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IMAGINE STANDING ON A TUSCAN HILLSIDE, looking out over a vineyard, with that gorgeous golden light all around. Instead of gasping at the view for a few moments, you’re at an easel for a couple of quiet hours, capturing it with your brush and paints. The light changes. A gentle breeze blows through carrying the smell of earth, lavender, grass. Birds twitter. There may be butterflies.

Landscape painters Maddine Insalaco and Joe Vinson run workshops where this is how it goes for a whole week. O.K., the reality is maybe it’ll rain and they’ll set up a tarp overhead to cover you. There will also be lunch breaks in the shade, where Maddine, who’s an expert cook as well as painter, mixes up what she’s got fresh from the local market into a delicious meal. You’ll have a glass of wine and take a break with your fellow painters, then it’s back to the easel, so you’re painting as the sun sets.

The goal of these workshops is to give beginners to advanced painters a rigorous, focused experience of the open-air style of painting, called plein air. The tradition of artists coming to Italy to paint outdoors goes back to the eighteenth century, when painters from France and England traveled to Rome to see Renaissance masterpieces. They were amazed by the countryside surrounding the Eternal City—the light, rolling hills, and architectural ruins. They lugged their easels out there, developing new techniques to capture these scenes, working quickly and spontaneously. It was a liberating experience, in contrast to working in a studio. Camille Corot’s landscape paintings from this time paved the way to Impressionism.

Maddine and Joe follow in the footsteps of this tradition and are passionate about the form. They’ve been landscape painters for forty years and their work is shown in American and Italian galleries. They’re also passionate about Italy, and divide their time between an apartment in New York and a place in Buonconvento (southern Tuscany). Workshops are based in Buonconvento for beginners, and advanced lessons are given in Murlo, (south of Siena), and Civita Castellana, (north of Rome). In each location, students get Maddine and Joe’s enthusiastic, expert instruction as they paint, along with the joy of being integrated into the local scene.

“What was so wonderful is that everything was taken care of—the only decision I had to make all week was what to paint and what colors to use,” said Voni Schaff, a student from Minnesota. Voni had studied art in college, then put it aside for thirty years while she brought up four children. The week in Tuscany was a kick start for her to pick up where she left off. It turned out to be amazingly productive—she went home with a suitcase full of paintings and liked it so much she returned for a second time.

“Spending a week there is equivalent to a semester in a college art course,” said Rachel Newman, who went to her first workshop with no experience, hoping it would help heal a heartbreak. She’s since returned every year. The heartbreak is long behind her, and she’s had gallery shows of her paintings.

The program is an art-high week, where you’ll be painting for a total of around fifty hours. Maddine and Joe intensely focus on giving detailed, basic instruction and encouragement for everyone to paint according to their own style. “They’re not making clones of themselves,” said Elizabeth Garat, an artist from Tennessee, who has worked as a studio painter for many years and loved learning new outdoor painting techniques.

The focus is all about being connected to nature and responding to it with your brush and colors. At the end of each day, students’ paintings are displayed and a critiquing session follows. “It’s not just patting on the back,” said Elizabeth, “It’s honest, specific, constructive, and encouraging.”

An art teacher once told Maddine that landscape painters were the happiest people he knew. Maddine and her students understand why. There’s something quite wonderful spending the day outside, especially in the Italian countryside. Add to that the great satisfaction of quick creation, learning something new, and the camaraderie that naturally evolves in the group.

In the evenings, you’ll find yourself sitting in a cozy restaurant, still in your painting clothes, drinking wine and talking late into the night about art, naturally.

Landscape Painting: Workshops are held from May through October (www.landscapepainting.com). The program includes most materials, accommodations in beautiful locations, meals, slide-show lectures, museum visits, and canvases small enough to fit in your suitcase. Optional cooking classes are also available. Enrollment is limited to twelve students.