Painting by the Sea: Art is ____'s Painting Workshop in Cattolica

There is a moment in Cattolica when the beach empties out and the Riviera Romagnola changes pace: the lights of the beach clubs dim, the seafront fills with slow footsteps and the air still tastes of salt. It's the hour when most people go looking for an aperitivo table. But some, at that hour, sit down in front of an easel.

That's what happens at the evenings run by Art is ____, the project through which Giulia carries canvases, brushes and glasses of wine across Emilia Romagna. It isn't an art class in the traditional sense: it's an evening where painting becomes an excuse to slow down, laugh with good company and go home with a picture made with your own hands.

Who is Art is ____

Giulia — "Art is ____" is her artist name — travels Emilia Romagna with canvases, easels and bottles of wine, organising evenings designed precisely for people convinced they can't draw. Two hours in which defences come down, laughter takes over, and someone rediscovers a piece of themselves they thought they had lost. She works with private groups, companies and venues, and every evening is tailor-made for the host and the people they invite.

Almost everyone tells me the same thing before they come: "I can't paint." Two hours later, hardly anyone remembers saying it.

— Giulia, Maker at Art is ____

Her discipline is painting and drawing, ranging from watercolour to oil on canvas to painting on ceramics. But the heart of the project isn't technique: it's those two hours in which you stop judging yourself and simply start looking, mixing colours, trying things out.

Sip & Paint: a painting night for people who "can't paint"

Giulia's signature format is called Sip & Paint: a guided painting evening where brushes and wine glasses coexist without pretension. You sit down at an easel, someone hands you a glass, and you're guided step by step from the first brushstroke to the finished painting. No prerequisites, no grades, no comparing yourself to the easel next door.

• Who it's for: absolute beginners, groups of friends, couples, colleagues looking for a team-building night that's genuinely different.
• What you do: around two hours of guided painting, step by step, with the whole journey designed by the Maker.
• What you take home: your own canvas, painted by you, and that rare feeling of having made something with your hands.

Evenings are organised for private groups, companies and venues, always tailor-made: theme, atmosphere and pace are adapted to the people taking part. It's the kind of experience that works both as a gift and as the perfect excuse to gather people who don't see each other often enough.

Why do it in Cattolica and on the Riviera Romagnola

Cattolica is the last stretch of Romagna before the Marche: a walkable seaside town with a beach, a harbour and rolling hills just minutes inland. If you're on holiday on the Riviera Romagnola, a painting night is the ideal alternative to the beach-dinner-gelato routine: a tangible memory to pack in your suitcase, worth far more than a photograph.

And if you live in the area — from Rimini to Riccione, from Misano to Gabicce — it's a chance to look at your own places with new eyes. Giulia travels all over Emilia Romagna: the evening can come to your favourite venue, the house where you're celebrating a birthday, or your company's offices.