I’m in Gardenstown on the east coast, at Creative Retreat, for a week’s figure painting workshop led by Alan McGowan, the artist whose Anatomy for Artists workshop I did in February. It’s a picturesque village on a steep hillside, a mixture of renovated, being-renovated and sea-worn. The buildings are crammed on top of one another, everything looks down onto and into everything, with numerous sets of steps inbetween.
