Failure?
A long time ago, when I ran evening classes at the local college, I taught a student who only ever worked on scraps of paper. Bernice could draw well, was blessed with a good sense of composition and colour and had an…
Imagining The Landscape
Vague, hazy distances or intricate, closeup details; a hillside habitation or the veins on a leaf; clouds, blades of grass, tree bark and shadows; if we can take it all in in a single glance, then why can't we work…
Life Is Short, Art Is Long And Lunch Is Even Longer!
I've just returned from seven fantastic days at Studio Paradiso in a secret location, beyond Carrara, where every town and village perches on its own wooded slope and Michelangelo's white marble gleams like snow on the mountains.
Salt Of The Earth
After a slow morning at the villa, sketching in the sunshine, we drove to Marsala to the Florio family winery, where we discovered that the legendary dessert wine comes in many other guises too. Besides wine, Florio's stylish shop also sells ceramics, preserves,…
Fishing For Inspiration
With the exertions of Selinunte still fresh in our minds, we took the morning off to visit nearby Castelvetrano. After coffee and a highly restorative bout of shopping, followed by a magnificent lunch of last night's leftovers, (refreshed…
Salute Selinunte!
We had a wonderful second day on our Paccamora painting holiday in Sicily. The sun shot hotly all through the afternoon as we toured the monumental temples of ancient Selinunte and scrambled over the ruins, sketching as we went. Afterwards,…