Randy Hale’s subject for his first Watermill interactive online session this season is the awesome Otter Cliffs in the Acadia National Park in Maine in the USA. He will show you how to move travel sketch to finished painting. The date is 7 December 2023. (Details and a link below.) So you’ve only a few days left to […]
An imposing mediaeval castle in Tuscany: just one of the atmospheric locations to inspire you on your Watermill painting holiday with Keiko Tanabe
I have only recently come upon this wonderful, atmospheric watercolour of the 13th century Malaspina castle in Verrucola, one of the locations on our Watermill painting courses. Isn’t it a stunningly evocative painting? Here’s another: We go to paint at Verrucola every Monday on a painting course and we have other amazing locations as well: […]
Truly scrumptious! December’s Watermill newsletter is just out
This edition of the Watermill newsletter is Truly Scrumptious – and eclectic. The heroine of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang rubs shoulders with a ferocious Etruscan monster; a tender Donatello Madonna finds a new home; a Caravaggio angel turns his back on us, as does a man in a black overcoat with a Botticelli goddess on […]
You’ll find paintings of more than 250 children in Pieter Bruegel’s astonishing picture – but you won’t find Wally (or Waldo)!
Do you remember Where’s Wally?, the illustrated puzzle books for children, by Martin Handford, where you had to pick out, in a double-page drawing featuring dozens of people, a boy in red-and-white striped pullover, bobble hat and glasses, the eponymous Wally. (I think the series was called Where’s Waldo in the United States and Canada.) […]
Randy keeps returning to this awesome scene, You, too, can paint this vertiginous clifftop along with him on his Watermill online session
Randy Hale’s subject for his first Watermill interactive online session this season is the awesome Otter Cliffs in the Acadia National Park in Maine in the USA. He will show you how to move travel sketch to finished painting. The date is 7 December 2023. (Details and a link below.) Randy is so enthusiastic about […]
The memories of a Watermill painting course linger on: our thanks to Ashay for sharing his
We always say that memories of creative week at the Watermill linger on and on, not just in the mind but with the capacity to paint up at home your sketches of some of the beautiful places you have visited. Dr Akshay Wadegaonkar, who came on Charles Sluga’s course last summer with his wife Sayali […]
Etymological trivia arising from Tom, Dick and Harry
We were talking yesterday about Tizio, Caio e Sempronio, the Italian equivalents of Tom, Dick and Harry and as I was writing that piece, I was intrigued by all the etymological trivia I gathered during my research. I suspect that many of my readers have a love of words, just as I do, so I […]
The secret of life, the universe and everything is not 42, but 40 and 34 could bring happiness
Do you remember Douglas Adams’ wonderful radio comedy sci-fi series A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?, in which a supercomputer (a sort of early Artificial Intelligence machine), was asked: “What’s the secret of life, the universe and everything?” The answer was disappointing: It looks as if we will have to go on searching! Might I […]
A wonderful Donatello terracotta Madonna for the Bargello
I think Donatello is my favourite artist. It’s a close-run thing with Brunelleschi, but the latter was rather short-tempered, while Donatello sounds much more fun, so I guess he gets the prize by a very short head. So, I was delighted to learn that another Donatello masterpiece, this time a terracotta Madonna, has been purchased […]
Onwards and upwards with the Watermiill’s interactive online painnting sessions: from Mike’s hilltop village to Randy’s awesome cliffs
More than 70 people signed up for Mike Willdridge’s online interactive painting session with the Watermill yesterday, painting an Italian hilltop village, step-by-step along with Mike. They are you all part of our ‘virtual’ international painting community, with people from all over the world getting together for two or three hours of convivial creativity. Many […]