Lighthouse Courses Art & Adventure Algarve

Boats. Water. Reflections. Light.

How do you turn all of that into a watercolour without getting lost in the details?

Start with values.

Before colour, before the little boats, masts and reflections, Eugen looks for the big pattern of light and dark. A simple value study becomes the map for the painting.

From there, watercolour takes over: a few confident shapes, some carefully placed colour, and enough left untouched to let the light breathe.

This is the pleasure of painting from life — seeing more, simplifying more, and saying more with less.

West Algarve Art Escape
with Eugen Chisnicean
11–17 October 2026
.
We still have a few places left — perhaps yours?
.
.


September Shorties No. 2 🍑

Os Frutos do Fim do Verão | Barrocal Summer Harvest

September in the Algarve has its own kind of light.

The tourists slowly disappear, the days soften, and the orchards begin to overflow with figs, almonds, pomegranates... and peaches glowing in the afternoon sun.

This September Shorty is a celebration of that abundance.
We’ll spend an unhurried afternoon observing, collecting, sketching and painting the colours, shapes and textures of late summer. 
Watercolour, mixed media and plenty of time to really look.

Not just painting fruit.

Painting the feeling of the season.

with & Ricardo Oliveira

📍Santa Barbara de Nexe
📅 20 September, 15-19h
💶 50€



September Shorties #1 🌿

Garden State | Entre Luz e Verde

Some gardens are designed.
Others simply happen.

In September, after months of sun, Algarve gardens become wonderfully untamed—seed heads, wild flowers, tangled vines, insects, shifting shadows and unexpected colour everywhere.

Garden State is an invitation to slow down and explore that living landscape with watercolours and other media in hand.
We’ll look closely, experiment freely and discover how even the smallest leaf or flower can become the beginning of a painting.

A quiet day outdoors.
A curious way of seeing.

with Belavista Coliving & Retreat 🌟😌

📍BelaVista, Monte de Vicentinho, Olhão, Algarve
📅 12 September 2026, 15-19h
💶 50€



PleinAir

LIGHTHOUSE Art & Adventure Algarve

A new name. A clearer direction.

We’ll still keep Lighthouse Artcourses here and in our domain name—for practical reasons—but it no longer tells the whole story.
Because we’re not simply about art courses.

We’re about curiosity. Discovery. Slowing down. Looking closer.

We’re a laboratory for curious minds, where painting becomes a way of exploring places, people and landscapes—not just learning techniques.

If you’d like to know why we changed, what this new direction means, and what’s coming up in September and beyond, you’ll find it all in our latest newsletter.

✨ Link in bio.

Wishing you a beautiful, curious summer!

Field Notebook nr. 3

Your Best Viewfinder is already attached

This morning (after my early dip in the sea 😌) I stopped by the nearest viewpoint overlooking the little bay.

This spot is beautiful—but also a bit „full“. Houses, pine trees, reflections, stone walls, gardens… I wanted to sketch a fragment of it.
Not carrying a „proper“ viewfinder around I used the oldest one there is: my hands.

By framing the landscape with my thumbs and index fingers, I could crop away the unnecessary and search for a composition with a clear focal point.

And: don’t forget to SQUINT.
You need to recognise big shapes, not far details.

The landscape doesn’t change.
Only the story you decide to tell.

Painting outdoors is a different way of experiencing a place.

For the West Algarve Art Escape, we will spend six days painting en plein air with Eugen Chisnicean — moving through the landscape, observing changing light, colour and atmosphere, and discovering how each place reveals its own character.

Eugen believes that “landscape has its own language” and that painting is a way of translating this language into colour, rhythm and form.

At Lighthouse, the landscape becomes another tutor.

This journey is not only about learning painting techniques. It is about slowing down, paying attention, and developing a deeper connection with the natural environment through the act of painting.

📍 West Algarve Art Escape
11–16 October 2026
Small group · Artist-led · En plein air

Details & registration via the link in bio.

West Algarve Art Escape: one early morning in Lagos, middle October - we move to Ponta da Piedade.

Golden cliffs rise from the Atlantic, cut by wind and time, opening into deep blue water below. In the early light, everything shifts — colour becomes softer, edges less certain, and the landscape feels almost suspended between sea and stone.

This is not about control, but observation.
About letting colour respond to light rather than forcing it into form.

We paint as the day begins.

BARLAVENTO em aguarela | West Algarve Art Escape
with Eugen Chisnicean 
11–16 October 2026
.
.


“Painting, for me, is music. I try to connect chords and notes in order to hear a melody.” — Eugen Chisnicean

Monchique has its own melody.

On crisp October mornings, mist drifts between the hills, softening the contours of cork oaks, eucalyptus and chestnut trees. 
Light appears gradually, revealing colours and textures that ask to be observed rather than rushed.
For two days during our West Algarve Art Escape, we’ll explore this quieter, greener side of the Algarve with watercolours, discovering a landscape that many Algarve visitors never see.

A change of scenery. A change of rhythm.

West Algarve Art Escape
with Eugen Chisnicean

📍 Barlavento • 11–16 October 2026
A few places remain.
.
.