DIANA BUITRAGO: Fresh Paint- Sicily | A Plein Air Oil Painting Retreat

The light moves. Paint with it.

A cloud crosses the sun. The sea changes color. A warm stone façade slips suddenly into shadow. Painting outdoors means working in a world that refuses to stand still—and that is precisely what makes it so exhilarating.

Plein air painting is the art of responding to the moment: seeing quickly, choosing clearly, and capturing the essential character of a place before the light changes again.

Diana Buitrago brings structure to that excitement. She teaches painters how to slow down their thinking while keeping the painting fresh—how to simplify a complex landscape, organize shifting light, and make confident decisions without losing the immediacy that gives a plein air study its life.

The goal is not to paint every leaf, stone, or ripple in the water. It is to discover what matters most—and put that into paint.

About Diana Buitrago

Diana Buitrago belongs to an exciting new generation of New York painters—classically trained, globally minded, and determined to make observational painting feel vividly alive. There is rigor in her work, but never stiffness. Her paintings move with light, weather, color, and the energy of seeing a place for the first time. That same curiosity and enthusiasm animate her teaching, making the experience both serious and wonderfully alive.

Colombian-born and based in New York, Diana is a landscape oil painter whose work is rooted in close observation, atmosphere, and the expressive power of place.

Her paintings respond to the natural world through light, color, structure, and mood, inviting viewers to experience landscape not simply as scenery, but as something felt and remembered.

Working in oils, Diana brings together careful seeing and painterly interpretation. Her approach emphasizes composition, value, color relationships, edges, and the movement of light across land, water, architecture, and sky. Through her teaching, she encourages artists to slow down, simplify what they see, and discover the essential structure and emotion within a landscape.

Diana’s extensive classical training includes four years at the Art Students League of New York, specialized study in artistic anatomy at Drexel University College of Medicine, and completion of the four-year Core Program at Grand Central Atelier. Her teachers have included Jacob Collins, Colleen Barry, Michael Grimaldi, Dan Thompson, Jon deMartin, and Odd Nerdrum.

Today, she is a core instructor at Grand Central Atelier and teaches at the Art Students League of New York. She is a three-time Hudson River Fellow, a recipient of the Château de La Napoule Residency, and has received recognition from the Portrait Society of America, the Salmagundi Club, Grand Central Atelier, and the Stobart Foundation. She was also granted permission to study and copy works by Velázquez and Madrazo at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

For Diana, painting from life is fundamental. She frequently leaves her plein air studies as they were painted on location, preserving the freshness of the original observation. Yet that spontaneity rests upon a rigorous understanding of drawing, value, composition, color, and the structure of light.

Her great strength as a teacher is making those principles logical, practical, and approachable. She gives painters a framework they can rely upon—even when the landscape refuses to hold still.

What to Expect from Your Week with Diana

This retreat offers an immersive week of landscape painting in western Sicily, blending focused instruction with the beauty, history, and atmosphere of the Mediterranean.

Through demonstrations, discussions, individual feedback, and sustained painting sessions, Diana will help participants strengthen their observational skills and deepen their understanding of composition, value, color temperature, edge control, simplification, and the expressive possibilities of oil paint.

The week will balance studio instruction with painting on location. Participants will learn how to prepare thoughtfully, work directly from observation, respond to Sicily’s changing light, and develop field studies that capture more than the appearance of a place—they capture its mood.

Diana will paint alongside the group, demonstrate her process, and offer individual critiques throughout the week. Participants may choose to create a series of small, lively studies or develop a more sustained landscape over several sessions.

By the end of the retreat, artists will leave with a stronger understanding of landscape painting in oils, greater sensitivity to light and atmosphere, and a collection of studies reflecting Sicily’s distinctive colors and textures.

Bringing Order to the Landscape

A landscape presents the painter with everything at once: sky, earth, architecture, vegetation, water, distance, movement, and constantly changing light. Diana teaches artists how to find order within that abundance.

The workshop will explore the theory of planes described by the influential American landscape painter and teacher John F. Carlson. By understanding how the sky, ground, sloping surfaces, and upright forms receive light differently, painters can organize values more clearly and create a convincing sense of depth.

Diana will translate this theory into practical painting decisions:

• How to select and simplify a composition

• How to identify the major patterns of light and shadow

• How to organize values before the light changes

• How color temperature creates atmosphere and distance

• How to approach skies, water, trees, stone, and architecture

• How edges can direct the eye and suggest space

• How to work efficiently without sacrificing thoughtful observation

• How to begin—and how to recognize when a painting is complete

Studio sessions will include reviews of Old Master landscapes and discussions about developing plein air sketches into larger studio paintings. Diana will also offer practical advice about materials, traveling with paints, and creating an efficient outdoor setup.

Plein Air Painting Made Approachable

No previous plein air experience is required. This workshop welcomes painters at every level.

For beginners, Diana will demystify the questions that can make painting outdoors feel intimidating: What should I bring? Where should I set up? How do I choose a subject? Which colors do I mix first? What happens when the light changes?

Intermediate painters will be encouraged to move beyond recording details and toward stronger composition, clearer value organization, more convincing atmosphere, and greater confidence with paint.

More experienced painters will have opportunities to refine their decisions, experiment with different approaches, and push their work toward greater economy and expression.

Your painting does not need to describe everything before you. A successful plein air study can be small, selective, and swiftly painted—and still hold the light, atmosphere, and emotional truth of an entire place.

Painting Western Sicily

In Sicily, landscape is never merely scenery. Ancient history, daily life, architecture, agriculture, and the sea all occupy the same view.

Painting locations may include the salt flats and windmills of the Stagnone Lagoon, where shallow water reflects an immense changing sky; Marsala’s historic center, with its warm Baroque façades, shaded streets, and lively piazzas; the medieval hill town of Erice, rising above the western coastline; and Segesta, where an ancient Greek temple stands in a sweeping landscape of hills and open sky.

Each location presents a different visual problem—and a different opportunity. Water asks for reflection and transparency. Ancient stone demands weight and structure. Distant hills call for atmosphere. A town square offers rhythm, architecture, and movement. Sunset requires speed, intuition, and the courage to make a decision.

Some sessions will take place in our spacious, professionally equipped, and fully air-conditioned studio, where Diana can demonstrate, review work, and help participants develop ideas gathered in the field.

Studio lunches will be prepared on site by our cook, allowing everyone to pause, gather around the table, and return to painting without losing the creative rhythm of the day. The week will also include shared meals, cultural excursions, and time to enjoy Sicily beyond the easel—including a sunset aperitivo overlooking the salt pans of the Stagnone Lagoon.

Sicily is not simply a beautiful backdrop for this workshop. Its clarity of light, powerful shapes, layered colors, and constant conversation between land and sea make it an exceptional place to understand how landscape painting comes alive.

This is a week for looking closely, painting boldly, and discovering how much of Sicily can be held in a few well-chosen strokes.