Marc Dalessio

I’ll be doing a one-day plein air workshop in Sag Harbor for anyone in the neighborhood. The date is Wednesday the 25th of August from 10am to 5pm and the cost is $145. For sign-ups or more information, you can use the Hamptons Studio of Fine Art website or call 631-603-5514.

My painting of the Marsiliana from eleven years ago. 100 x 70 cm

After the success of our Trevi plein air workshop, Daniela Astone and I have decided to do a second course in Maremma (near the coast in southwestern Tuscany). As with Trevi the area is one of the more picturesque in Italy and one of my favorite places to paint. We will stay in the Marsiliana, a stunning castle/hamlet perched on a hill and near enough to the coast for day trips to the beach. It’s an area where I have already scouted extensively over the years, and I had a painting breakthrough of my own there 11 years ago so the place has a sentimental value to me.

The dates will be from the 17th to the 27th of September and the cost for the ten days will be €1900 for a shared double room with everything included (food, lodging, wine(!), and we will buy materials for everyone this time, so people aren’t using poor quality equipment). Single room accommodation is available at an additional cost, and spouses are welcome at a discounted rate.

Spaces are limited so send an email to marc@ritratto.com if you’re interested in joining.

Today is the last day of the ten day plein air course around Trevi, Umbria. One of my favorite landscape painting spots in the whole world. We had great weather after the first couple of days and I was helped immensely by the multi-talented Daniela Astone who assisted me in teaching.

White roads and hay bales.

Poppy fields below Trevi.

This is the first time I’ve done an extended intensive workshop and it was interesting to see how much the students improve after ten days of straight painting. We were also lucky that two professional painters, Charlie Church and Takuma Kaneko joined us. So often the best teaching is a good example.

Takuma finishing off the day from the parking lot of the hotel.

Charlie helping Denise with her painting.

Ben Fenske also did an excellent demonstration one afternoon on aerial (atmospheric) perspective and planes.

Ben giving a demonstration below Trevi.

We stayed at a charming little agriturismo, Le Vedute, on the hill outside Trevi, where Pietro and Marta looked after us splendidly.

Here are a few more action shots from the trip:

Daniela painting ducks on a river bank.

Maike at the end of a long day.

Bob painting in the shade in the valley.

Luigi painting at the Clitunno Springs.

Overall the course was a a great success and we got good feedback from everyone. Daniela will scout around Maremma for a location for our next workshop together and hopefully we can set something up for September.

A few people have asked me about the weekend workshops in July. I have an invitation to Sardinia so I wont be here this year. Instead I’ll try to do weekend workshops before then in a private garden in Florence. The  dates will be the 12th and 13th, and the 19th and 20th of June from 8 to 12 in the morning. There are only a limited number of places so let me know via email if you’re interested in joining: marc@ritratto.com

Plein air painting of Volpaia (70 x 100 cm), one of my workshop painting spots.

I’ve posted the summer plein air workshop schedule on the ‘courses’ page on my website.  Every year I take three students on weekends in June and July. We stay in a small Tuscan farmhouse about 40 minutes from Florence near Tavarnelle val di Pesa. Places are already filling up, so if you know you’ll be in Tuscany and would like to take an intensive plein air landscape painting workshop, shoot me an email and I’ll save you a spot. The house is charming but not luxurious (there is often a young family with us), and the focus of the weekend is on painting. You can click forward on the calendar below to see the dates.

There is also the possibility of using a house by the beach in Maremma in June if I get enough interest.

As a working painter, I have always tried to avoid teaching. When I taught in the past I always had too many students, inconvenient schedules, and found my own work suffering to the point where I was having trouble meeting my commitments with galleries. This year however, after getting married, I decided the stable income wasn’t such a bad idea and I began taking students again.

The difference this time however is that, working for myself, I have taken them in very small numbers. From 1 to 3 students at a time, and I work alongside them. This summer I tried it out in the countryside with landscape painting and just basically dragged the students to the spots where I was already working and let them set up alongside. I would do demonstrations and give regular critiques, but I found that it didn’t affect my work at all. In fact I ended up painting more this summer than I have in the last few years. More importantly though, the steady (though small) income took off some of the pressure of the gallery production grind, so I was able to work at a much slower pace. In the end I think my work actually improved due to the teaching. The students, of course, appreciate the small class size and get a lot of information in a short period of time.

This winter I intend on continuing with small numbers of students in the studio. At the moment I’ve begun portrait projects with one student at a time, sharing a model.