Holiday meets hobby when you head to an art retreat on a picturesque island, writes Elizabeth Sleith. In his 1949 classic, The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's narrator describes how a drawing he'd seen in his childhood inspired him to attempt his own. He "succeeded", he says, in depicting a boa constrictor digesting an elephant, but when he showed it to grown-ups, they thought it was a hat.Thus "disheartened" at the age of six, he "gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter" and chose a much more pragmatic career instead: he became a pilot.I'm sure my own art career had a similarly disastrous trajectory. Indeed, the world is full of practical adults who will cheerfully and apologetically insist, "I cannot draw."Yet, as the American art teacher Betty Edwards argues in her 1979 publication Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, in our reading-centred world, drawing is simply a different ability that falls away in childhood if we don't display some spectacular early "talent". And just as most of us learn how to read and write, anyone can be taught how to draw.It's a theory with which South African Debbie Krantz agrees as we drive to a seaside dinner on my first night in Mauritius.mini_story_image_hleft1"We are all born with an artistic something. It's only as we get older that we decide we cannot paint," she says.And Krantz should know. With a background in interior design, she only started painting at the age of 40. Now she is the part owner of Artist Retreat Mauritius, which offers week-long drawing and painting courses for intermediate artists and, more pertinently for me, beginners "who want to ignite their passion for art for the first time".As I will discover over the next few days, their programme is a thrilling blend of holiday and hobby. Krantz and her business partner, Debbie Dove, a South African-born Mauritian with a Fine Arts degree and a past career in advertising and illustrating children's books, take participants to visit some lovely island sights, then spend a few days in their studio, guiding them through the painting of it.The locations visited change with the seasons. There may be a tea plantation at harvest time, or the salt pans in Tamarin, or the floating flower beds of the Jardin de Pamplemousses near Port Louis. For my course, day one begins at Eureka, otherwise known as La Maison Creole, in the Moka mountains in the west.This magnificent plantation house built in the early 19th century was for generations the home of a wealthy French family, the Leclézios. Today it is a museum that hosts their ghosts. Inside, thick wooden shutters filter the light falling on their antiques, many sailed here by the East India Company, and the walls of black-and-white photos immortalising Port Louis's dusty beginnings.story_article_right1Locally, it is known as the house with 109 doors, because all the rooms are interleading and the only "corridor" is the deep verandah wrapped around its outside. This is now a café, where guests can play sugar barons as they dine on traditional Creole food and gaze out over the neat, sprawling lawns that finally surrender somewhere out there to the chaos of rambling forests. In among those tangled leaves winds a steep stone path down to several small waterfalls.With so much history, drama and space, Eureka is a Prado of potential paintings. After a tour of the house, our little group - five students and the two Debbies - disperses to hunt for subjects to paint. The others - all with some level of experience - choose their spots to plop down their folding stools and disappear into sketching. Some face the long, low mansion and its shingled roof; one girl sits with her back to it to sketch a little wooden wagon in the shade. Their tiny pencils flourish under gargantuan trees.Because I am new to this, Krantz has me photograph things I might like to paint. So I amble about the extensive grounds shooting palms, waterfalls, the other painters, leaves, doorways, ramshackle buildings hidden in the trees, and a run-down shed with crumbling shutters and a collection of junk on its stoep.After a lunch of rice and curry on the verandah, Krantz shows me some basics of sketching. Turns out, drawing is a lot like maths. Divide your picture into a grid, mark the half-way points, make the lines connect. While the others go back to their garden spots, I stay at the lunch table, contentedly tilting my head and making experimental marks on a pure page. Next to me, a red-whiskered bulbul pokes its beak into a bowl of white ice cream. In our own ways, little bird, we are all brave.On the second day, we paint. The studio is on the grounds of the Vanilla House guesthouse, where course participants stay, so after breakfast on my little terrace - muesli, boiled egg, croissant and cut fruit - it's an easy wander over to the work space, where the others are setting up their easels and starting to work.mini_story_image_vleft2From my photographs, I choose the shed with the cluttered stoep, mainly for its straight lines under a mess of leafy green sky. Krantz prints it out in black and white, tapes it to the top of my easel and I start with sketching shapes, tentative at first, but the reassuring Debbies wander about and offer help to everyone. Do this. Try that. Their kind, calm demeanor airbrushes out any fear. Anyway, it's not about perfect rendering, it's the attempt that is the thing.Pop music plays on the radio as here, Marine Dalais stabs at her canvas to create a sea of rocks. There, Dorthé Van Den Brand shouts at her wagon as if it is a naughty child that will not do her bidding. Sometimes the room is full of quiet concentration; sometimes we chat - about art and its ability to free you from the distractions of your life. Kathy de Ravel, a Natal-born South African and a stay-at-home mom who has been in Mauritius for 27 years, did a six-week foundation course with Artist Retreat Mauritius last year. At the age of 50, she says, she has discovered a passion, and she illustrates it with a blue building against a crazy pink sky.Because this course is only three days, there are times when I simply have to move on. My pencil lines are barely there but it is time to paint. Krantz shows me how to choose colours from a table brimming with acrylic pots - easier for a novice. The trick is in looking closely and replicating what you see, not just what you think you should see. Yes, this tree is brown but there are also touches of red. Yes, the leaves are green but they're also full of yellow. And white. I squeeze blobs of colour onto a palette, swirl them with a brush, dab them on canvas. I play with a palette knife; swirl, slash and dab some more. I get braver as I go.We break for lunch under the acacia trees of Vanilla Bean, a café on the guesthouse grounds, and go back to work. One night there is a cocktail-fuelled catamaran cruise at sunset, with snorkelling in Tamarin Bay. After a day in the studio, I find myself looking at everything in terms of how it might look in paint, which somehow makes it all the more magical, lights twinkling in the hills.mini_story_image_vright3Two days dissolve in a swirl of colour and concentration. The exercise is totally absorbing and endlessly enjoyable. From up close, my painting is a mass of colours and lumps but gradually, when I step back, something is starting to emerge, something not the same as, yet not entirely divorced from, the photograph I took.By the last afternoon I have run out of time and the chair I was going to put there and the little red Coca-Cola crate have not made it. Still, I am pleased with this thing I have made - and invigorated by the experience. It has been a getaway in the literal sense, going to Mauritius and seeing the sights, but also heightened by its creative spirit - finding harbour in the right side of the brain. It's like a holiday on steroids, a technicolour escape. I promise to come home and find my own art teacher. Finish my painting and make more.On my way home, I carry my masterpiece under my arm to keep it safe from the wrecking ball of airline transit. Security guards admire it, fellow passengers smile and nod. Back at the office, even my cynical colleagues are impressed. Delightfully, not one solitary person thinks it's a hat.Sleith was a guest of Artist Retreat Mauritius.sub_head_start if you go sub_head_endTHE RETREATThe eight-day retreat is R19 150 for participants and R14 950 for non-painting partners. The rate includes accommodation at Vanilla House, transfers, excursions, most meals, soft drinks and wine, tuition, art materials and more. It excludes airfares to Mauritius. For details and upcoming courses, visit http://aremau.artistretreatmauritius.com or e-mailinfo@artistretreatmauritius.com.mini_story_image_hleft4OPTIONS FOR PARTNERSOn excursion days, non-painters can go along and explore as they wish - or do their own thing entirely. On studio days, there is a wealth of distractions (painters are also free to spend as much or as little time in the studio as they like). Several excursions can be arranged through Vanilla House, including the following:Golf: The nearby 18-hole Tamarina championship golf course is the only one on the island's west coast, which boasts its lowest rainfall. It has a golf academy, a clubhouse, bar and restaurant. See tamarinagolf.mu.Cruising: The retreat includes a sundowner cruise on a catamaran but sailing company Easterlies also offers full-day trips on the east and west coast, with lunch on board. See easterlies-cruise-mauritius.comAdventure: The Casela World of Adventures is a major tourist playground with lots of entertainment options for adults and kids. The range includes a 4D cinema, a menagerie of animals including 26 lions, four tigers, a petting farm and walking with lions. Adrenaline junkies will find quad biking and a "Via Ferrata" (mountain route for climbers and walkers) with a canyon swing, zip lines and a Nepalese bridge. For more, see caselapark.com.Dining: Vanilla Bean café, on the grounds of Vanilla House, serves healthy, light breakfasts and lunches. Guests at Vanilla House can pre-order dinner to eat in their rooms or choose from several restaurants in nearby Tamarin and Black River. The Madrague, the main restaurant at the Tamarina Boutique Hotel overlooking Tamarin Bay, serves "international cuisine with a Créole accent" and makes an ideal romantic dinner spot after a hard day's painting. See tamarinahotel.com.STAYING AT VANILLA HOUSEThis guesthouse, near the town of Black River in the southwest, has nine en-suite rooms facing each other around a lush courtyard garden. Each double room has a kitchenette (with fridge, kettle, microwave and toaster), air-con, satellite TV and a small patio. Babies (0-2) can be accommodated on a sleeper couch and interleading rooms are available. There is also free wifi, a swimming pool, braai area and a spa. Although it isn't on the beach, there are bicycles for borrowing and the closest beach (2.6km) is an easy pedal away, as is the Black River Gorges National Park, with lovely hiking trails. It's a great option for a secluded getaway and something different from the package-deal, buffet-line chaos of the big resorts. Two adults sharing pay €85 per night for the room with breakfast. See http://mauritius-guest-house.com.SPECIAL OFFER: Art Retreat Mauritius is offering a 10% discount to participating artists and a further 10% to groups of 10. Just mention the Sunday Times when making your booking - before the end of April 2015 to qualify...