That’s me as a child
A lifetime of teaching languages
I started teaching at 15, just helping my friend with her school topics. She wasn’t very good at French so I concentrated more on teaching French. Then someone who knew her asked for private classes of French. I taught him (only a couple of years younger) through reading passages of Le Petit Prince that I’d just discovered and adored. I thought using a tool you find pleasure with, can transmit more the beauty and the feeling of a language, which in the end is what it’s all about.
It worked! Then at 17 I started learning English. It was my 5th language already! Catalan (native speaker), Dutch (I lived in Holland for 3 years), Spanish, French and now English. Oh, how I loved it! I soon started teaching it to pay for my University studies in Psychology. After University, I only found jobs as a teacher, and because I loved it, it became my career.
After a lifetime of teaching groups of teenagers at a secondary school, with its ups and downs, I decided to drop it altogether back in 2004.
A new beginning
They say every ending is a new beginning. Very true in my case. As a teacher I had organised previously a European Work Experience exchange with my students in Stockport (UK) and so I met John Glynn. He’s the man I learnt most from about my business. He guided me, encouraged me and gave me the right opportunities when I gave up teaching. I owe to him and his brother Don Glynn, an excellent watercolourist, the opportunities and the contacts to start organizing these Painting Holidays in Spain. Don got me in touch with Alvaro Castagnet (a good friend of his) and Charles Reid.
I couldn’t believe my luck!! Thank you Don and John for your unconditional help and support.
Why painting? Will you ask…
As a kid, I always loved to draw people, figures and portraits. At some point as a grown up, I took up first drawing, then painting classes with a group as a hobby with a Spanish teacher Herminia Antolinos who had lived in Switzerland most of her life and had trained there in Steiner’s colour theory.
That was an eye opener! I had so much pleasure exploiting different mediums, from watercolour to acrylics, especially painting on silk.
Then EPC Art Courses was born
What the heck does EPC mean? Well, you guessed that correctly: Enjoy Painting Catalonia. It’s obviously Painting Holidays, so we want to paint. Inside and outside. Catalonia is our headquarters, as it offers more than anyone could dream about concerning variety of subject matter, historical buildings, breathtaking landscape, the best beaches in Spain, mountains, excellent food.. So why look anywhere else? It’s my home land and I know it well. Our weather can’t be beaten: sunny, warm, mainly dry.
Enjoy. Let’s not forget about that word, last but not least, maybe the most important one. Enjoying must be present when coming to a painting course, at least most of the time.
What is our philosophy
Each organization has a personality, like a physical person. EPC Art Courses has a main aim behind all the organization: We want you to feel at home.
We make everything possible to welcome you to your home, to give you Personalised Attention before you come to the course, while you are on the course, and after you come to the course.
You come as a stranger to our courses and leave as a friend
That’s our motto. We care about your well-being and that’s why we only work with the best Watercolourists in the world. To give you the best. That’s why we take you to restaurants where the chef is our friend, so he can look after you too. That’s why our hotels have friendly people that we know well. That’s why our transport is organised with a company that’s our friend. That’s why our tutors give you careful personalized attention. I’m also there in every workshop full time to ensure your needs are covered.
We want to make sure there’s a range of tutors to chose from, with different personalities and different techniques or even mediums. WE will advise you which one can suit best your needs.
For all those reasons a 45,6% of our customers return. Does it tell you something? I’m sure it does: it is our pleasure to make you happy.
Hasta pronto amigos!
Angela Barbi
EPC Art Courses
Director
That’s me Today
Here are few of my paintings
I would like to share with you.
