Step into a private atelier in the historic centre of Padenghe sul Garda, on Lake Garda, and learn the fluid Italian watercolour technique of painting with water. Choose from a session in Italian, English, or German.

Begin with planning the composition, choosing a subject, and working out where light and shadow will fall. Move through the intermediate steps that build the picture up to its final details.

The technique itself is free and fluid: colour and water are left to blend and spread across the paper before being gradually brought into focus, each stroke building on what the water has already suggested. Subjects are drawn from an Italian Mediterranean repertoire — sunlit landscapes, lemons, fields of poppies — and no two results ever look quite the same.

With no more than four guests at a time, the atmosphere stays close and attentive, less a lesson than an afternoon spent with your hands, some colour, and a little water.