A flurry of loose papers flew across their cabin porch, sand swirled into their eyes, and the air was filled with a wild energy. It was just what David Voros wanted.

"It was a great shared experience," said Voros, assistant professor of art. "Everyone was involved in the storm, everyone had the same motivations, yet we'll see very different work from each of them."

The trip to Pritchards Island, a pristine research property off the coast of Beaufort, was part of a Summer I landscape painting course for intermediate to expert painters.

"It's a naturalist's approach to painting," said Voros, who received an innovative instructional grant from the provost's office to begin the course. "It's not only a visual experience, but also a 3-D intellectual experience."

The storm was just a part of the experience for the students. "It was a terrible storm, but it wasn't frightening. The marine biologists who are on the island are very knowledgeable and made us feel comfortable about being there," said Catherine Ghys, an art student who will graduate this summer with a B.F.A. degree. "Being out in the open is a very aesthetic experience, and I felt very relaxed and one with nature."

The weather during most of the two-day trip was clear and bright, allowing the students to do what they came to do.

"A goal of the trip was to gather information about coastal landscapes to work with when we came back," Voros said. "Students used different media, ranging from charcoal and pencil to oil pastels, watercolors, acrylic paint, even some oil paint. And the class was a good mix of students: we had people experiencing landscape painting for the first time, combined with people who are experienced landscape painters."

Kristin Harrell, a graduate student in art education, hadn't painted in years. "It's an amazing class; I just loved it," Harrell said. "Painting at Pritchards Island was very difficult because you wanted to paint everything that you saw and it was really hard to concentrate on just one theme. I came away with mostly studies for finished pieces I will make, although some people did come away with finished pieces.

"The landscape was beautiful–it was nice just to experience it–but my favorite part was interacting with the other students," she said. "I would go out and paint something, and then come back and everyone else had gone out and painted something entirely different. We talked at length about what we had painted."

Another student, Angela Lusk, had never gone on-site to paint landscapes. "It really gives you a sense of what you are trying to capture," said Lusk, an art education major with a studio focus in painting. "It's a lot different from painting from a photograph because you get a real sense of the elements: the air, the sun, the sand, the bugs that were biting us."

The storm that came on the second day offered a different sense of the elements. "It came fast and there was even a small waterspout off the island," Lusk said. "Some people working down on the beach were sketching the storm clouds. We took photos, too, to bring back with us and to paint from in the future."

Voros also took his students to the Baruch Marine Institute near Georgetown this summer to paint landscapes.

The course will be offered again in the fall, and Voros will return to Pritchards Island in September with another group of lucky students.