Photography groups have been coming to the Sahara for years and the infrastructure grew up around them. Painters and drawing groups arrive to find a venue that has thought carefully about a photographer’s needs and not at all about theirs, which are almost entirely different.
We host both. This is what we have learned about the second.
The light, which is the reason to come
Erg Chegaga gives an artist two things that are difficult to find together.
Long, clean shadow-raking light. The first two hours after sunrise and the last two before sunset put the dune ridges into extreme relief. Because the atmosphere here is exceptionally dry, the shadow edges stay hard rather than diffusing, which is why the same dune reads as a completely different form at seven in the morning and five in the afternoon.
A limited palette that forces decisions. Ochre, rose, violet in the shadows, and a sky that runs from white at noon to a very particular blue. Painters who arrive expecting monotony usually spend the first day frustrated and the third day working faster than they have in months. Groups tell us the constraint is the point.
The middle of the day is flat and hard to paint. Plan around it rather than fighting it. Most groups we host work early, break from eleven to four, and go out again.
What a painting group needs that nobody offers
Somewhere for wet work to dry, out of the wind. This is the request we hear most and the one most venues have never considered. Oil and acrylic left in the open collects sand within an hour. We set aside a covered, enclosed space for drying and storage, and it needs to be arranged in advance because it is a room we otherwise use.
Water, and permission to make a mess with it. Brush washing uses more than people expect, and in a desert camp water is trucked in. It is not a problem, but it needs to be planned rather than discovered.
Stable surfaces on sand. Easels sink and blow over. Field easels with wide feet work; studio easels do not. We can provide boards and low tables, and we advise groups to bring lightweight field easels rather than trusting to what is here.
A table long enough for a group critique. Sixteen people looking at work together needs a surface, good even light and no wind. The covered majlis does this. Ask any venue where the critique happens.
The sand conversation
Sand gets into everything. It is not a problem to solve, it is a condition to work with, and the artists who enjoy themselves most are the ones who decide early that a little sand in the paint surface is part of the record.
Practically: keep palettes covered between sessions, work with the wind at your back, and expect to lose the occasional wash. Pastel and charcoal are the most affected, watercolour is fine if you accept some texture, oil and acrylic are largely unbothered.
Two or three times a season the wind gets up properly and outdoor work stops for a day. When that happens we move the group indoors and it becomes a studio day, which most tutors say is useful anyway.
Getting materials here
Bring everything. There is no art shop within several hundred kilometres, and the last town of any size is Zagora.
Airlines and solvents do not mix, so most tutors bringing oil painters ask groups to travel with water-mixable oils or arrange odourless mineral spirit locally. Tell us in advance and we will source what we can from Ouarzazate, but give us three weeks rather than three days.
Luggage volume matters. A group of fourteen arriving with boards, easels and materials needs an extra vehicle in the convoy. Tell us the volume when you book, not on arrival.
What the stay looks like
One group at a time, so the camp is yours. Two to twenty guests, though critique works best up to about fourteen. Full board with a chef on site, which removes the meal question entirely from a tutor’s day.
Working sessions in the dunes, a covered space for the flat hours and for critique, a drying room, and the evenings free. Guided stargazing under a Bortle Class 1 sky, which several tutors have turned into a night drawing exercise.
October to April. March, April, October and November give the longest comfortable working hours.
What to tell us when you write
Group size, dates, medium, whether you need the drying room, your rough daily rhythm, and the luggage volume. That is enough for a real proposal.
Related: the photography workshop venue guide and the light in Erg Chegaga through the seasons.
