This summer, we spent 3 weeks in England and Scotland for our UK family trip. It was such a dream, and I’m excited to share more about it and how it came to be!
Wanderlust
First, a little background. Earlier this year, I was sick and spent my down time scanning in a bunch of photos/documents from high school and college. I found a notebook with a page titled “England 2008”. It was a bunch of number crunching from 17-year-old me trying to figure out how I could study abroad in England that fall. I did not end up going.
In 2010, I was accepted to study abroad in London. After a lot of thought, I ended up declining the offer. I was so bummed, but I also felt like it was the right choice at that time.
In 2019, I found flights from Seattle to Ireland for less than $300/person roundtrip! I talked to my husband and we decided to go. I wanted it to be a family trip, and the airline those tickets were on required upgraded tickets to get your seats together, so it ended up not being as good of a deal as it looked. We did not book them, and if we had, it still would have been canceled because of the pandemic.
My History with Art
As an adult, I’ve never taken an in person art class. I think the last in person class I took was in junior high! I have done several online courses and read art books, but I really wanted to do an in person class. I’ve looked on and off the last few years in search of an intensive, short term art class. Every time I came across something that seemed like it would work, the dates didn’t line up with my schedule, it was longer than I wanted, too expensive, etc.
London Fine Art Studios
Early in 2022, I came across London Fine Arts Studio in Battersea, London. They had courses for the whole month of July, intensive, week-long courses. The price was very reasonable, and it was in a place I would love to visit! It seemed like the perfect combination of two things I had long thought about-a trip to the United Kingdom, and an intensive art course.
I spent a lot of time looking into it and weighing out the pros and cons. I had a call with someone at the school, and she was so helpful and made me feel even more excited about going.
My husband and I looked at the biggest hurdles we would face in going and discussed them repeatedly. I really wanted to do the whole month of classes, but I also really wanted my family to be able to join me too, and it would have been extremely difficult logistically and more expensive to make both of those work.
Ultimately, I decided to do one week of class and 2 weeks of travel. The course I was most excited about was the landscape painting, which was the last week of July.
I signed up for the course, and then dove deep into planning for our trip. I’m so excited to share more about it!
