creative process with presence rather than pressure.
You will start with the fundamentals: charcoal, pencil, and simple mark-making. As the week unfolds, you will begin to work with inks, washes, and acrylics on paper and canvas. Outdoors in the gardens, you will draw from the sculpted garden, sea air, shifting light, and seasonal florals. Back in the studio, you will rework these impressions
—considering composition, color values, and how to let your way of seeing and feeling guide the work. We will think about art as a process rather than destination, examine the inner voices that inhibits spontaneity, and how to cultivate play and experimentation as an essential part of art-making.
By the end of the week, you will leave with confidence in your own marks, clarity about what moves you, and a way of working that honors your natural style rather than trying to fit into someone else’s. Isn’t that what art is about?
Week 1 and Week 2 are designed to complement each other but are also wonderful as stand-alone experiences.
MEET THE ARTIST
Joalida Smit
Joalida Smit was born in Cape Town. She is a former Clinical Psychologist and Pediatric Neuropsychologist. She worked for 20 years in the NHS where she ran a brain cancer survivorship service in London. She moved to Lake Forest in December 2019, just six weeks before the COVID-19 epidemic. She started painting as a way to cope with the isolation imposed by lock down resulting in her first solo exhibition at The Gallery in Lake Forest, Illinois in 2023. This sold out show marked the pivot from clinician to artist. Her large, oversized oil on canvas paintings captures the austerity of the natural world and contemplate existential themes of passing time, transformation and the inherent fragility of life.
“When I started painting during COVID, I had not made any art for nearly
20 years and the journey from psychologist to artist during a time of great uncertainty, coping with isolation, transition and loss of my former
professional life has been a powerful one and testimony to the healing
power of art. I bring all this to my work as artist and teacher”.
EXAMPLE ITINERARY
Day 1
2pm Welcome to the Château
3pm Welcome in the Salon, Rosé on the Terrace
6pm Dinner at the Villa
Day 2
8:30am Meditation/Guided visualisation
9:30am Breakfast
10:30am Art session
12:30 Lunch in the Villa by Château Chef
1:30pm Art Studio Session
4:30pm Aperitif in the garden
5:30pm Private LNAF Museum Tour
7pm Self led dinner
Day 3
8:30am Guided meditation & sound bowl on the chateau roof
9:30am Breakfast1
10:30am Art session
12:30 Lunch at the Villa
2:30pm Art session
4-6pm Free afternoon / opttional plein air painting session with instructor
7:30pm Self led dinner
Day 4
8:30am Sound Healing session in the Tomb Tower
9:30am Breakfast
10:30am Leave for our excursion
2pm *Lunch in St. Paul de Vence
3:30pm *Museum visit at the Maeght Foundation (option to sketch with instructor)
7pm *Group dinner in Theoule
Day 5
9:30am Breakfast
10am Art session
1-2pm Lunch in the gardens
2-5pm Art session
5-7pm Optional water sports and beach lounging
7:30pm Farewell dinner in the Gothic Dining Room
9:30pm Digestive at the Villa
*Based on your preference