Come join us in Whitinsville, Massachusetts on Saturday, June 21st, 2025 from 11am to 3pm! RAIN OR SHINE! All are welcome as we set up on site and paint a painting of a mill building – what’s known as a plein air painting. The Whitin Mill complex was built back in 1826 and at one point was the world’s largest maker of machinery for textile mills! Now it is home to Alternatives and the Singh Theater.
There is a large free parking lot both adjacent to the mill and also immediately across the street. You can bring your own cameras, sketchbooks, and painting supplies if you wish. For those who don’t have supplies, we’ll have loaner sketching supplies, painting supplies, and cameras on hand for those who want to participate hands on.
You’re also welcome to simply pop in and watch for a while!
This event is fully open to ALL people of all levels, ages, and abilities. We encourage community members to stop in and learn more about creating art!
Our featured artist is the talented Dianne Panarelli Miller:
The morning workshop from 11-noon is FREE and is open to the community! Then, if you’d like to stay for the afternoon and get hands-on mentoring from Dianne, that is available for a $25 donation. You’re of course welcome to stay as long as you’d like to paint, sketch, photograph, and enjoy the environment.
Location:
Alternatives Mill Complex
50 Douglas Road
Whitinsville MA
If it rains on June 21st, WE WILL STILL CREATE ART. We will set up a base inside the Singh theater in the room with a glass wall of windows overlooking the river and opposite-bank mill building. We will paint, sketch, and photograph from inside! Dianne will lead us through the project.
If you specifically would like to try your hand at painting on location – known as plein air – here’s a workshop Dianne did for us in April, giving ideas how to prepare for plein air painting. Take a look!
Here’s a plein air workshop Dianne did in Auburn in 2023, to get a sense of Dianne’s style and technique –
Here’s a written list of items to bring with you when you do your own plein air painting. Note that at the Whitin Mill we’ll have supplies on hand for this community event, if you’d like to borrow ours to give this a try. So you don’t need to bring supplies to the Whitin Mill. Still, if you’d like to build up your own travel bag of items, this page will get you started.
Here’s some photos taken by Carol Frieswick to show a few of the scenes you might choose to paint, sketch, or photograph around the Whitin Mill complex. Click on any to get a fuller view of it.
This gorgeous painting by Brandi Van Roo won third place in our “Local Beauty” art show, and showcases this very mill. Brandi did this scene in watercolors.
Brandi previously had won third place in our Worcester Center for Crafts art show with a different watercolor of the mill complex! This shows the building ‘across the river’.
So you can celebrate this location in photography, in sketches, in watercolors, acrylics, oils, pastels – whatever appeals to you.
Ask with any questions!
This event is supported by a grant from the Northbridge Cultural Council, which is part of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Also, thank you to ValleyCAST and Open Sky for usage of the space!
