It's Landscape Season!

Dear Patrons,

It’s finally June and it’s the start of Landscape Season at The FAA Collective!

We have very special content coming your way to celebrate the arrival of summer. Over the next couple months, we will be sharing with you:

• An exclusive Landscape Lecture Series (vols. 1-2-3) given by the Florence Academy’s Assistant Director and resident Art Historian, Tom Richards, at the FAA Florence campus.
• An informative video featuring Hannah Sutton showing us how to prepare canvases to take on the road with you!
• Toby Wright’s spectacular third video of his three-part series, "Painting between Giants”, capturing his experience painting the landscape of the French Alps.
• Exclusive “Spotlight on Art” Newsletters featuring FAA Alums from around the world who have mastered the art of landscape painting.

When the winter blooms into spring, students and faculty at FAA take to the hillsides surrounding Florence to paint the monumental beauty that has captivated artists for centuries.

They will use their skills gleaned from exercises with the figure and still life to compose and paint a landscape.

They will use the same materials - oil on gessoed canvas or panels - to translate and record directly from nature, and will incorporate the same approach: observe the big shapes to design within a pictorial space.

Most importantly, they will carry on a tradition that has lived in Western and Eastern art for centuries: to paint one’s surrounding landscape, to capture the impression of nature’s elements, to imbue a scene with nature’s special power, leaving artist and viewer free to interpret the painting before them.

LECTURE SERIES - Landscape Vols. 1-2-3

Over the summer, we will release an exclusive Landscape Lecture Series given by Florence Academy’s Assistant Director and resident Art Historian, Tom Richards, at the FAA Florence campus.

These lectures will highlight the artists who either specialized in Landscape, or used nature as a complement to their studio subjects, and prepare us to observe both nature and the art of painted landscapes in new, more informed ways.

Click here to watch the trailer of Landscape Pt.1 - Symbols vs Facts

This first lecture Symbols vs. Facts introduces us to the series and begins with an invitation to consider how people have created art that reflects the world around them throughout time, from the cave paintings of Altamira, some of which are believed to be 20,000 years old, to 17th century drawings by Rembrandt. Throughout this lecture we are shown drawings, sculptures, prints, and paintings of the natural world as well as the natural world refracted through human touch such as urban spaces, designed gardens, and architectural spaces imagined and real.

VIDEO - Materials w/ Hannah Sutton - Prepare your own gessoed panel

Click here to watch the trailer! 

This carefully prepared demo leaves no stone unturned, as graduate in residence at the Florence Academy of Art, Hannah Sutton guides us through each step to preparing beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and “nicer-to-paint-on” panels - from the making of rabbit skin glue to applying the gesso emulsion to a wooden panel.

Paired with the video, Hannah’s own words will give you all the insight you need to learn about gesso!

VIDEO - Painting between Giants w/ Toby Wright

During the month of July we will finally release Toby Wright’s spectacular third video of his three-part series, "Painting between Giants”, capturing his experience painting the landscape of the French Alps.

If you find Toby's adventures inspiring as much as we do, consider joining our Art Watcher Tier to gain access to the second and third video, which will be exclusively released later this summer here on our Patreon page!

In case you missed it click here to watch PART I, Painting between giants: MER DE GLACE

INTERVIEW - Spotlight on Art

Get inspired by the words of our artists as they explain the story behind their artworks!

This month we had the pleasure to interview FAA Alumni, Tina Orsolic, Rachel Personett and Zacheriah Kramer, about their passion for Landscape Painting. With Tina, we spoke about her recent work Moonrise over Château de la Treyne.

During our chat, Tina told us the history of this beautiful castle and transported us there by telling us the sensations and feelings that this beautiful place aroused in her:

"The water is crystal clear and calm in the summers, which provides for a truly meditative experience. I remember the leaves gently falling down on its surface, adding warmth to the prevailing cool tones, as it was the end of summer when we first visited. Perhaps that’s what inspired the change of seasons from summer to autumn in my larger piece."

Stay tuned and follow us on our social media to be sure you don't miss the full article! @thefaacollective

ARTISTIC CHALLENGE #2

Last but not least, this summer we will launch our second Artistic Challenge all about.. you guessed it, landscape!

Be prepared to be inspired by our upcoming videos this summer, and take this knowledge with you on your next outdoor painting adventure. The winner of our Artistic Challenge will receive an amazing fine art print yet to be released to the public!

Paint a Landscape in Florence this Summer with Tanvi Pathare!

Click here to learn more about FAA Summer Workshops

With Florence as its backdrop, the summer landscape painting course will bring you to the squares, gardens and surrounding hillsides of one of the world’s most picturesque and beautiful cities.

The academy’s expert instructors will guide you through the practical concepts and artistic process of landscape art. Painting 2 – 5 days in each setting, you will learn to observe and record directly from nature, confront the perspective of monuments, and reproduce the landscape’s structural rhythms and design.

Learn how to select a motif and create a composition, as well as basic information on the plein air oil painting process: finding and mixing color values, organizing the palette, and applying paint.

To paint your own landscape, join us in Florence this summer!

We hope you enjoy this exciting content dedicated to one of our favorite subjects!