And our first is an old favourite, John Christian, who is taking one of his renowned watercolour painting holidays at the mill from Saturday 14 May to Saturday 21 May 2011.

We are delighted to welcome John back to the mill in 2011. He has been several times before and he just loves the place.

Last year’s students wrote many lovely comments to us about john’s course this year. such as: “What an excellent holiday at the watermill. Everything was first-class, the venue, the group, the tutor, the food, the environment and of course, the wonderful Kerstin, who looked after all our needs. Thank you so much.”

John is such an enthusiastic and sympathetic tutor and his courses are full of fun. He works in ‘pure’ watercolour in a fast spontaneous manner, to capture emotion, with a large brush and a limited palette. His ‘wet into wet’ technique is acclaimed and widely admired. His favoured subjects are from nature – woods, rivers, moorland, hills, and skies – and he is an avid exponent of painting (and sketching) on the spot. John contributes to Leisure Painter and has held numerous one-man exhibitions.

Here’s John’s view of the mountains from the watermill:

You, too, could be enjoying this view  — on John’s or any one of our other painting holidays – and don’t forget our Early bird offer: If you book on any 2011painting holiday before the end of 2010, there’s a £75 discount. Use our Secure Contact form on the watermill website. Click here and then click on Contact Us.

Well, here we are at last!

It’s been a hectic month for us, driving family and dogs down to Italy, followed by the world’s biggest truck, full of furniture from castle (in store) and cottage (we were amazed that a small cottage could hold so much stuff). Like fishermen’s tales the length of the lorry seems to have grown with the re-telling and there are some who say it was 50 metres long, though in reality it was little more than 15. That’s still a lot — and the lorry was far too big to cross the little bridge into Posara, so everything had to be ferried down from the Fivizzano car park a mile-an-a-half or so down to the mill.  Local men, one Loris, two Danielles and a Paolo worked all day emptying, ferrying and unloading and at lunchtime reported that they still couldn’t see the far end of the big lorry. But all was done by five pm.

In the next week or so we had to redistribute beds, furniture, carpets, pictures etc. into the watermill, which was great fun but took time; Paolo Tre (the carpenter, so called to differentiate him from Paolo Due (the builder) and Paolo Uno, our driver and furniture-shifter as above) helped us put up mirrors and pictures while Lois decided what went where (and helped Bill to shift it — no need for the gym during those days.)

Then, a week or so ago, we moved into our Florence apartment, which is lovely. Up four flights of stairs mind you, in an old palazzo, but with a roof terrace where we can watch the sunset over the great dome of the cathedral at supper time. 

Last Wednesday the girls started at the International School and they are making new friends and working out what their ‘prajects’ are for this semester (Yup, it’s quite American).  They are also just starting at a new music school, continuing their trumpet, piano and singing lessons.

So we are just drawing breath and beginning to settle into a new rhythm, enjoying a morning and evening passagiata for a cappuccino or an aperitivo, shopping etc.  

Our dogs, by the way, are enjoying staying in a Posara friend’s large garden, sharing it with chickens (they haven’t eaten any yet), goats (safely enclosed, we hope), rabbits (in hutches), dozens of rows of vines (they have an arbour under one row). Bill’s just back from Posara, seeing them  – and painting course guests, a course-ful of happy Danes, four of whom have booked already for next year, so we must be doing something right.

The coming week should see us sorted and becoming proper Europeans by registering with the Italian authorities and becoming Friends of the Uffizi, this enabling us to go in by Entrance 2, avoiding the queues in most of the Florence museums. Cool, huh.

We’ve been working hard on watermill projects and we’ve drawn up a great programme of painting holidays and creative writing courses, and we’ll tell you about our lovely tutors in blogs over the next week or so.

Now we are in Italy, we shall certainly be visiting the mill during our courses, so we look forward to meeting you personally when you come for your holiday …

This village, high in the hills near the mill, is where Kerstin lives and it has spectacular views over the Alpi Apuane, the marble mountains of Carrara.

http://www.iheartpresents.com/ and http://sharonkendrick.blogspot.com/2010/05/wild-orchids.html

We’ve already had a few repeat bookings for Sharon’s course next year (7-14 May 2011) so don’t wait too long if you want a break which will nurture your soul and boost those old grey cells!

Just heard from our writing tutor, Sharon Kendrick, that she can officially be described as a ‘USA Today bestselling author’!  Congratulations, Sharon.  And if you would like some of her glitter to rub off on YOU, then come on her course at the watermill, 8-15 May.  We have one or two places still available, but hurry!