Pura Vida : Painting in Paraiso

Pura Vida: Painting in Paraiso
with Faith & Mati
March 28th to April 3rd, 2020

Join us on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast. A paradise where the jungle meets the ocean, a world of magnificent sunsets, stunning waters, and lush green jungle, filled with iguanas, monkeys, and mangos. Costa Rica is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world and Nosara is the jewel of Costa Rica’s Gold Coast! This retreat is for you if you’re feeling called to open up needed space to deepen or even begin your creative journey. We'll take over a lush secluded retreat center for 7 days and 6 nights of sparking your personal creativity with delicious art making, nurturing relationships with other women, and adventuring in the jungle paradise of the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Our group will lodge in a dreamy, mountain-top retreat center, with our own plunge pool, hiking trails, green house, gorgeous, views of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding jungle paradise.

Each morning, after a delicious breakfast, served over-looking the ocean, there will be optional yoga with our private instructor to begin our day. After centering, morning journaling, Mati Rose McDonough and Faith Evans-Sills are teaming up to take you on a layered painting adventure with Unconventional Watercolor. We'll dive into lessons on our gigantic, open, air painting porch, with expansive, inspiring views all around. You’ll ignite your creative spark with intuitive painting exercises, new techniques, creative journaling, and so much more. Faith and Mati will lead you through all of the many topics that they cover in their new Unconventional Watercolors Class, along with lots of fun techniques, including collage, silk screening, gold leafing, layering with drips and washes, incorporating geometrics, and creating abstract layers! At the end of our time together you'll leave with so many finished paintings and tons of new skills under your belt to invigorate your painting practice back home! This is our 7th retreat in the beautiful town of Nosara, and we are thrilled to welcome you to our retreat location, the Costa Rica Yoga Spa. It's like our own jungle tree house!

We will have inspiring Ayurvedic Bodyworker, Lara Cornell, with us to lead our group in gentle, morning yoga sessions. Lara will also be offering optional private flower essence consultations and ayurvedic facials with flower essences, for each retreat participant. With the consultation, each person will get their own special grounding-blend elixir of flower essences to take home.

What is included:

6 nights accommodation at the Costa Rica Yoga Spa, a gorgeous retreat center.
3 nurturing, local, healthy meals a day— (the exception will be one evening where we’ll go to the most magical restaurant in town!) expect lots of amazing yummy fresh tropical fruit, veggies! Many of the ingredients are grown on sight at the retreat center’s organic farm, which we’ll be able to tour.
Daily painting lessons taught by Faith & Mati, using our jungle beach location for inspiration we’ll dive into watercolor-layered painting goodness with lessons in creating abstract paintings through a variety of marks and materials to express natural space and tropical inspiration. Through a slow build up of process, you’ll create multiple paintings in our open air studio. Mati and Faith will lead you through lessons in collage, watercolor, wash-painting and creating your personal vocabulary of mark-making. You’ll come away with work that you love, and lots of new ways of seeing and working, to take home to jump start your own studio practice.
A gift bag when you arrive, full of goodies and gifts for you to use in your art making!
Around-the-clock access to our own open-air art studio, where you can let your inspiration run wild and tap into your personal creativity, working into the night if you desire. Create and explore with...collage, silkscreens, stencils. Students will be asked to bring along their own watercolor paper pads, aquaboard, watercolor paints and brush sets, gouache paints, and a few other supplies. We'll send out a recommended supply list letting you know all that you will need to bring!
Daily group shuttle transportation to the most beautiful beach in the area (just 10 minutes away) and the laid back shopping area of Guiones a funky, holistic, hip, enclave in the jungle, with cute restaurants, juice bar, shops, spas and yoga!
Private plunge pool, surrounded by lounges....the perfect place to refresh, morning or afternoon.
Daily centering yoga, (optional).
2 afternoons of surfing lessons,(optional) led by our private instructor.
Daily housekeeping service and hotel staff to help you make any excursion and local transportation reservations.
1 free day for horseback riding, zip-lining, massage, surf lessons, local wildlife tours, fishing, jungle hikes and sinking deeply into relaxation. - lots of free time to explore the local beauty, nature preserve, hiking trails on the grounds of the retreat center, refresh in the pool, sink into relaxation and nurture relationships with other creative women.
Also as a bonus gift for our lovely retreaters: ~You'll receive FREE access to Painting the Sacred Within: A Year of Exploration, Self-Discovery and Finding Your Voice Through Painting; the year long Self-Guided online painting class with Faith and Mati (a $349 value).

What is not included:

Your Airfare from your hometown to Liberia (LIR)
Ground Transportation Shuttle to/from the airport to the Costa Rica Yoga Spa Retreat Center.
Travelers Insurance
One group dinner out (transportation will be provided), and any other meals that you choose to eat off-site CRYS.
Alcohol and specialty drinks.
Any extra tours, spa treatments, excursions that you choose during your free time if you choose to go. (zip line, monkey tour, etc.). As well as any lodging and traveling that you choose to do before or after the retreat,
Anything you buy in the markets or on various trips.

Tips for local guides, massages and gratuities (we suggest 10%).

Your Retreat Leaders - Faith Evans and Mati Rose

Faith is a painter, wife, mother, world traveler and creative guide making her home in sunny Charleston, South Carolina. After 15+ years in New York City Faith craved a closer daily connection to nature, so she took the leap moving her family to the South Carolina coast in 2011. In her work, Faith draws inspiration from nature’s wild and small moments; from love, textiles and most importantly, the relationships that shape her. Classically trained in painting with a BFA from Skidmore College and an MFA from Parsons School of Design, along with over twenty years of personal painting experience,

Faith enjoys inspiring others to manifest their most heartfelt ideas through creating art. Her first book, Painting the Sacred Within, a guide to art techniques for expressing your authentic inner voice, was published in 2017 with Northlight Press. She is a well-loved teacher both online, across the United States and internationally at her annual art retreats in Morocco, Costa Rica and Mexico. Faith’s paintings have been exhibited widely and included in numerous books and publications including Painted Blossoms, Paint Lab, Color Lab, Seventeen, Calm, Happinez and Mabel Magazine. Her art has also been featured on designs for Anne Taylor Company Lou & Grey. Follow along on Instagram where she posts daily beauty and inspiration.

Mati Rose McDonough is an artist whose name is pronounced Matey, like Ahoy! She grew up near the sea in Maine and now lives in the Bay Area. After wanting to be an artist for many years, but feeling like it was “impractical,” at almost 30 years Mati took the leap and went back to art school at the California College of the Arts. Now over 10 years later, she is still excited and terrified every time she sees a blank canvas, but embraces the adventure of life as an artist— penning her first book with this philosophy called “Daring Adventures in Paint”. She co-authored her 2nd art book "Painting the Sacred Within" with artist Faith Evans-Sills. She has had dozens of art shows, taught painting classes internationally in Mexico, Morocco, Costa Rica and more to come. Her illustrations grace all sorts of products from camera cases to giant elephant billboards as well as her own home decor line and dress line too— dreams come true! Mati has illustrated four children’s books including “i carry your heart” written by poet ee cummings. Through her workshops, books, and popular online course, she spreads a warm message of creative courage:

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO SHOW THE WORLD YOUR MAGIC.

Pricing

Quad Shared Room: $1800
Private Suite - Double: $3200
Private Suite - Triple: $2600

Cancellation Policy: There will be no refunds for this Retreat due to the planning and logistics involved. When you register be sure to know all you can about traveling to Costa Rica.