A creative week of drawing in the mountains, exploring the visual language
7 days in a beautiful and peaceful spot in the green Catalan Pyrenees in Spain, where we practice how to bring our ideas on paper
The training will be facilitated by 2 experienced visual storytellers, Eva Hilhorst and Yorgos Konstantinou.
We will combine exercises & experimentation, drawing both from observation and from imagination, obtaining skills, knowledge and confidence as visual storytellers. We will focus on the basics of the visual language, its grammar, syntax and poetry and train our capacity to communicate an idea in our own personal way.
Thinking beyond art and self-exploration, we address drawing as a communication tool. We draw in order to make sense of the world around us, we re-create what we see on paper, we let our thoughts become pictures, our hands create memories on paper that would otherwise evaporate.
We will have space for dialogue and exchange, enjoying our diversity of approaches, in a friendly group dynamic that assists us to overcome barriers and limitations of our visual expression.
When and where
The workshops will take place from the 23rd to the 30th of July 2026 in a beautiful rural house named Casanova de les Garrigues, located in the pre-Pyrenees, about 100 km from Barcelona, 10 kilometres from the city of Berga. The location, on a spectacular plateau, surrounded by a mixed forest at 1000m of altitude, offers an ideal environment for learning, disconnecting and getting inspired by nature, far from noises, pollution and distraction.
Who can apply
Everyone who is motivated to dedicate a week full time to drawing, learning and sharing their experiences with others.
Programme
During the week we will combine drawing activities with exploring the surrounding. We will start the workshops each morning around ten, with a lunch break and finish around five. Then we have time for enjoying food, music and drinks, spending time with oneself, or learning each other better, sharing and playing with our drawing tools or without. We want to enable a safe environment, where each and all can have their creative spaces, where expression, dialogue and exchange are the tools for learning.
Facilitators
Eva Hilhorst is an illustrator and graphic journalist from Amsterdam. She initiated the platform Drawing the Times, where graphic journalists from all over the world publish their drawn stories. She is also a teacher at the illustration department of HKU in Utrecht (Netherlands), where she teaches visual reportage and an interdisciplinary course called Meet You In My Drawings. At Sint Joost academy of the Arts in Breda she teaches a minor Graphic novel. She is a fervent promoter of drawing as a language. Together with Yorgos Konstantinou she taught a drawing course for artists in exile in Berlin, where they discovered that they complement each other as teachers.
Yorgos is a visual engineer, working as cartoonist, illustrator and graphic harvester at Imagistan.com
Price and conditions
The price is €1250 for people who register before the 1st of June. Late birds pay €1250 It includes a double room with bathroom (shared with another participant), food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and 6 hours of workshops every day. The exact price for people who are wishing to have a single room will depend on the amount of participants. There will be an excellent cook who will prepare homemade food daily, considering participants’ dietary requirements. Participants are expected to assist serving and tidying up after meals. The organisers will assist your arrival from Barcelona to Berga and back by public transport (bus). The last part of the journey will be done by the organisers in a private car.
https://culture.ec.europa.eu/culture-moves-europe/call-for-individual-mobility-2025-2026