As our 2024 creative courses are pretty full (though there are often cancellations and if you’re keen to come this year, please let us know) we have published a Preview for next year’s (2025) courses on our website a little earlier than usual. And, thanks to the reputation of our tutors and their enthusiasm for […]
Happy Easter. If you are looking for the Easter Bunny, he went thataway!
Yes, the Easter Bunny was last seen diving through the front door of a house in Poundbury, in Dorset, England. Our tutor and friend Mike Willdridge and his lovely wife Sue sent us this picture of their house, saying: “We’re expecting our complete family for Easter (16!) – our door decorated ready for the grandkids.” […]
Thank you, Mike, for many years of inspiration, support and friendship.
We cannot allow Mike Willldridge’s online interactive painting session last Thursday to go uncelebrated. For not only was it the last session of our current interactive season, but it was also Mike’s last-ever. He is retiring this year and after he has been with us for his week-long residential course this summer, he will […]
A magical Florentine aerial show, performed twice a day
We were sitting a month or so ago in the early evening in the rooftop café on one of my favourite buildings in Florence, Brunelleschi’s sublime Ospedale degli Innocenti, when a sensational live performance built up before our eyes. It was what we learned to call a murmuration of starlings, as thousands, if not tens […]
Learn what to leave out when you paint online along with Mike
Mike Willdridge returns to a Mediterranean beach for the next of his interactive online sessions with the Watermill, on 21 March. His subject is two women lying under the shade of a giant beach umbrella and his theme is choosing what to leave out for a picture that is better composed and more interesting. That’s […]
Making a feminist point in paint, more than 450 years ago.
Here’s an interesting picture. It’s a self-portrait by the remarkable 16th century painter Sofonisba Anguissola. She certainly painted all the picture, including herself, but it is of a man (her teacher Bernardino Campi), painting her. And in this highly unusual picture, painted in 1559, she was making a feminist point. For Sofonisba was a woman […]
From cold March winds to warm summer sunshine for the last of the Watermill’s current season of online sessions.
The 50 or painters who took part in Randy Hale’s interactive online painting yesterday were no doubt glad that they were painting in the warmth of their own homes, because the subject was a chilly scene featuring a roaring March wind and swirling snow. After the session, as usual, some of the participants sent their […]
The Florence Magnolia welcomes spring and other stories. The Watermill March newsletter is just out…
…with lots more stories, including two heartwarming tales from Hollywood, why there are a billion fewer plastic bottles in the ocean, what Shakespeare knew about knitting, the perils of pronunciation, and of course, all the latest news on Watermill creative courses. Read All About It, by clicking here,
The vine verandah: the convivial heart of a Watermill creative course
Randy Hale has just sent us this wonderful watercolour of the mill seen from the walled garden, with the vine verandah and its green umbrellas in the foreground. He calls the painting Contemplating Aperitivi, and I think it celebrates one of the distinctive features of a Watermill creative course. For it is here, as the […]
Food is another creative passion for the Italians and the Watermill
When the cacio e pepe arrived in a local trattoria, my friend Max tasted it and asked the waitress: “Is there cream in this?” When the waitress said that there was, Max said: “Take it away, please!” And they did, with little or no demur. Max, like many Italians, is passionate about food. He’s also […]