{"id":1400,"date":"2020-09-17T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T09:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2020-09-16T23:59:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T22:59:02","slug":"italian-sunshine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/?p=1400","title":{"rendered":"Italian sunshine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Posara-Diary.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1396\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Posara-Diary-300x223.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"441\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Posara-Diary-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Posara-Diary-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Posara-Diary.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 441px) 85vw, 441px\" \/><\/a>The above diary doesn&#8217;t begin to explain the deep delight of a painting holiday at The Watermill in Posara, near Pisa in Italy!\u00a0 Just seven small pictures chronicle seven days of adventure with brush and paint in the great outdoors.<\/p>\n<p>My purpose was to find out what was needed to successfully paint outside,\u00a0 and indeed I fulfilled that purpose, due in no small part to the comprehensive but unobtrusive organisation and care of our hosts, and the focussed help of our tutor.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was a working holiday &#8211; there was no doubt about that &#8211; two paintings at different sites every day, and the sites so varied, mountains, sea side, villages, cloisters, hill towns, fast flowing rivers. \u00a0\u00a0 But such was the level of planning, that the biggest non-painting decision I had to take was whether to red or white wine at dinner, real bliss to be able to concentrate on painting alone.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/The-Watermill-Posara.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1397\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/The-Watermill-Posara-276x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"276\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/The-Watermill-Posara-276x300.jpg 276w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/The-Watermill-Posara-138x150.jpg 138w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/The-Watermill-Posara.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 276px) 85vw, 276px\" \/><\/a>Day one, and we were painting in the courtyard of the Mill itself.\u00a0\u00a0 This is the corner of one of the buildings that surround it, a beautiful golden render (Quinacridone Gold and a touch of Orange) with big shuttered windows.\u00a0 It was a baptism of fire, straight in, no drawing, don&#8217;t spend too long at it &#8211; exhilarating.\u00a0 I did more than one but this is the best of the bunch.<\/p>\n<p>Then, after\u00a0 lunch, we were up a grassy alley to paint some of the houses of the village.<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Houses-in-Posara.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1398\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Houses-in-Posara-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Houses-in-Posara-220x300.jpg 220w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Houses-in-Posara-110x150.jpg 110w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Houses-in-Posara-749x1024.jpg 749w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Houses-in-Posara.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 220px) 85vw, 220px\" \/><\/a>\u00a0 Here is a longer view, a more considered painting.\u00a0 I think you can see I was struggling to cope with water, paint brush, paper and easel! In fact, I forgot how to paint!\u00a0 Colour mixing ideas went out of the window, brush strokes didn&#8217;t exist.\u00a0 Nothing seemed to be where it usually was when painting at home.\u00a0 It took me a day or so to\u00a0 realise that I had taken too much equipment with me. \u00a0\u00a0 By the end of the week, a big pocket, rather than a big bag would hold most of what I needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The above diary doesn&#8217;t begin to explain the deep delight of a painting holiday at The Watermill in Posara, near Pisa in Italy!\u00a0 Just seven small pictures chronicle seven days of adventure with brush and paint in the great outdoors. My purpose was to find out what was needed to successfully paint outside,\u00a0 and indeed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/?p=1400\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Italian sunshine&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1404,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/1404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}