Italy Plein Air Landscape Drawing & Painting in Castellina, Tuscany

Tour Overview: Italy Painting Tour of Tuscan Hill Towns

Plein Air Small Format Landscape Drawing and Painting workshop with Professional Tour Leader Kathleen Jacobs.

• Maximum of twelve participants to ensure quality instruction and enjoyment.
• Overnight in Florence with dinner, departing the next day for eight evenings staying in one Tuscan village.
• Your accommodations are in the heart of Chianti with pool, overlooking panoramic views, and a wellness center for those that would like to partake in a sauna or Turkish bath.
• You’ll be immersed in the Tuscan countryside, not having to pack and move every few days.
• Explore Castellina in Chianti in depth, painting each day, and enjoying the tremendous choice of restaurants.
• Take a few day trips to explore and paint the famous sights of this region, much of it unchanged over hundreds of years: mile after mile of orderly rows of grapevines, cypress trees piercing the skyline, village and fortress towns that crown nearly every hilltop.

In the Tuscan countryside, you will stay at a restored country villa, surrounded on one side by panoramic views, cobblestone streets of this lovely village on the other. It provides an absolutely perfect location for country walks and day trips to Tuscan hill towns and villages. You will have a light breakfast each day, followed by painting just outside your door with Kathleen. There will also be three days you will depart for the day, enjoying the sights and sounds of the traditional Tuscan villages not far from your hotel.

What to expect on your trip:

Painting for nine days during the spring bloom in the vineyards and rolling hills of Tuscany.

• You’ll use Florence as a place to land and enjoy a relaxing evening to prepare for your time in the hilltop towns of Tuscany.
• If you’d like to extend your stay on your own in Florence, contact Strabo Tours for additional evenings at your group hotel located in the heart of the city.
• Informal reviews and lectures will be interspersed throughout your journey.

We always welcome tour companions who are not artists. There are interesting aspects of Italian life waiting to be explored in every location. The quaint Tuscan villages offer wonderful landscapes, local markets, piazzas, and small shops to be enjoyed by all who might like to sketch, write, or simply appreciate the culture of Italy. The trip’s leisurely pace will provide ample opportunity to wander through medieval hill towns, and feast on the renowned regional foods and wines.

Kathleen Jacobs and About this Class

In this class students will start with intuitive sketches of the natural hills, trees and foliage of the Italian landscape. Students look carefully to make pencil compositional studies to settle into the view of such a special place. Working in any painting medium, students will make small intimate paintings in one sitting. Like Corot, students will look to investigate composition, using form, shape, line, and color while working in nature. Emphasis will be placed on capturing the feeling of the landscape, without over analysis. We will use the historic color paint palette of Corot to express emotion.

Kathleen Jacobs will provide individualized instruction during plein air excursions, demonstrations, discussions, and presentations that will provide the format for an intensive exciting learning experience. Working small, participants will work to create work with a spirit of place. Her teaching emphasizes looking at the landscape and to understand the formal elements of painting, shape, color, space, form while responding to the grace, order and beauty that is in front of you. There will be ample opportunity to discuss each other’s work and to discuss other international painters throughout history to enrich our experience in Italy.