PAINTING

This painting workshop will focus on working between observation and invention to explore color and the symbolic potential of the landscape. The landscape has long offered artists a space for reflection, serving as both a physical and psychological terrain. We will use the Italian landscape as a point of departure to investigate how symbolic narratives emerge through perception and imagination. Working both outdoors and in the studio, students will move between direct observation and invention, using painting, drawing and collage to translate experience. Slide lectures will complement the class as we explore how color, space and symbols can expand our understanding of place and individual perspective.

 

Inspired by the landscape and surrounding environment of Monte Castello di Vibio, this painting workshop explores abstraction and color relationships through experimental techniques in watermedia. Exercises and structural prompts for material experimentation will allow for discovery and invention with shape, composition, color palette and mark-making. Working both in the studio and directly in the environment, sketches,color studies and observations will inform the work as participants develop their unique perspective in abstraction. Lectures and weekly field trips to Florence and Orvieto expand on and inspire the content of the workshop. 

Renowned artist and teacher Stanley Lewis will conduct plein air painting sessions in the surrounding Umbrian countryside of Monte Castello di Vibio. Daily outdoor on-site sessions and instruction are followed by critique and discussion in the studio building. Here is a chance to study with this artist/educator who has influenced generations of artists. 

This session will be focused on painting within landscape mode and structure. We will paint both outside as well as in the studio. We will explore the continuum between painting pictorially and non-pictorially. Some paintings will be painted entirely outside, some taken back inside and re-worked, some painted completely inside, some beginning inside and then taken outside etc. Drawing and structure will be central and consistently entertained regardless of differences in the appearance of the paintings. Drawings, collages, and watercolors will also be a part of the session. We will explore a range of approaches, all driven by the traditional, stacked vertical landscape structure.

The use of egg tempera as a painting medium is an ancient technique that crosses the cultural boundaries of east and west. In Italy, some of the finest examples of its use in western culture can be found in Roman, Gothic and art of the Italian Quattro Cento. It’s an art form of simple materials applied by very specific procedures that lend themselves to expression of well pre-planned drawing and abstract conceptual vision. Our plan for the Egg Tempera Project is to explore the basic techniques characteristic of the method in a studio atmosphere. By using limited color, focus on tonal relationships and reproductions (partial and full) of masterworks to facilitate the role of drawing in the procedure it will mainly focus on paint manipulation. The experience will be augmented by visual presentations of a range of historical and cross-cultural expressions of egg tempera painting as well as a trip to the pinacotheca at Perugia to see actual masterpieces. Our end goal is for each of the participants to complete two paintings that demonstrate a strong working knowledge of the procedure and the confidence to continue working in the medium. Prepared panels and pigments will be provided, additional materials may need to be purchased.

The workshop invites artists to engage with the ordinary - objects, gestures, spaces, routines - as a catalyst for artistic exploration. Participants will cultivate a sensitivity to the overlooked, habitual, and intimate, in order to enhance their engagement with the everyday, and create new ways forward in their practice. The four-week workshop unfolds in two parts. It will begin with a series of virtual solo and group critiques designed to introduce each artist's practice and generate critical discussion. The virtual sessions will foster community, help articulate questions, and lay the groundwork for future site-based inquiries. Following the virtual phase, artists will gather for a two-week intensive residency in the Umbrian Hill town of Monte Castello di Vibio. Immersed in place, artists will visit museums and cultural sites in Florence and Assisi to engage with and experience historic visions of the everyday while creating works that build on and reflect their practices and experiences. The residency will culminate in an exhibition. Throughout the workshop, select readings (from poetry to cultural philosophy and memoir) will serve as a thread, helping artists expand their practice and deepen their engagement with observation and the everyday. The workshop is ideal for artists working across disciplines and media who aim to enhance their practice through slowness, observation, and reflection.