If you’ve ever had a yen to take an easel outdoors and paint but don’t know where to begin, Gretchen Kimball has a solution for you.

Starting in April and continuing until the rains start next fall, the young Napa artist will lead painting groups into the Napa Valley hills.

This is the second year that Kimball has offered the painting sessions. She graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005 and opened Alla Prima Studio in Napa. A graduate of Vintage High School, Kimball has also studied art in Boston, Italy, Denmark, Germany and Mexico, and has shown her work in those places as well as locally.

A natural teacher, she decided to share her skills in pastoral settings she finds around the valley.

No experience is necessary, said Kimball; past students have ranged from ones who regularly show their works to those who have never picked up a brush.

But they all have fun, and at the end of the day, most of them have a painting that, well, at least their mother would love.

Kimball aims to make the experience as pleasurable as possible. On one of her excursions last fall, she took a group up onto the hilltop overlooking Quintessa Winery, where she also works part time.

The group — a visiting mother and daughter from Seattle, an artist from Calistoga, and a man from the East Coast who’d always wanted to try painting — arrived to find the stage set.

Easels were set up, as were palettes — with oil paints already dabbed on in a variety of colors — palette knives, brushes of all sizes and shapes, painting medium and jars for mixing, drawing pads, sketching pens and pencils — and even an apron.

Kimball brings canvases in a range of sizes from tiny to huge. The sort who thinks of everything, she transports paper towels, plastic bags and every other practical thing one might need on an excursion to paint in the wilds.

Not only that, but she sets up a picnic, with fruit, nuts, breads and cheeses, to sustain the painting effort. Oh — and wine, of course. A glass does wonders to loosen up the creative spirit.

Kimball’s mother was the founder of Hopper Creek Montessori School in Napa and her father started a hot air balloon company in the valley in the 1970s. Kimball brings both a talent for entertaining and the Montessori spirit of encouraging learning to her workshops. Not only does she thoroughly prepare the environment for would-be artists, but she optimistically accents the positive in her assistance throughout the afternoon.

She limits the group to 10; each session runs 1-6 p.m. or so. The lesson begins with instructions on how to frame a scene — cleverly using your hands to box in the view you wish  to capture. After a few sketching exercises, Kimball demonstrates the basics of color mixing and composition. She shows students how to prime the canvas with a coat of underpainting, and turns everyone loose to work.

On the second day, she explores more advanced techniques for capturing a view as well as concepts of light and contrast.

The cost for a one-day painting retreat with Kimball’s Alla Prima Studio is $250; two days is $395. Additional days are $145 each.

Sessions take place on weekends, but weekday painting sessions can be arranged by appointment. For more information, call 265-8536 or (415) 341-7030 or visit allaprimastudionv.com.