JSS in Civita Residency

As you may have gathered by now, I'm off to Italy.

This is for a residency for two weeks with The Jerusalem Studio School , or JSS for short. They have been going there every summer for quite a while as Israel Hershberg who runs the school felt that his students needed more access to some of the masterpieces of western art - an awful lot of which hang out in Italy. For the last few years the school has settled on Civita Castellana , a town an hour or so north of Rome and not far from the road to Florence. Naples, Sienna, Bologna, Arrezo, San Seplochro and Urbino are also all on the excursion list - the two planned trips when I am there are Florence and Bologna.

This is the first year there has been residents - and the first year Terrano Studio Center has been open. So its quite an honour for me - especially as one of my co-residents is the amazing David Kassan who has been busy wetting my appetite over the last few weeks with his postings on facebook.

Also there will be students and teachers of the masterclass and also there are the students of the affiliate group run by Sharon Sandberg who is an american painter of lovely, calm still lifes. So, plenty folks - all of whom are representational painters. I'm guessing most will be oil painters like myself and most will be concentrating on landscape (also like myself!). This will be a first for me - even in life drawing there tends to be few oil painters - and I am really looking forward to talking to everyone else and seeing how they work. Lets just hope I don't spend so much time gassing I don't actually do any painting!