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Painting Holidays & Courses in Italy
Welcome to South of Italy
To extend eight years of successful painting holidays in the South of France, this year Loreto is giving her second painting holiday in the South of Italy,
in the beautiful unspoilt landscape of Monterosso.This region has all that is needed to inspire the artist, from the beginner to the more advanced painter.
Accommodation will be in what was once a nineteenth century hunting lodge, Sant Elia, surrounded by its acres of olive groves and woodland walks. It is set on the mountainside overlooking the Angitola Valley and providing breathtaking views down to the sea.
In a relaxed atmosphere, this course is designed to teach and encourage the skills needed to take a subject and from direct observation, sketch it then lay out and paint a finished composition. At the end of the week, each student will have a number of completed paintings: Loreto will encourage even the complete beginner to achieve amazing results. The group will be small, no more than eight, so that individual tuition and encouragement is always at hand.
About the Artist
A graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Loreto Reilly is a successful Irish Artist who divides her time between Kells, County Meath, the Languedoc Region of Southern France and Calabria in Southern Italy.
The exploration of colour and form through paintings and ceramics is integral to Loreto’s work. A fluidity suffuses her work, in the soft outlines of her watercolours, and in the malleability of unfired clay. Loreto takes her inspiration from the natural environment around her, from the olive groves of Southern Italy to the bog cotton of Ireland.
Testimonials
I love the Art du Midi course…the art teaching is top class and very well structured, but you also have plenty of time and space to enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the village and beyond. Everything is laid on: accommodation, food, transport and art materials. All the student has to do is show up! It is all very relaxing and stress free. I would highly recommend the course to anyone, whether you are an absolute beginner, as I was, or a ‘want to improve’, as I now am.”
Eileen Mann, Dublin
“The Art du Midi course is the most wonderful experience from start to finish. From the moment you are greeted by Loreto you get a sense of the vibrancy that is about to unfold. Enjoyment is the essence of the week where even the most novice artist is encouraged to find and set free the artist within through a series of steps that make it seem easy. Variety and fun, delicious food, great company and incredible sing-songs made the week a truly memorable adventure.”
Margaret Sweeney, Dublin
The Painter, the Eye and the Mind
There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.
Paul Cezanne
To look at a landscape can be awesome, to work out how to begin painting it is even more so.
A small thumbnail sketch is not only helpful, but essential. This focuses the mind on an area.
What is large, small, dark, bright, upright, horizontal. In this way many of the important elements in the painting which follows can be worked out before ever taking out brush and paints.
Looking and Seeing
Looking and seeing
Monet once said that he wished he’d been born blind and later gained sight. That way he would be able to look at the world, not know what objects were and so their colour would be the sole focus.
Maybe it is because there are often grey skies here in Ireland that I am so drawn to the effect the sun light has when it pours onto the village in France in the morning, slowly painting every old building with an orange and rose hue, or over the valley in Monterosso, where a sleeping series of greys begin to change to gradations of blues, purples and greens.