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Sea-view Cottage

                Self-catering accommodation in the rural village of Lingdale, Saltburn-on-sea.
Art gallery, studios and fantastic base for visiting the other nearby sea-side towns and villages of...

      WHITBY - STAITHES - SANSDEND - ROBIN HOODS BAY
            SALTBURN - SKINNINGROVE - PORT MULGRAVE
FLAMBOROUGH - FILEY - BRIDLINGTON - YORKSHIRE MOORS

Self-catering accommodation at an artists retreat and art gallery/studio on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors with sea-view. Rustic charm, log fires, wild running Roe deer and wildlife meadow across the road and farmland with Friesian cows grazing to the rear. Sea-scape painting courses and field trips with Adam Berry or ladies only life drawing sessions with Diane Mainzer both with materials provided and access to the studio's or feel free to bring your own. More details below. Bedrooms are single bunk-beds laid out YHA style sleeping six. There are bathrooms and toilets both upstairs and down. Well equipped kitchen  and separate dining room seating six. All mod cons including WIFI. We are on main public transport routes for bus, train, local taxi service or we can provide the odd lift for painting or walking outings. Muddy boots ramblers are also welcome. Sorry no dogs or children. Thankyou, Diane

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                                                              ACCOMMODATION ONLY PRICES 2024-25

                                                       Low season October-April £50-00 pppn £300-00 pppw

                                                     Peak season May-September £65-00 pppn £350-00 pppw

                                Please contact Diane Mainzer 07538 801204 or diane.mainzer@yahoo.co.uk 

                                   Sea-view Cottage, 68 High Street, Lingdale, Saltburn-on-sea, TS12 3EY

                                 For a description of the painting breaks and holiday prices please see below...

SEA-SCAPE PAINTING HOLIDAYS

Sea-scape painting holidays with Adam Berry on the East Coast. These flexible modern painting workshops are designed to be held either on-site or in the studio from field research collected on-site, or often can be a mixture of both depending on weather conditions. They are flexible in length from one day to two full weeks holiday depending upon different visitors requirements. Small groups of six visiting artists maximum at any one time. Fully equipped professional artists studio with natural light and all easels and materials are included within the price - feel free to bring your own if you would prefer. Self-catering accommodation is available upon request at Sea-view Cottage as outlined above. The charge for this is simply added onto the cost of the painting workshops depending on how many days are required and the number of visitors in your party. Or you may wish to secure alternative accommodation elsewhere and attend as a day visitor. 

Adam may occasionally be joined by other professional artists like Andy Hawkins MA RCA as an additional tutor, or for the evening meal. Andy is owner of the Hawkins Gallery on the High Street and this is well worth a visit.

If necessary a box easel for any outdoor painting sessions is provided to each visiting artist and this will contain everything needed for the days activities.

An intensive practical course in modern painting where Adam shares many techniques in both traditional and unconventional applications 'Trad-contemporary'. Many of these are of his own invention and will not be found in any other books or instructional videos. Painting demonstrations in method, material, and process augmented to hands-on participation, prepared reference panels, and colour mixing charts relating to the limited palette/s in use. 

The studio practice is 'research based'. On-site work and regular field-trips are a large part of our praxis depending on the length of your stay. We recommend a minimum of three days to be able to get a sense of the whole experience. 

BelowFreezing fog sea-fret early morning start at Filey Brigg car park and the resulting h8"x10" oil study 'Freezing Fog at Washer Brigg, Filey'. We were in the pub by 13:00 and the weather turned out to be fabulous. Please bring warm clothes, waterproofs and sensible boots. We always carry a lightweight cane each for climbing around on the slippery rocks and lifting overgrown brambles out of the way down the approaching cliff-sides. A reasonable level of fitness is important for this type of fieldwork. If any of the group are unsure we choose a different locus. The tutors are well briefed in tide times and conditions for trips to any dangerous locations where people are known to have been trapped by fast moving high tides.

Typical Selected Locations & Landscape Contexts.

Washer Brigg at the very end of Filey Brigg. Has W/C and Café in large car park. Also a fair sized birdwatchers hide at the littoral that we sometimes use for setting up. Can be a dangerous place for getting trapped by the tide for the unaware. Leave plenty of time to pack easels up and climb back up to safety with all painting gear. Best off taking a cane or walking stick. Great for oil studies of the rock formations with breaking waves in middle distance. Plenty of opportunity for photography of sea-birds here as compositional devices best superimposed back in the warmth of studio in evening times.

The main beach Saltburn-on-sea. Often best to set up underneath the pier if promising rain. Great for local pubs, fish + chip shops etc. We avoid weekends at this venue, just simply too busy with holiday tourists. Left of pier is dog free zone. Right of pier towards The Ship Inn is dog friendly zone. Popular area with surfing community in good conditions and great for studies of the mechanics of the waves either at sea level or from high above at end of pier. The pier itself an interesting subject from underneath probably a studio piece from sketches and photography for rainy day work. Free parking along Marine Parade at the top of the cliff. A funicular, Victorian water powered cliff lift will carry six painters and kit up or down for about 80p. Good shopping centres and train station etc a short walk from the top. Lots of good pubs, coffee shops and eateries to choose from and of course The Hawkins Gallery. 

Sandsend also offers a good high vantage point from main road at cliff top. Great for studying the 'fetch' and the mechanics of the moving tides especially in very strong offshore winds. Alternative viewpoint from low car park if storm chasing supertides where if luck you will photograph 30ft waves breaking against the sea walls. 

North Landing, Flamborough landforms of erosion, chalk cliffs, chalk stacks and archways. Excellent views of  clear water below from large car park/cliff edge with plenty of space to set up easels if arriving early including small camp fire for breakfast. Decent views of breaking crests from down at sea level with sheer chalk cliffs at either side but steep climb back up hillsides can be challenging with all painting gear. Café and clusters of huts with rotting boats half ways up. Small working harbour with machinery etc and boat trips in peak season. Good location for site-specific selected found objects and retrievals for industrial cleaning and possible inclusion into paintings, assemblages, 'hybrid-form sculpture-paintings' or if lucky enough for the potential fabrication of picture frames.

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The close by fishing village of Staithes for its obvious charms, visited by artists in their tens of thousands over the years is one of the closest to us at Sea-view Cottage. Again the village boasts a wide selection of traditional pubs and eateries. Their are public toilets near the harbour. Several art galleries and museums of local history. Beware of the steep climbs back up to the car park at the upper levels way above the village proper. but worth it. Staithes again can be very very busy with tourists and dog walkers. If you don't want to talk to them try putting a couple of paint brushes sideways in your mouth and keep concentrating on your work, they will soon find something else to do. 

A similar working place is the town of Robin Hoods Bay or 'Baytown' in its name of Oldé. Adam is a bit of an expert on the smugglers legends, activities and other romantic tales surrounding the place such as the legend of Jiddy Vardy, the smugglers heroine and can give talks about them if prompted to. They are often part of his 'neo-romantic' large scale canvases.

Quieter places such as Skinningrove and Port Mulgrave are sometimes better options for some groups new to painting outdoors and wanting to build confidence before jumping in with both feet.

'Work in progress' Oct 2019
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PRICES 2024-25

Modern Sea-scape Painting Holidays with Adam Berry

£110-00 per day per visiting artist

£660-00 per week per visiting artist

£1,430-00 2 week holiday per visiting artist

Or any combination of the above to suit your wishes.

*Small groups of six visiting artists maximum at any one time. 

Prices include the use of all materials and tools,

studio facilities including full size radial easels,

French box easels for fieldwork,

the art tutor as/when and if required,

and use of the self-catering kitchen for day visitors.

Self-catering accommodation is available at Sea-view Cottage as illustrated at top of page. 

(21+) LADIES ONLY LIFE DRAWING with DIANE MAINZER

   from April 2024

with visiting artists Adam Berry MA Contemporary Fine Art

& Andy Hawkins MA RCA Fine Art

depending upon availability.

A choice of flexible hourly workshops or full-on painting holidays with or without self-catering accommodation at Sea-view Cottage as outlined above. Including: All materials, male model, easels, studio facilities, supports and mediums, tea/coffee and use of the self-catering kitchen during breaks for any day visitors. 

'Lauren (iii) Kneeling figure with arms raised' h40"x37" Oil 2024 w.i.p by Adam Berry

'Lauren (i) Contré jour in double re-reverse'. h40"x38" Oil 2022 w.i.p by Adam Berry

I use male only models from a main stable of four. All are reliable, hardworking maintenance workers and fishermen from the local catchment area's of Redcar, Saltburn-on-sea and Bridlington which I swap and change between depending upon the theme or current project on the main easels. All of the models fees are included within the price of the life drawing sessions. 

I have natural light in the studio during the day and use professional photographers lamps during the evenings which are fully adjustable. All 12 easels are professional quality studio easels and are a mixture of Radial, French box, Donkey benches,

'A' frame or table-top depending on whatever suits your comfort or the composition you are wanting to explore. 

We take regular comfort breaks for the model to exercise and have self-catering kitchen facilities and dedicated smoking areas for your use at any time. 

Following are a description of options and price list. A breakdown of the different types of sessions on offer. A short introduction to my own practice including the current research themes and some varied examples of the different mark-making techniques and styles explored. 

Questions, suggestions or requests regarding ladies only life drawing are very welcome, please direct any questions to myself

Diane Mainzer: 07538801204 or diane.mainzer@yahoo.co.uk 

OPTIONS & PRICE RANGE

Taster session (i) Charcoal drawing skills from the life model. Looking at how we can use negative shapes and shadows as compositional devices and searching for any 'natural triangular' forms within the pose the model has adopted as measuring tools to begin mapping out the figure or to check and adjust any problems in size relationships or design. Later we will look at tonal values. using drawing to plan, but also to make work in its own right. 2-3 hours session with regular breaks. £50-00 (Tutored for beginners).

Taster session (ii) Pen and ink introduction or pencil and single earth colour acrylic paints. Drawing from one long succession of very short poses with regular breaks.  Very short poses by the model of 2 minutes to 5 minutes and mapping in the figure in movement enforcing a fast/loose/fluid line with painterly blocking in at speed encouraging gestural mark-making. Also drawing eyes closed and with unfavoured hand. Some collage drawing on top for the last section making something of the most interesting pieces for your portfolio. 2-3 hours session with regular breaks. (Tutored for beginners).

Taster session (iii) Experimental workshop using the unfavoured hand, continuous line, and collage/drawing with longer poses from the model. 2-3 hours session with regular breaks. £50-00 (Taught course for beginners).

Introduction to oil painting (i) Looking at building up skin tones and the consideration of a limited palette. Searching for olive greens and burnt umber earth tones underneath and within the shadowed areas. Working from one long pose from the model. 4 hours with regular breaks. £75-00 (Taught session for beginner to intermediate groups).

Introduction to oil painting (ii) Thinking about, recognising, and utilising 'the right kind of line'. Embracing the notion of a different response to each individual subject, or motif. Looking at more in-depth colour theory and pushing tonal values to a more extreme level. 4-6 hours with regular breaks. 95-00 (Taught session by lead artist with discussion and critical feedback from group. For intermediate to advanced level although all welcome).

Introduction to 'The Death of Actaeon' Theory/Art History/Practical with one long pose from the model. Including practice in 'training' the male model. 6-8 hours with regular breaks £110-00 (All levels welcome. Ladies only).

THEME (i) 'The Death of Actaeon' (A contemporary version. Studio practice proper). An intensive block of 3 full days working on one large scale canvas through to its final realisation. Professional practice. One long pose from the male model with props. (Tutored or un-tutored). Regular breaks for the model to exercise. Can be taken in in whole or in part-time options as daily studio visitors. Self-catering accommodation is available at Sea-view Cottage as outlined above. 

1x full studio day £110-00

2x full studio days £220-00

3x full studio days £330-00 

'The Death of Actaeon' a short introduction.

'The Death of Actaeon by Henri Courselles-Dumont. Currently represented by Strachan Fine Art.

'The Death of Actaeon' is mostly known as a late work by the Italian Renaissance painter Titian. Titian painted his version in oil on canvas from about 1559 to his death in 1576. It is now exhibited at the National Gallery in London. 

It is very probably one of the two paintings the artist stated he had started and wished to finish (one of which he calls 'Actaeon mauled by hounds') in a letter to their commissioner Phillip II of Spain during June 1559 [...] In a sequel to Titian's work 'Diana and Actaeon' showing the story's tragic conclusion; Actaeon surprises The Goddess of hunting Diana Artemis as she was bathing naked within the woods, she transformed him into a stag and he was attacked and killed by his own hounds.

Both paintings belong to a group of large scale mythological paintings inspired by the metamorphosis and referred to by Titian himself as 'poesie' 9the visual equivalent of poetry). Ovid's account does not include Diana herself pursuing Actaeon, or shooting at him with her bow and arrow, though in some other classical accounts she does chase him. 

Diane with one of the first large panels of five as work in progress. Working title 'The Death of Actaeon part (ii) The Metamorphosis'. Oil on gesso primed wooden panel h40"x40" (unframed size) Feb 2024

"To gaze implies more than just to look at. It signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze". - Jonathan Schroeder

This myth embodies the archetype of (sometimes) female anger at 'the male gaze' as outlined by Bracha L. Ettinger in her feminist theory (1995). My own work challenges the stereotypes of male domination which has shaped the submission, ownership, and humiliation of women since patriarchy took control. 

I am currently working towards membership of The Society of Female Artists and this my main research project. Studio practice based work that is underpinned by theory and art historical models. My main influence is my own creative work. 

The main studio is host to several large scale collage/drawings, annotated sample photography and oil paintings as work in progress alluding to an interrupted, fragmented, narrative storyline. Using drawings to plan, but also to make works in their own right. Working title: 'Diana's Revenge' where-within the male model is placed into a series of increasingly humiliating poses, situations and performances which subvert traditional roles of male artist/female model through the use of dress codes, humiliating poses and other props which 'un-man' the model who is used as a simple visual tool, both for purposes of research, for my own amusement, and as part of the public formal qualities of my own contemporary version of large scale paintings referencing 'The Death of Actaeon'. 

'It was still raining on Saturday morning when I drove out of London. The wet greys of London gave way to the wet greens and browns of Kent, but I was too preoccupied to notice the change. 

Following Acton's directions I turned into a half-hidden gateway off a narrow lane running down a wooded hillside. Sheep grazed in a gently sloping field on one side of a long curving track, a beech wood rustled dry leaves on the other. The track straightened as it descended and suddenly the house appeared from behind the wood. 

I stopped the car and gazed down on it. I'd been to Acton's apartment in Holland Park many times but I'd never seen this house before. There it was, nestling in a fold of the hill's south-facing slopes. It looked very old. Stone-built, L-shaped, many gabled. A walled garden and a stable block. Smoke slowly rising from tall chimneys.

Acton, I thought, you're in there somewhere. And something in the way you live here makes you vulnerable. Some little detail in your day-to-day existence. I don't know what it is but I'm going to find it and use it to destroy you. 

As I watched, a distant barking of dogs reached me on the breeze and the sound, sinister though faint, somehow eclipsed the beauty of the scene. I drove forwards again, slowly. Above the sound of the motor and the crunching gravel the noise of the barking dogs grew louder. 

And then a huge canine shape came hurtling around a corner of the

building. My hands tightened on the wheel. Two more appeared in its wake, all three gathering speed as they tore towards me. They barked as they ran - tongues lolling, eyes narrowed - and then they were on the car. They didn't stop but threw themselves at me as though there wasn't a ton of metal and glass between us. I slammed on the brakes and got the window up just in time. 

The world disappeared into a cramped panorama of frenzied animals. A nightmare of  canine fury broke across the windscreen. Gaping jaws, snarling teeth. Bloodshot eyes rolling with mad vacancy or narrowed with violent anger. Nothing else was visible. The car rocked under the assault. The noise - barking, snarling, growling - burst through it like an explosion. Tongues and teeth smeared froth across the windows, paws scrabbled and thumped at the glass. And then it stopped. Suddenly they were gone. Only one lingered, determined to have the last snarl. He rolled the whites of his crazed eyes at me and wiped his snout on the wing mirror. I heard whistling, a shout - Acton's voice - and the monster sloped off. 

I was shaking uncontrollably. My shirt was soaking and the steering wheel was slippery with sweat. I had been within a nerves breadth of sheer panic. My mouth was too dry to speak. I was virtually hallucinating with terror.  

'Metamorphosis: Titian 2012' saw a range of contemporary artists - including choreographers, composers, poets and visual artists respond to paintings by Renaissance master Titian. Their work was displayed at the National Gallery, London and performed at the Royal Opera House by The Royal Ballet. At the heart of this collaboration were three of the greatest masterpieces by Titian in the United Kingdom - 'Diana and Actaeon' 'Death of Actaeon' and 'Diana and Callisto', which were shown in the exhibition at the National Gallery. The aim of the project was to demonstrate how masterpieces by Titian continue to inspire living artists today. 

Three British contemporary artists: Chris Ofili, Conrad Shawcross and Mark Wallinger created new settings for new ballets at The Royal Opera House that responded to the Titian paintings. Their work was shown as an an exhibition at the National Gallery, sponsored byCredit Suisse, in which the process of their responses to Titian and the evolution of own independent work of art was demonstrated. Each 

artist had a room in the exhibition space to show both preparatory studies for the ballets, along with new pieces created for the project. 

Seven choreographers collaborated with the artists to create an evening of three new works, in response to three great paintings by Titian and original music commissioned from leading British composers. Wayne McGregor worked with the Danish choreographer Kim Brandstrup, and Christopher Weeldon worked alongside Alistair Marriot with Will Tuckett, Jonathan Watkins and Liam Scarlett.

Original music for the ballets was commissioned from Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jonathan Dove and Nico Muhly. The performances were the last body of work under Monica Mason as Director of the Royal Ballet and a performance on the 16th July 2012 was relayed live on a big screen in Trafalgar Square. 

The National Gallery also ran a New Poetry Project. The project commissioned a range of poets to write new work inspired by the Diana series, re-examining the Ovid text and its influence on Titian.

The poets represented the quality and range of  writing in Britain today which included poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage - winner of the Keats Shelley Poetry Prize 2010. 

The three Titian paintings are inspired by Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses. The paintings depict the fatal consequences of a mortal tragically caught up in the affairs of the Gods. 

Chief Executive Officer of Credit Suisse in the United Kingdom and Ireland said: 

                     "We are delighted to support this innovative

                      National Gallery exhibition, which clearly

                      demonstrates how old master paintings continue

                      to inspire living artists".

Copyright is property of the Artists: Chris Ofili, Conrad Shawcross and Mark Wallinger 2012 

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Roger Hilton 'Night-Letters' and selected drawings. Selected by Rosemary Hilton.

On wives: 'Slave. Why do you go in the ways of sin? Where are my children? Where is my spaghetti? Where is my salt? You lousy scoundrel, not content with a night out at the cunt house you have to jig it up the following night and the night after. You don't care about our sick child or me, lacking despite frequent requests SALT and spaghetti. Children must be at Fabe's but Ferg shouldn't be out in this weather. You slow-worm, you trough, you neerdowell, you lousy blighter'. 

'You pinched the more interesting of my two apples. Where is the other re-fill for my stove. You never gave me that stuff I'm supposed to take. Supposed to be twice a day. My sketchbooks haven't arrived'.

'Where's my sardines gone? At least failing ham I cd have fallen back on them. Meanwhile I'm fucking starving. Water biscuits and marmite is no meal'. 

'Envelopes too big. Not stylish enough. They open on top, not at the end. Much smaller and thinner paper'.

'You silly cow you have taken out everything I need. You never got me whiskey and cigs. You took my teaspoon, soup spoon, fork, all the coffee, sugar, milk. And then calmly go to bed. God knows what we're going to live on tomorrow. I found the cat on the table eating all the cheese.

Complaints Dept.

'You snatch the only pen-liner I have for your filthy make-up. You say you bought re-fills for the stove, so where are they? Why don't you bring them in here. [...]  You take my saucepan away. All this is academic because my stove has run out and I cant cook anything. [Even] the commonest wretch would have seen that I had re-fills for my stove. The mats John brought were placed in such an intelligent way that I was unable to open my door. 

The GOOD milkman has arrived early on Saturday as he has more to deliver 7.10am The pound has revalued itself. The police are questioning a man in connection with the mutilated bodies of two 12 year old girls. Meanwhile Rose dances and makes a fool of herself. Still. Always remember that it cost the taxpayer £100 to get a man for breaking 2 beer glasses. 

''Roger Hilton, Night Letters and selected drawings'. Selected by Rosemary Hilton Introduction by Michael Canney ISBN 0 9506579 1 3 

'Diana (Diana Chassaressa) by Pierre-August Renoir (1867) Oil on canvas. h78"x52" Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

*Chassaressa (trans) 'Huntress'.  

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'Diana, Huntress'. Oil on canvas (1867) Pierre-August Renoir

from Alison Rowley: Rethinking a feminist practice of painting.

[,,,] Griselda Pollock has argued that the fraught relationship between painting and feminism can be 'rhetorically tracked in the contradictory placements and significations of two bodies: the "body of the painter" and the "feminine body"'. In Matisse's painting The Painter and His Model of 1917 Pollock identifies as represented 'three orders of space which define modern western art-making':

It is a social space shaped in the social and concrete relations in one particular studio in Paris in 1917 in which a white bourgeois man paid a probably working-class woman to work for him. Then it is a representation of the symbolic space of art, the studio, and it makes a statement about the basic components of  art-making - the artists, the model and the site of their one way transaction, the canvas. Finally it presents to us the space of representation, that canvas, upon which has been is painted a fictive body which has been invented by the combination of the painter's look and gesture. A social and sexual hierarchy are picturedthe artist is canonically male (signalling the fusion of Culture with masculinity); his material is female (the assimilation of nature, matter and femininity). By its formal disposition of man/artist: woman/model, the painting articulates the symbolic value and symbolic gender in western modernism's discourse of the 'body of the painter'.

    With Plan [Jenny] Saville collapses all three of these spaces. Working mainly from her own middle-class white body she renegotiates the social and economic relation between painter and model. The studio, then, is no longer the space of a one-way transaction; this is self-examination. From the third space, the space of representation, the painting Plan, we can consequently read a...

rearticulation of western modernism's discourse of the 'body of the painter'. The represented body is no longer 'the supine female object body' but the active female creative body examined in the practice of the 'woman's body'. 

Jeeny Saville, Plan, 1993, oil on cancas, 9' x 7' Saachi Collection, London

"At 'Diane Mainzer Studio' I have created a safe 'ladies only' life drawing space where we can have the freedom to subvert these formal dispositions of man/artist woman/model one-way transactions. Where the represented body is no longer 'the supine female object body' and the active female creative body is concerned with the practice of examining the fully exposed 'mans body', warts and all. By being in a female only group it is hoped that the women artists may experience more freedom to enquire and discuss both practical and other related problems both during the sessions and during break times".

Selected life drawing exercises used by Diane including using the unfavoured hand, eyes closed drawing sessions used to train our powers of observation, collage drawings, continuous line, pen and wash drawing from very quick poses and also the figure in movement, photography. Using drawings to plan but also to make works in their own right from the figure in props and longer poses from the model.

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