Come and join for fun-filled week soaking up the beautiful Italian language and speaking and understanding it as never before. You will benefit enormously, whether you are beginner or have studied Italian for years. The reason is that we use a special method of teaching a foreign language to adults, which enables each person not […]
Randy is blown away by the talent of our online painters
. We had an amazing response to our latest interactive, online session with Randy Hale last week, dozens of the participants submitting their work to our online Gallery (on Cluster).This is part of the Watermill online service where you paint along with the maestro for a hours as well as receiving the next day an […]
Come and pastel passionately with Padgett!
Mary Padgett, a passionate pastellist* from Syracuse, New York, USA, came to the Watermill for the first time last summer – and we all had an amazing time. After her return to the USA she wrote: “If you have ever wanted to come on one of my European trips, next year is the year to do […]
Italian fun under the Tuscan sun
Here are the aspiring linguists on this year’s Italian Language course soaking up the warm October sun under an ultramarine sky in the Watermill’s walled garden, with our enthusiastic and inspirational tutor Giulia Balestri. There was much laughter as they played guessing games in Italian, reinforcing their knowledge and enhancing their confidence. Today there are […]
80 days for Early Birds
It pays to be an Early Bird. You can do a lot in 80 days (Phineas Fogg, you will recollect, went round the world) – and you will do a lot as we approach the holiday season and all the preparations for Diwali,Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Diwali, Christmas and the like. But one thing that I would […]
Celebrate World Bamboo Day, be an Early Bird and other assorted flora and fauna in this month’s Watermill newsletter
What with ensuring the very best for our Watermill guests, weaving our way through the Italian bureaucratic maze, setting up our new autumn, winter and spring online sessions and finishing off our PhD (Lois) we been a bit slow publishing our October newsletter. But here it is at last. At least it is still October! […]
We liked the painting so much we bought it! Millstones and demijohns in the Watermill courtyard
It pays to be an Early Bird (see below). The charming and talented watercolourist from Northern Ireland, Grahame Booth, is tutor for our painting course this week and he chose for his first demonstration the massive millstones and decorative demijohns in the mill courtyard. The millstones were used to crush olives to a paste before […]
Superb mountain views for our Friday painters
It pays to be an Early Bird (see below.) On Fridays we take our painting guests to Monte dei Bianchi, a thousand-year-old village in the foothills of the Apuan Alps, with wonderful views of the mountains. Above is a short video by tutor Tim Wilmot, which captures the atmosphere of the day. Our thanks to […]
‘Paint the brightest colours first.’ A watercolour tip from Mark
It is worthwhile being an Early Bird. See below. Watermill painting tutor Mark Dober, whose wonderful multi-sheet watercolour is shown above, has sent us this smart little tip to make your paintings even better. Mark says: “After completing the pencil stage of sketching in your subject, paint in the small areas of brightest colour, for example, […]
A painting tip you can eat!
It is worthwhile being an Early Bird. See below From time to time our Watermill painting tutors send us tips to help you to make your paintings even better. And there is another bonus of this tip by Belinda Biggs: you can eat it! Or rather, you can eat its subject . Belinda says: “These delicious […]