Toscana Americana

Day 1 (Saturday)- Soon after everyone arrives we’ll get to know each other over wine and chocolate and light antipasti followed by a welcome dinner at a restaurant in nearby Cortona.

Day 2 – (Sunday) – We’ll do an imagining activity in which we’ll picture ourselves using the perfect journal to record our travels. You might see yourself collecting things in little emvelopes, folding out large pages for mapping, sketching on watercolor paper that has been bound into your book, etc. After getting some pictures in our minds, I’ll walk you through a “Choose Your Own Bookbinding Adventure” activity, based on an activity in my new book, Real Life Journals, of which you will have been given a copy. Once you know the binding style and type of cover that will suit you best, we’ll begin building our journals. I will provide basic materials—papers and cover materials—that will get you started.

Day 3—(Monday)- We’ll make a day trip to Firenze to a wonderful old art supply store, Zecchi, to pick up any special papers or materials you’ve decided you need. After an early-morning stop at Zecchi, we’ll spend the rest of the day visiting places you want to see, ranging from a natural history museum, La Specola, to a medieval house museum (the Davanzati Palazzo), to an art museum (Museo del Duomo), to an old monastery (San Marco), to an antique farmacia where you’ll find treasures of lotions and potions still made the way they have been made since the Renaissance. We’ll make sketches and write and collect things, even if our journals are not completely finished yet. I’ll always be available to give sketching tutorials should you want them.

Day 4 – (Tuesday) –Back in the studio we’ll finish making our journals in the morning and take them out for a trial run in the afternoon. We’ll do some guided sketching and writing around Cortona in locations that will vary according to your particular focus or interests. You might want to walk out into the countryside to see houses and fields. Others might want to go into shops and see what local products look like. Others may want to go to the Etruscan museum or other museums. Still others may be interested in hiking to the top of Cortona to see the shrine of Sta. Margarita. And others may want to stay in the lovely gardens at the Oasi Giovanni Neuman, our hotel, sketching or making notes about the view of the valley below Cortona, noticing the lemon trees and other plants in the terraced gardens.

Day 5 – (Wednesday) – In the morning we’ll go hunting for local clay and bricks to grind up into powder to make paint. In the afternoon we’ll process the clay and begin making paint. There will be time to go back out to sketch or write. The studio will always be available should you want to make modifications to your journal once you’ve started using it. There will be time in the afternoon for more focused drawing and watercolor lessons for those who would like to have them.

Day 6 (Thursday) – another field trip, this time to an island in the middle of nearby Lago Trasimeno. We’ll take a ferry boat out to the island and spend the day filling our journals with notes and sketches of olive trees, ruins, old buildings, plants, water birds, and other wonders. We’ll have lunch on the island at one of the restaurants.

Day 7 (Friday) – In the morning we’ll talk about how each of us has used our journals, and we’ll get ideas from each other. I’ll also show you where in Real Life Journals you can find ideas for using your journal. We’ll do some writing, collaging, and drawing/painting exercises that will stretch your repertoire of journal-keeping skills. Then we’ll go out and practice what we’ve learned. In the afternoon, we’ll talk about mining our journals for future writing or art projects.

Day 8 (Saturday) – Although the workshop officially ends on Friday night, on Saturday morning there is a market in Cortona to which you may want to go before leaving.