Dear Friend,

Well, here it is at last (we hope!) VC Day is on the way. Not the Victoria Cross for bravery, although we all deserve a medal after a difficult year, but Victory over Coronavirus Day, at least in the UK. Yes, our Prime Minister has announced that overseas holidays should be possible from 17 May 2021. And where the UK leads, the USA, and the rest of the world will surely follow (probably!).

Of course, there may be, as the saying has it, many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip. But at least some sort of provisional date gives us, and hospitality businesses like ours, the capacity at last to do a little forward planning.

So what we have done is to postpone our earliest courses of the season to later in the year, or even until 2022, and we’ve planned an exciting reawakening from the middle of June onwards. We look forward, at long last, to welcoming our guests to Posara for our renowned courses in painting, creative writing, knitting and Italian language.

There are details of all our creative courses below – and you can rest assured that, like you, we are monitoring the situation very carefully. If our governments make it impossible for you to come to Italy from June onwards, we will roll over those courses to a later date.

Meanwhile, having converted ourselves into producers of online, interactive painting sessions, we’ve been very busy creating what can be described as an international online painting club, where every week a hundred or so people from different parts of the world come online to paint along with our wonderful tutors, and enjoy a few hours ‘away from it all’ in the convivial company of like-minded people. We have many more sessions in the pipeline for the next few months, so if you’d like to join in, just click here to see more details.

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 proper creative week at Posara this year? Our week-long courses are not just in painting, but also in creative writing, knitting and Italian language. Details and links to everything below.

The scenery is sensational

Treat yourself: you know you deserve it!

Already these weeks, the perfect combination of relaxation and creativity, are filling up, so 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. As well as dates and links below, there is more about our 2021 creative courses on our Watermill website: Just click here.

In this month’s newsletter we have stories on:

• famous couples who have graced the Watermill’s newsletters
• looking forward to more Watermill online sessions
• treasures from the Uffizi could be heading to Fivizzano
• keeping fit, Florentine style
• Fra Angelico and Toulouse-Lautrec: unlikely bedfellows
• our painting tutor of the month, Randy Hale
• relax, we’ve tidied up our knitting
• our writing ‘living legends’ are ready to roll
• our language course is pronto when you are

Happy reading!

At the top and bottom of this introductory section of the newsletter are some demonstration paintings from our recent and upcoming online, interactive sessions. Top left: Tim Wilmot’s piazza in Fivizzano; top right: Rebecca de Mendona’s pastel still-life with shine. Bottom left: a detail of the Vicki Norman’s view down the valley to Posara; bottom Right: Mike Willdridge’s reference photograph for sunrise over Suffolk.

“Home at last!
Odysseus and Penelope
celebrate his homecoming

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 right: life-craft.org

Famous couples at the Watermill

I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but in every newsletter we have a picture of the famous couple, urging you to bring your partner on a Watermill week. Today it was the turn of Penelope, who’s been waiting for ages for Odysseus to turn up so that they can get away together.

In his spare moments, when Bill’s not being an online marketing man, he’s been tidying up the Watermill’s blog pages, in preparation for a relaunch later this month. One of his blogs from some time ago was about our Watermill newsletters’ famous couples and we thought it would do no harm to revisit it here.

The old blog said: "We have been having a lot of fun recently with our Watermill newsletters, where we always have a paragraph urging you to bring your partner to join you on one of our creative courses. We seek out pictures of famous couples and make up our own captions and we thought we’d share a few of the latest ones with you."

(Left) “Cheer up! Let’s leave Urbino and head for the Watermill.”
( Right) “Let’s go to the Watermill. We won’t need our furs.”

That’s the Duke and Duchess of Urbino above, as painted by Piero della Francesca. And here are Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, as Dr Zhivago and Lara, looking a little chilly:

Our encouragement to bring your partner or friend still holds good: there’s plenty for them to do while you are enjoying your painting, creative writing, knitting or Italian language course. 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, come out with you to our beautiful locations. We also offer a range of Alternative activities for partners, as well as a generous £250 discount if they share a room with you. We think this couple might be amused:

(Left) We would be amused by a week at the Watermill
(Right) Bogart and Bergman

And as Bogie might have said to Ingrid: “We’ll always have Posara!”

But seriously... do come as a twosome and double your delights on a Watermill creative course. As always, there's more about everything at The Watermill website, which you can see by clicking here.

Upcoming Watermill online interactive sessions

(Left) Randy’s watercolour on clay rooftops and stucco façades,
and (Right) a detail from Vicki’s oil of the view down the valley to Posara.

While we are beginning to prepare the Watermill for our ‘real’ guests, we are also continuing our exciting online, interactive sessions. Half a dozen of our inspiring and talented Watermill painting tutors have joined the online team to provide an even broader offering to our friends and followers. As well as Mike Willdridge, Randy Hale and Tim Wilmot will bring us paint-along sessions in watercolours, while Rebecca de Mendonça will continue to share her expertise in pastels. The secrets of painting in acrylics will be passed on by Sue Ford, and Vicki Norman joins the team to uplift us with her masterly oil paintings.

Just click here to see more

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

Treasures from the Uffizi could be heading towards Fivizzano

(left) The Uffizi gallery (picture: arte.it)
and, (Right) not quite so grand, the entrance to Fivizzano Museum (picture ViaggiArt)

The Mayor of Fivizzano, the walled mediaeval town near The Watermill (where we go for an introductory dinner in the main square the first Saturday of our creative courses and to visit the weekly market on Tuesdays) has written to the Director of the world-famous Uffizi gallery in Florence, saying “we are ready when you are”.(Or words to that effect.)

It is part of a new initiative by Eike Schmidt, the director of the most important Italian museum, called Uffizi diffuse. The aim is to unearth some of the hidden artworks, buried in the gallery’s basements and elsewhere, and display them in other venues throughout Tuscany.

I wonder if she fancies a change of scene?
Picture: Uffizi gallery

Our mayor, Gianluigi Giannetti, has written to the Director, asking to participate in the project and we are now expecting a visit by managers from the Uffizi to inspect our local museum, in the old Augustinian monastery, just off the main piazza.

I don’t think we are expecting Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, nor Leonardo’s  Annunciation, but it will be fascinating to see what hidden Italian art treasures find the way to our sleepy and unspoiled market town. Yet another reason to come on one of our renowned creative courses. You can find out all about them by clicking here.

Keeping fit, Florentine style

Despite coronavirus restrictions, Lois and Bill have been able to indulge in some traditional Florentine customs, like mountain biking down the wonderful dome of the cathedral, a practice inaugurated by Lorenzo the Magnificent. Note, however, how correctly social distanced we are. Bill was very glad his brakes worked when he got to the end of the nave!

*This was another old blog that Bill stumbled across during his tidying-up process. this one from way back in 2015. They say the camera can't lie, but if you believe the above, you'll believe anything. But it's a great photo, isn't it?

Chalk and cheese: where Toulouse-Lautrec hangs about with Fra Angelico

They may seem like strange bedfellows, but an angelic monk and the passionate recorder of the Naughty Nineties in 19th-century Paris get together in one of the Watermill’s bedrooms! Here’s how.

Our 'virtual' tours of Watermill bedrooms continue this month with Fra Angelico. Painting in the early 15th century, this Dominican friar is perhaps most famous for his sublime frescoes in the monks’ cells in the monastery of San Marco in the centre of Florence.

Vasari describes him as having “a rare and perfect talent,” adding, “It is impossible to bestow too much praise on this holy father, who was so humble and modest in all that he did and said and whose pictures were painted with such facility and piety.”

Here (above left) is one of his most famous works, the Annunciation, to be seen in the Convento di San Marco, Florence. Our bright and airy bedroom (above right) is rather less pious and rather more fun than the monks’ cells in San Marco. And one of its walls is graced by a reference to another man who, despite his disability, had great fun painting, and taking part in, the rumbustuous goings-on of fin de siècle Paris.

We are not quite sure what the Dominican Friars of San Marco would have made of this watercolour by a friend of ours, David Jones, which shows the Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at work in his studio, with a 1960s girl in a mini dress in front, looking out at us.

What does it mean? Come and see for yourself and let us know your thoughts.

I have made one of those fun, 30-second Facebook slideshows with more of Francesco Lastrucci’s photographs of the Fra Angelico bedroom, which you can see by clicking here.

We'd be delighted to welcome you here for one of our caring and inspiring creative holiday weeks – painting, creative writing, knitting and Italian language. Come and choose your favourite bedroom. You can find out more about all our fun-filled, sun-filled, inspiring creative courses by clicking here.