The location for our training retreat is the beautiful Italian city of Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance. Immerse yourself in sketching the grand vista of the cityline (from atop Piazzale Michelangelo), to discovering cool street art around every corner of its winding streets, to absorbing the genius of Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists at Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze.
Ben is well-known for his strategic facilitation, business illustration, training, and creative graphic recording. As a designer for over 25 years, he learned the importance of always sketching his ideas, as well as helping others to bring their ideas to life visually, to create products and services that are more usable, useful and enjoyable. As an independent consultant at Bright Pilots, he enjoys helping teams of all kinds find and solve problems better, think and communicate together better, and ship faster. He is also the author of Presto Sketching, as well as Draw in 4 and 50 Remote-Friendly Icebreakers. He loves travel, and really enjoys helping people have creative breakthroughs in groups in amazing cities.
Get to know Ben here
Axelle is a highly-renowned graphic recorder at Visual Harvesting, who has transformed hundreds of speakers’ words into attractive thoughtful visual summaries at conferences and gatherings all over the world, for over 10 years. She is also an in-demand trainer, leadership coach and speaker. Her mission is to enable anyone in the world to convey a message with a drawing, and to help those drawings gain power in every organisation, to do business and innovate more successfully. This passion fuels incredible amounts of creativity. Axelle is also the author of Start to Draw. She's also an avid traveller, and loves blending location, learning, relaxation and connection into fun experiences for everyone.
Get to know Axelle here
Class Information
WORKSHOP 1
Goals Poster: After a self-guided 'treasure hunt' around the city, capturing examples of lettering and graphics, everyone creates a visual poster about their goals for the retreat, and we meet together at the rooftop bar of The Social Hub, Florence Lavagnini, to have a dinner and a drink, and share our Goals Posters.
WORKSHOP 2
Urban Sketching: Sketching the view of the entire Florence city from Piazzale Michelangelo. This includes instruction in layout and composition, using frameworks such as the Golden Ratio, the Rule of Thirds, and Foreground Midground and Background. We explore how layout and focus helps viewers to understand the story we tell in visuals.
WORKSHOP 3
Creative Drawing: We have fun with three different methods of generating more creative ideas, using a wide variety of different media.
About the Facilities
What's included
Accomodation
Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Tuition
Not included Airfares, insurance, alcoholic drinks, other drinks and transport prior to your arrival at Florence or other transport/tours not specified in our itinerary, are not included.
Retreat location
The location for our training retreat is the beautiful Italian city of Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance.
Full refund up until 14 days prior to the retreat (after that we can refund all but accommodation costs)
Passports and visas
It is the Participant’s responsibility to ensure that their passport is up to date, has at least six months validity.
You must check what the visa requirements are in your country of origin.
