Dear Friend,

The big news for February is that we are creating another exciting Watermill ‘virtual’ online, interactive painting week with Mike Willdridge. It will run from Saturday 20 February to Friday 26 February inclusive. Don't worry if you can't make every session - there will be a video every day for you to catch up.

This follows the great success of our first ‘virtual’ week at the end of last year, when more than 120 people painted along with Mike each day for seven days. They ‘visited’ the stunning locations we enjoy during our ‘real’ Watermill painting holidays: an imposing castle, market day in a walled mediaeval town, a sunlit café by the harbour in a nearby fishing village, the cloisters of a quiet convent and a hilltop village with imposing mountains in the background.

And their response was overwhelming. As one participant said: “It was a fabulous week and over all too quickly. I can't tell you how much I am missing being in Tuscany! It was the best thing I have done all year. Mike's demonstrations were so clear and informative. I felt I learnt more in seven days than I have in seven years!”

Mike’s demonstration picture of
washing on the line in the hilltop village
of Monte dei Bianchi

Encouraged by your enthusiasm, we’ve decided to do it again, visiting the same exciting locations* but with completely different subjects to paint. If you have been before you know how much fun it is, and how inspiring: join us again for more camaraderie and new exciting painting subjects; if you haven’t been before, now is the time to find out what the fuss is all about! (*Except that on Wednesday we will ‘visit’ the wonderful walled town of Lucca, rather than the Cinque Terre.)

There are more details below about how to register for this exciting week, which allows you to paint in glorious Tuscany, Italy, without leaving your own home!

But convivial and inspiring as our online, interactive painting sessions are, they are not quite as good as the real thing, so why not come and join us for a real creative week Posara this year? We are confident that by late spring/early summer we will be welcoming Watermill guests again.

The scenery is sensational

Treat yourself to one of our renowned week-long creative holidays, in painting, creative writing, knitting and Italian language. We have organised another exciting season for 2021 and already these weeks, the perfect combination of relaxation and creativity, are filling up: we have more than 210 bookings out of a potential total of some 250/260.

Now is the time to reserve your place if you want to enjoy inspiring teaching, spectacular locations delicious home-cooked food, warm hospitality and the convivial company of like-minded people. There’s more about our 2021 creative courses on our Watermill website: just click here.

In this month’s newsletter we have stories on:

• How to register for our ‘virtual’ painting week
• Upcoming Watermill online interactive sessions
• Entertaining the grandkids: how our interactive, online sessions began
• Italian lifestyle habits for a healthier, happier existence
• Is the door of our Ghiberti bedroom a gate to paradise?
• Three boys to make you smile
• Painting tutor of the month: Randy Hale, and his passion for teaching
• Latest availability on our 2021 painting courses
• Treat yourself to a knitting retreat
• Gesticulate, communicate!

Happy reading!

At the top and bottom of this introductory section of the newsletter are some of Mike Willdridge’s demonstration pictures for our upcoming ‘virtual’ painting week. Top left: the white chapel at the nearby village of Verrucola; top right: a Pisa street. Bottom left: a corner of the Watermill courtyard; bottom Right: Two ladies chatting in the sun.

“The dinners at the Watermill
are a delight.”

Bring a partner: there's plenty for them to do

They don’t have to participate in the course, but they will be able to enjoy the wonderful hospitality of the mill and, whenever they want, to come out with you to our beautiful locations.

We also offer a range of Alternative activities for partners on all our courses, as well as a generous £GBP 250 discount if they share a room with you.

Picture of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Guess who’s coming to dinner? (above right) Picture: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

More details of our online ‘virtual’ painting week at the Watermill

Mike’s painting of the lane
from the Watermill to the village of Posara
painting during our first ‘virtual’ week

In your ‘virtual’ week at the Watermill you will enjoy daily live interactive sessions on Zoom. Full of fun, our sessions have become an international painting club where you can enjoy the convivial company of like-minded people. You will paint along with Mike every day from Saturday 20 February to Friday 26 February inclusive.

Each session will last two-and-a-half hours or so. It’s the next best thing to being here and it will bring Italian sunshine and memories of la Bella Vita to brighten your days.

And don’t be daunted, as well as being fun, Mike’s virtual week is very much a ‘mini' course in watercolour painting. He says: “We start easy and progress through the week and each day is related to the others, so it will benefit both the beginner and those with more experience.”

To help give you the real flavour (sorry about the pun) of a Watermill painting week, as well as those live daily paint-along sessions, you will also receive mouth-watering Watermill recipes, for you to try out at home. Here’s a montage of some of the Watermill dishes we will show you how to cook:

We also made one of those fun 30-second Facebook slideshows of these delightful dishes, further to whet your appetite. Just click here.

After each painting session there will be an exclusive video of Mike’s demonstration to refresh your memory. There will also be a daily gallery where you can post your paintings and admire the efforts of your fellow participants paintings. and you’ll even have a chance to win one of Mike’s outstanding paintings.

Mike Willdridge works in a wide range of media and is an enthusiastic and energetic tutor, often encouraging his students to be bold and to take chances. His classes are always light-hearted and fun, with the ‘teaching’ tailored to individual needs. A comment from a previous painter: “Mike Willdridge is a most inspiring tutor whose energy and enthusiasm encourages students to develop both their visual awareness and confidence. His patience and good humour create an enjoyable atmosphere in which students thrive.” Another said: “Mike is a superb tutor and his online, interactive painting sessions are inspiring and fun.”

Unlike many online painting programmes, Mike’s will not expect you to ‘look over his shoulder’ for a long demonstration, and perhaps be allowed to ask the odd question or two. No, you will be painting along at more or less the same time, trying out the watercolour techniques that Mike has shown you, step-by-step. He will demonstrate some basic techniques for only a few minutes before you start painting the same subject at home. Then, after you have had your turn, Mike will move onto the next part of the process. Lois Breckon will be on hand to feed your questions. Each session will last a couple of hours.

A montage of participants’ paintings on the last day of our first ‘virtual’ week.

The cost?

It obviously takes a good deal of time and effort to organise the sessions and in administration and personal communications with each of the participants. So we think the virtual painting week at the Watermill is incredibly good value for money: £70 (UK pounds) for all seven daily sessions and all the add-ons. That’s just £10 for each one of these inspiring, interactive online sessions. (This is a block booking: if you can’t make it each day, you will still receive access to all the videos, the daily gallery and have an entry into the prize draw for your chance to win one of Mike’s original paintings.)

Here’s how to register

Please register for Mike's virtual online, interactive painting week at the Watermill from Saturday 20 February to Friday 26 February 2021, using our online-events organiser, Eventbrite. Just click here

After a week online, why not also paint with Mike at the Watermill for real later this year? To learn more about Mike and his week at the Watermill, please click here.

Upcoming Watermill online interactive sessions

(Left) Tim Wilmot’s watercolour of the interior of the 19th century Watermill
and (Right) Vicki Norman’s sparkling oil of a sunlit vineyard

As well as our ‘virtual’ painting week, we are also continuing our other regular online, interactive sessions. And more of our inspiring and talented Watermill painting tutors have joined the online team to provide an even broader offering to our friends and followers. Randy Hale and Tim Wilmot also bring us paint-along sessions in watercolours, while Rebecca de Mendonça will continue to share her expertise in pastels (don't miss her session this Thursday 4 February at 2.30pm UK time). The secrets of painting in acrylics have been passed on by Sue Ford, while Vicki Norman joins the team to uplift us with her masterly oil paintings.

These sessions have already proved extremely popular and they are creating a real sense of international community in these difficult times. Our guests have called them ‘morale boosting’ and ‘a wonderful distraction’. Come and join us.

to exhilarating preliminary demonstration pictures by Mike and Randy for their forthcoming
online interactive sessions

To find out more, please go to the Online Courses page on the Watermill website, by clicking here.

Entertaining the grandkids: how our interactive, online sessions began

The youngest member of Mike’s
international family online art club

It was in May 2020 that we ran our first Watermill online, interactive session with Mike Willdridge. We started very simply, we recollect, painting a lemon. And we’ve since graduated to everything from geese to fish markets, to stormy lakes and reflections on a beach, and much else besides. Mike reminisces on how it all began: “Ages ago now, I started running an online art club for my grandchildren (England, Wales and Australia) to give them something to do during our first lockdown. The ‘Art Club’ very quickly became popular and soon we were joined by other members of our extended family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc.

“The art club is still thriving. In fact, it’s virtually run by the children now who suggest topics and send out, often by video, details of what’s needed for their sessions. I just keep a 'light touch' on the whole project. Have to say though that our sessions are chaotic - quite unlike yours, Lois!”

The picture above shows the youngest member of Mike’s family online art club, a granddaughter from Wales, who hasn’t missed a session since it all began early last year. And here (left) are a brother and sister in Australia hard at work.

Last spring, Mike suggested that we might do something for our Watermill friends and followers, focusing on watercolour painting techniques. He says: “I offered two or three sessions to help out. The rest is history - amazing!

We must have done more than 20 online interactive sessions now and they are proving ever more popular: each week more than a hundred people, from all over the world, sign up to enjoy each other’s company, learn new tips and techniques – but, above all, to escape from the world for an hour or two’s painting. Thanks to Mike, and all the Willdridge grandkids.

Italian lifestyle habits for a healthier, happier existence

In the last week or so of January, we began a series of blogs about 10 Italian lifestyle habits that add to the quality of daily living. You can see them (and lots of other interesting articles too) on the Watermill’s daily blog. Just click here.

They have been compiled by Patrick Browne in The Local, our Italian English-language newspaper, and we thought we would share a couple of them with you in our newsletter. Some of them, such as going to the local market and eating fresh produce, are easy to keep up with, though some are more difficult in these restricted times.

We have, however, laid the groundwork over the years.

Habit # 3 listed by The Local is Get to know your local shopkeepers. Patrick says: “In Italy it is not uncommon to go to several different shops on one shopping trip, which allows you to develop a relationship with the people you are buying your stuff from. The upshots of this are numerous.

Staff in our local pasticceria:
cheerful, despite the restrictions

“Firstly, your shopping trip becomes an opportunity to socialize. Why not catch up on the local gossip with your baker? Secondly, knowing your local shopkeepers makes life easier. Bought a dodgy product? Just swap it, no lengthy wait at the customer service desk. Strapped for cash? Pay next time! At the end of the day, we’re all friends here.”

Yes, we have made friends with our local shopkeepers both in Fivizzano, the mediaeval town near the Watermill, and Florence, where we live in the winter months. So, while socialising may be curtailed by social distancing and mask-wearing, a cheerful ‘Good morning, How are you?’ works wonders for the spirits.

Habit #4 is Eat together. Patrick says: “Not that people don’t eat together in other countries, but in Italy preparing and sharing food together happens all the time. The biggest difference is that dinner in Italy is not only offered via a formal invite – it often happens spontaneously. Make yourself at home!”

Yes, even in these restricted times, we manage to have small lunches or dinners at friends’ houses, but with cafés and restaurants closed in the evenings and with curtailed service at other times, this is one of the things that we really miss. We are convinced, however, that very soon tutto andrà bene, all will be well.

Enjoy Patrick’s tips on La Bella Vita Italiana on our blog, with the sincere hope that it won’t be long before you be able to join us and enjoy them ’live’, on one of our renowned creative courses at the Watermill. We would be delighted to welcome you here, and you can find out all about everything, both in the real world and online, by clicking here.

(left) Eating out in past times: guests on one of our previous Italian language courses
(Right) Eating together. Lunch at the Watermill in happier times: great food, convivial company

Is the door of our Ghiberti bedroom a gate to paradise?

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s baptistry doors
Pictures: Museo dell’opera del duomo

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s baptistry doors are rightly hailed as one of the great Renaissance creations. The enormous bronze doors on the eastern side of Florence’s baptistry were described by Michelangelo as the Gates of Paradise and their 10 relief panels are recognised as masterpieces of Renaissance sculpture.

Ghiberti (1378 – 1455) was the great rival of Bill's hero Filippo Brunelleschi, but Bill reluctantly admits the baptistry doors are rather good! Lorenzo even ‘signed’ them by putting a bronze self-portrait in one of the tondi.

We have celebrated Lorenzo Ghiberti by naming a bedroom after him at the Watermill, redecorated in a fresh light green, and a flowing flowery frieze painted by Lois and our friend Vivienne White.

Pictures: Francesco Lastrucci

We made a little slideshow of pictures by Francesco Lastrucci, which capture the atmosphere of the Ghiberti bedroom. You can view it by clicking here.

Picture: Francesco Lastrucci

We'd love you to come and see the Ghiberti for yourself, joining us in our idyllic setting in unspoiled rural Tuscany: ...secluded gardens, sun-drenched terraces, a cool vine verandah, a gurgling river, beautifully restored historic buildings... bright airy bedrooms with new en suite bathrooms, and lovely views over the river, the gardens or the mountains... delicious food prepared from fresh local ingredients... Just some of the delights of the Watermill. To learn more, please click here.

Three boys to make you smile

Picture: Charles Sluga gallery

I bet the picture, from our friend and Watermill painting tutor Charles Sluga’s newsletter, makes you smile! We couldn’t resist passing it on!

These three boys were allowed to purchase a print of their choice for their bedrooms. They chose "Robot", "Biggles" and "Batman". They had them framed by Charles’s studio and this engaging image was taken on the day they collected their prints.

Charles says: “I can’t help smiling looking at this. This kind of response makes it all worthwhile - just love it!”

Well, we couldn’t help smiling, too, and we hope you’ve done the same. I particularly like the expression on the face of the boy on the right, and the socks of the boy in the middle.

There will be plenty of smiles and much laughter, too, on Charles’s watercolour painting course at the Watermill this Autumn. Come and join us for inspiring teaching, a beautiful setting, wonderful scenery, delicious food and the convivial company of like-minded people. After a difficult year it’s time to look ahead and give yourself a treat. We made a little 30-second slide show of some of Charles’s work, which you can see by clicking here.