22 Sep 17'
"This was such a good stone carving course run by the very interesting and lovely Sebastian who has a very calm approach to teaching - gently guiding and encouraging everyone.
Our daughter had bought one of Sebastian's stone carving courses for my husband's birthday and he spent a wonderful 2 days in sunny April (2017) on the course in Saul and afterwards he just could not stop telling everyone how much he had enjoyed it...so our daughter bought one of Sebastian's courses for my birthday too. I normally sculpt in clay or wax and so used Sebastian's course to understand the possibilities and some of the techniques in stone carving. Sebastian had some very interesting tools, some found on his travels in Africa..which were amazing. Everyone on the course managed to complete a sculpture in just two days!!
The two day course in Bentham (Cheltenham) was hard work, very messy, great fun, with very nice people - in a truly beautiful setting next to a field of sheep looking onto Birdlip escarpment on one side and a fenced off area with wonderful geese !! and chickens on the other. I also loved the compost loo!! We should all have one.
As it is the UK and September (2017) we had amazing sunshine, a little bit of rain, then cold but bright weather and then very hot sun. We sculpted out side, which was wonderful and just put on more layers or took them off as needed and did not need to go inside at all.
I think everyone should do some sort of art course at least once at some point in their life as art is so liberating and such fun and Sebastian's stone carving course gets five stars from me.
Catherine."