We have just received the lovely ‘thank you’ video above from the charity Ocean Bottle, with whom we work to try to reduce the amount of plastic pollution in our oceans. (I must say, our contribution seems piffling when compared with the size of the problem, but as they say, every little helps.) We have […]
Brighten your winter day painting the Italian sunlight online along with Mike
Click on the video above to hear Lois telling you about Mike Willdridge’s latest interactive online painting session with the Watermill. As Lois says, what could be nicer than painting Italian sunshine? — And that’s just what you’ll be doing along with Mike on Thursday 25 January. Details and a link below. Mike says: “This […]
That’s what we call an interesting backyard! More than 100 people painted it along online with Pamme yesterday
Yes, more than 100 people joined Watermill painting tutor Pamme Turner yesterday to learn how to capture the beauty of their own backyards. (As we said in a previous blog, Americans and British people have a different interpretation of the word: in Britain, a backyard is generally a small space with no garden, but in […]
Paint along online with Mike at an Italian seaside town in the latest Watermill interactive Zoom session
Here’s a scene to warm the cockles of your heart on a cold winter’s day, in Mike Willdridge’s next interactive online painting session with the Watermill. Capture the warmth of an Italian summer’s day, painting along in your own home with Mike. The Watermill lies in the province of Massa-Carrara, in the Italian region of […]
Artists line up to paint their own backyards with Pamme
More than 200 people have already signed up for our painting professor Pamme Turner’s FREE online Zoom session this Thursday (11 January), to learn how to capture the beauty of their own backyards*. There is s till time for you to join them, which you can do by clicking here. Pamme, a regular Watermill painting […]
Enthusiastic Watermill online painters make their subject shine on a rainy day (and there are bikes, bareback riders and backyards to come!)
More than 70 people registered for Randy Hale’s online interactive painting session with the Watermill last week. The subject was a rainy day in the ancient city of Rouen in France, with the pavements shining wetly and the great mass of the cathedral louring in the. background. More than 50 enthusiastic painters turned up for the […]
Looking back and looking forward, in the Watermill’s January newsletter
January, as symbolised by the two-headed Roman god Janus, is a time for looking back and looking forwards; of memories of the last year and plans for the next. And that is just what the Watermill newsletter is doing this month. Our memories include a saxophone Flashmob, rides on vintage Vespas, as our gardener Flavio […]
A morning miaow to make you smile
. On the first day of the year, Lois and I went to the Teatro Verdi in Florence, for a jolly Capodanno concert featuring popular works by the great Italian opera composers such as Puccini and Rossini, with an enthusiastic orchestra, a large soprano, whose voice filled the cavernous auditorium, and a less voluminous tenor, […]
Celebrating Alphonse Mucha, the father of Art Nouveau
The Breckon family (our daughters Lydia and Lara are with us in Florence for Christmas) has just visited the Mucha exhibition here – and what a great show it is, featuring the works of Alphonse Mucha, who might be regarded as the father of Art Nouveau. The exhibition was in the wonderful Ospedale degli Innocenti, […]
Romjul is your last chance to be an Early Bird
There isn’t a word in the English language for those strange days between Christmas and the New Year, where, in our family least, we are never quite sure what day of the week it is! A Twitter wit suggested Twixtmas, which I suppose had his merits, but is just a little twee. The Norwegians call […]