I am starting to recover from the week I spent in glitzy Las Vegas at the Art & Soul Retreat Workshop. It was a great week and soo. . . inspiring! Carlanda and I took 4 workshops over 4 days. We took the first class with Lisa Kaus and learned some great acrylic/watercolor painting techniques. What fun! The birthday cake above is the piece I did in the class. Once we finished the painting, we collaged some elements on the board and then covered the entire piece with beeswax. Lisa Kaus is really fun and talented. Check out her blog at http://lisakaus.blogspot.com/
The next day we took a jewelry class with Sally Jean Alexander. We started at 10 am and didn't leave until 6:45 pm without a break for lunch! We collaged frantically, taped and soldered and got some great tips from Sally Jean. At 6:45, we gave in and left, but still did not have the final necklace put together. I finally assembled the necklace at home. The final necklace is "convertible" so from the birds down, the lower part can be removed. Check out Sally's blog at http://sallyjean.typepad.com/
The third day, we took a class in wax collage. The instructor, Judy Wise was not able to attend due to health reasons, but someone else took her place. I made the two wax collage pieces pictured here. We used both clear beeswax as well as colored wax, but I didn't use much of the colored wax on either piece. Don't you agree with the bowl piece? Judy's blog is http://www.judywise.com/
Finally, on the fourth day we took a class called Selective Seeing with an amazing artist and writer Stephanie Lee. For this class we had large, personal, poster sized photos that had been converted to black and white. Stephanie demonstrated and explained her technique of focusing on the important or more memorable parts of a photograph and covering or painting out the unneeded or unnecessary. We also learned several transfer techniques for adding to our finished pieces. This piece is unfinished and I have a lot of work to do! Check out Stephanie's blog at http://stephanielee.typepad.com/
