Courses in Italy
Since 2003 I have taught painting, drawing and art history courses once or twice a year at Tenuta di Spannocchia in Italy. I started with painting in 2003 and in 2008 I began teaching a drawing course in the spring and the painting course in the fall. Eventually, I taught the courses back-to-back, drawing followed by painting, always incorporating the relevant art history within each course. Now I alternate with drawing one year and painting the next.
To paint is to bring inside—doubly: into the inhabited space around the image and into the frame. The paradox of painting is that it invites the spectator into its room to look at the world beyond. John Berger, An Artist’s Handbook, page 91
Painting on Panels
September 8 – 20, 2025
Registration and tuition due by February 1, 2025
Tuition: $3500.00
Textbook: An Artist’s Handbook: Materials and Techniques, Margaret Krug
Participants start with quick, loose sketching to slow down and immerse themselves in the place. Artists work from direct observation, from the flat, and from memory, visualization and imagination. Using exercises from An Artist’s Handbook: Materials and Techniques, artists explore ancient, medieval and early Renaissance approaches to painting and their contemporary application.
Artists prepare small poplar wood panels with traditional gesso ground and produce paint by combining dry pigments with beeswax, egg, milk glue, gum Arabic or oil. They work with encaustic used in the Fayum region of ancient Egypt, casein tempera, egg tempera used in early Renaissance Siena, distemper and the Venetian oil technique. They keep a sketchbook for quick sketches and detailed studies in preparation for painting and to record their experience. Throughout the workshop, they study color theory as related to the painting practice. There are two excursions to view primary resources related to the course, for art historical lectures and discussions, and for sketching.
Technical proficiency is encouraged through copying techniques employed in master paintings, while using exercise in An Artist’s Handbook to gain an understanding of color, composition and construction of a pictorial space, and through creating original work from observed reality using the same methods.
Some of the art concepts explored are local color, hue bias, construction of a pictorial space using the golden section and the rule of thirds, line, form, composition, tenebrism, sfumato, chiaroscuro, atmospheric perspective and the sublime. Artists engage in a hands-on exploration of the evolution of Western painting along with its incorporated non-Western visual traditions. They learn to abstract and distill from their experiences and to make paintings infused with their lived experience.
Enrollment is limited to 7 participants. Prior art instruction is required. For an application please contact Margaret Krug at margaret.krug@gmail.com or 646 232 6808. Registration and tuition due by February 1, 2025.
Participants reside in a private room with bath in the Villa of Spannocchia, about twelve miles southwest of Siena, Italy. The Villa is built into a massive castle that dates back to the Middle Ages. The Villa is fully equipped with all the necessary facilities, including a library, studios, laboratory, museum and swimming pool.
Painting on Panels Studio: https://vimeo.com/876478646
Spannocchia in Italy
View from a villa bedroom