Sketching and Journaling. - Painting Holidays Italy

Sketching by the sea in Porto Recanati

Dates 2025

5th – 12th June

2nd – 9th October

Price

1,700 Euros – private room (inc. 200 Euro deposit) (approx £1,400)

1,000 Euros – non painting partner

What's included

Tuition, 6 days
Accommodation, 7 nights private room
Airport pick up Perugia or Ancona, train – Foligno
Excursions
Food and drink
Materials and equipment
Use of all facilities, including Laundry
Wifi access
Postage of paintings

During this holiday you will make your own traveller’s journal. You don’t need to be an accomplished artist, everyone’s journal is individual, using drawings and singular to themselves. Artisitic tuition is always on hand to build confidence. Your jounal will be about an artistic as well as an actual journey.

We travel around, looking at ways to capture the essense of a place and time, and having adventures. We work on loose leaf paper, so fear of the blank page, there is always another one. On the last day we string them all together to form a concertina journal. You can leave out anything you don’t like, chop them up and rearrange them. Its up to you. Extra points for making me laugh.

You can experiment with watercolour, pencils, gouache, watersoluble pen, permanent pen, acrylic, pan pastel and ink sticks etc – and discover for yourself which medium sparks your creativity.

Seamus Hefferman, puts it so well

Traveling is very precious and fleeting, and most tourists make it less precious and more fleeting by speeding from site to site, snapping photos…. Mediating one’s experience in a foreign land through a tiny camera screen is sinful, so I do my best to translate the fascinating things I see through my eyes, mind and hand. By letting the experience of a foreign land flow through you, it resonates in your memories in ways unavailable to the average tourist. When you spend three hours drawing the majestic expanse of the Roman Forum, you leave with a visceral recollection – the smell of the breeze, the shine of the marble, the murmur of thirty-odd languages intermingling.

Illustrator Seamus Hefferman

Itinerary

Day 1:- Around the studios. Beginnners will have a crash course in basic shapes and perspective etc whilst experienced artists can get their hand in sketching some pages around our house, and making backgrounds for futures work. We discuss and plan the itinerary for the week, depending on weather and wishes of the group. We round the day off with a sketching drive putting into practice all the lessons of the day.
Days 2-5 Trips out and about
Day 6, Finishing off, finding and augmenting themes and sticking it all together.

Even Pinturicchio’s angels enjoy a spot of journaling (Spello)

Some of our trips

Spello

Often considered one of Italy’s hidden jewels, Spello is built out of pink marble which glows at sunset. It is famous for it’s intricate little lanes (lovely to draw) and stunning Pinturicchio frescos of the life of the young Jesus.

San Severino

A bustling market town bristling with chuches and abbeys. It is arranged in 3 tiers, Abbeys, museums and convents at the top, town square and civic centre in the middle – trade very much at the bottom

Fabriano

You just can’t mention Fabriano without Paper. It wasthe centre of the paper industry for centuries. For those of us fond of drawing the occasional cog it is a foil to all the renaissance splendour of castles.

Porto Recanati

A charming little fishing town, with boats and seafood,

Loreto

A beautiful, although relatively unknown pilgrimage town. In the centre of the ornate basilica you will find a tiny Palestinian house. Apparently the very house where the annunciation occurred. It was flown to Loreto by angels during the crusades. Loreto is the spiritual home of the Italian Airforce. Genius Logic. Plenty to journal about there!

A Photobook of one of our Journaling Holidays

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June (USA)
What a wonderful, incredible, inspiring week. Such kindness and giggles and learning to paint. Times I will never forget.
Anne and Roger Pyne (UK)
Wonderful tutor, charismatic chef ….. good company, excellent food and amazing journaling! What more is there to say, we totally endorse all other comments,
Cheryl (Australia)
I had a blast. Staying in your home and doing journaling and sketching will surely be a highlight of my trip! I will never see the world the same again. The yellow in the trees, shadow everywhere and damn perspective everywhere (so get used to it). I didn’t think I could do it but I did. Thanks for the laughs.
Phil and Jo, UK
Many, many thanks for a fantastic week. Excellent company and fine food. We’ve both learnt a huge amount and hopefully have gained some new skills!
Amelia (Singapore)
Thank you for an amazing week! People back home will never believe that there is such a gem of a place here in Gorgiano. … I’ll miss the amazing food, views and laughter …. I’ll be awaiting your arrival in Singapore for the next story slam.
Tiziana, Italy
Grazie per questa bella esperienza e soprattutt grazie per aver fatto passare le paura del ‘folio bianco’, ho imparato tanto in questa settimana, spero di tornare …
Julie (UK)
This home has an axolotl, Whose name isn’t Aristotle. It makes him sob, They have named him Bob. They must’ve been on the bottle.