Landscape Painting En Plein Air:

Villas, Villages & Classical Ruins of Southern Italy

Instructor: Ross Merrill

Session I: July 1 - July 13, 2008

The Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival provides participants a unique experience of music and the visual arts enriched by the setting of Vietri sul Mare on the beautiful Amalfi Coast of Italy. Surrounded by ancient historic ruins, monuments, and Renaissance arts and architecture, it is an adventure into history where you will discover the foundations of Western culture.

In this course, artists are welcome to use the painting media of their choice. Painting instruction will be based on personal assistance, group critiques, and a series of lectures and painting demonstrations. Lectures will include topics, such as The History of Plein-Air Painting, American Painters in Italy, Color & Composition, and Landscape Painting Techniques. Each day Ross will give a painting demonstration in one of the various media. Alice Merrill will do a presentation on enhancing your travel sketchbook by combining watercolor, colored pencils, and pastels, to bring your open-air studies to life.

In addition to the spectacular sites of the Amalfi Coast immediately outside of our hotel and in the village of Vietri sul Mare, we will paint in such locations, as the ruins of the lost city of Pompeii, the temples of Paestum (the ancient motif for painters such as Frederick Church and Thomas Cole). We will have the option of visiting the Isle of Capri with its Villa Jovis built by the Emporer Tiberius as well as taking in the stunning vistas of the mythical gardens of Ravello, high on craggy bluffs above the sea.You'll fill your sketch book with wonderful memories and make plain-air paintings of unforgettable historic sites.

Click here to see examples of Ross Merrill's work.