LE PITTRICI IV

Mondays
January 5 – February 2, 2026
11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. eastern time

In this ONLINE class, we will focus on the brilliant paintings of four female Italian painters, investigating what makes them so appealing. Using transcription, we will draw from these paintings without copying them, searching for rhythm, duality, and repetition within the geometry of these compositions. Along with studying the works of Artemisia Gentileschi, Virginia Vezzi, Orsola Maddalena Caccia, and Lavinia Fontana, we will discuss other painters working in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, as well as contemporary female painters. In each session we will explore a specific painting at length in a group discussion over Zoom. After the introduction, participants will have a week to prepare a drawing transcription, as well as a chromatic study with oil paint. Lucy MacGillis will present demos from her studio in Italy to show how she mixes the colors, using a limited earth palette and palette knife.

Prior to the course, each participant will receive a kit in the mail containing prints of the four paintings we will transcribe, drawing paper measured in proportion to the works, and primed Fabriano paper for the color oil painting studies.

Lucy MacGillis has been living and painting in Umbria, Italy for 25 years. She enjoys interpreting Italian art history from the perspective of a painter rather than that of an art historian.