Annual Art Retreat

I am part of an online art group with members all over the country. There are only about 35 of us and each year for the past  years we have gathered for a long weekend retreat in Grapevine, Texas. Approximately 20 members usually attend and we make art, create books, eat yummy food and celebrate the great friendships we've made over the years.

This past weekend was supposed to be our 2020 retreat which, of course, had to be canceled.  Our fearless leader, however, managed to plan a wonderful virtual "Pitiful Party" for us.  We had several Zoom meetings (with between 12 and 15 members participating); an art room scavenger hunt where we gathered the items and then posted a photo online; several games including Covid Bingo and word searches; a few art projects; posts of art tips and techniques; prizes and just plain fun. It was not a substitute for the real, in-person thing, but a great alternative nonetheless.

We created "scrappies" to swap with each other. These are just bundles/layers of scraps of papers, lace, fabric, ribbon, buttons, etc. stapled, sewn or glued together. They can be partially glued to journal pages as tuck spots, can be added to a paper clip for a fancy clip or used as an embellishment for a pocket or page. They are quite addictive to make and use up lots of tiny bits.  I made these four:

One gal shared a "make and take" with us using an upside down tag to make a cute bird hanging. She sent out some images and a list of the supplies she used and then we used whatever we had to make ours.  Mine came out similar to hers.

Another activity was to take a card we had received sometime and recycle it into another card. We then sent these to our leader who will deliver them to a nursing home. I have no idea when I received this card or from whom but I had saved the card front. I cut it down, layered it on dark card stock and then mounted on a tan card and added fibers.

This is just a hint of the fun we had. The best part was seeing everyone on Zoom and having great conversations during these stay-at-home days.

More retreat projects

This project was created on a large 12"x16" canvas board using Dyan Reaveley stamps for the outfits and borders, a brick stencil and paint for the background, and copies of photos of each of our heads. I used colored pencils and Zig markers for the coloring. This was fun and a great memento of our week.

We used two different-sized embroidery hoops to create this wall hanging in pinks and greens. The hoops were painted and covered with painted lace and canvas, then embellished with lots of flowers. This photo doesn't show the real-life colors and dimension of this pretty project.

And here is one other book we made. This is a Traveler's Notebook made with the Eileen Hull TN die from Sizzix.  The cover was cut from Spellbinder's chipboard and is very sturdy. The papers used are from Stamperia - gorgeous and vintage.  There are many pockets and tags on the three folders making up the signatures of the book. I love this size of book.

cover

Inside front cover and cover of first folder

Inside front cover of first folder (this folder has dotted-grid paper for journaling)

Inside back cover of first folder

Cover of second folder

Inside of second pocket folder

Back of pocket folder and front cover of third folder

Inside front cover of third folder (this folder contains plain paper for journaling)

Back cover of third folder and inside back cover of notebook

This notebook will be fun to fill with notes or sketches and the folders can be removed or replaced.

Back from annual retreat

Every year I attend a week-long retreat with 9 other artsy friends. This year we rented a large house in Blanco in the hill country of Texas. The attendees were from Washington state, Utah, New Mexico and Texas. Five of us presented day-long art projects and the remaining four brought kits for creating five or more cards. WE had a fantastic time, as always, and it certainly sparked my creative mojo!

This was my project - a Christmas-themed "shadowbox" using a six-cup muffin pan. I used a dark green paint for the first coat, then crackle and a top coat of ivory paint.  The openings have different backgrounds of Christmas papers along with various embellishments.

Another project was this great book project. We first created the book foundation using black cardstock and the "Stack the Deck" hinge system (Laura Denison). The kit included lots of these pretty papers, Tim Holtz "paper dolls", die cuts, metal embellishments, ribbons and stickers.  We all added many of our own embellishments as well. I love the vintage feel of this little book!

Cover

First two pages

Pages 3 and 4

Pages 5 and 6

Pages 7 and 8

Pages 9 and 10

Pages 11 and 12

Pages 13 and 14

Pages 15 and 16

Page 17 and back inside cover

I will share more of our projects in my next post.

AG Retreat 2018

My annual retreat last week was as amazing as always. 19 ladies came from all over the US (California, Washington state, Utah, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Alabama and, of course, Texas). We are in an online art group and have been having this retreat in Grapevine, TX, for 13 years! I am lucky enough to only live about 10 miles away and have been to all except one (I got sick the night before that one).

We always have a theme and create a book according to that theme for one or two of the days. Some of the attendees do make-n-takes for everyone and we always have some kind of a swap. This year the theme was "Typography/Fonts" which stumped many of us. But it really was a wide-open theme and anything worked as long as there were letters involved.

Some of the tags I received in the swap (I posted about my tag in this post.):

Some card make-n-takes:

step-card

A coaster make-n-take made with Scrabble tiles, edged with copper tape and accented with copper foil. I still need to cover it with some type of varnish.

This is the canvas make-n-take I taught the group.  We covered the canvas with crumpled tissue paper, then glued on bits of corrugated cardboard, drywall tape, chipboard die cuts, chipboard letters, buttons and an old paintbrush. The entire canvas was then covered with black chalk paint and highlighted with Inka Gold metallic waxes in various colors.

This was a fabric-covered junk journal that one of the gals made for each of us! It is filled with 2 fat signatures of "junk" papers attached with ribbons and the pamphlet stitch. I can't believe she made 19 of these! Thanks so much Joan!

 I will share the book I made in another post. My theme was "Alice in Wonderland, which I've wanted to do for quite awhile."

Here are some of the make-n-takes we did on Thursday.

Fabric and Lace Book

This is the fabric and lace book made during my retreat. It is filled with vintage lace, doilies, buttons and ribbons. The images are printed on fabric. Enjoy!

Inside front cover and first page

Pages 2 and 3

Pages 4 and 5

Pages 6 and 7

Pages 8 and 9

Last page and inside back cover

Retreat Projects

There were seven of us at last week's retreat and we created seven awesome projects. We do not disclose our projects before coming to the retreat, so it is amazing that there were so many varied themes and surfaces. 

First up is my project - a collaged wooden block resting on a glass pedestal and topped with a glass knob. 

One side with painted heart and key

Reverse side with house, arrow and gear

Next is a textured canvas collage. The gal who "taught" this brought just about every possible embellishment and metal pieces she owned and we just rifled through everything. Each canvas turned out totally unique!

Next is a beautiful neutral framed photo collage. Some of the flowers are store-bought and some were made from coordinating papers with the Tim Holtz Tattered Floral die.  This photo is one of my husband and his two siblings in the 1950's. I was originally black-and-white but I printed it out in sepia. I will be gifting this to my husband's sister.

This project is an open box embellished with beautiful papers, many metal pieces, paper leaves and a darling metal bird. We could choose our papers from a large assortment, so these all turned out differently too. I love the metal flourish on top.

Next up is a darling Christmas mini-album made from black pocket policy envelopes and bound with a coil binding.  This has really pretty papers with a little glitter on them and the rhinestones and beautiful flowers add the perfect touch. (I will photograph the rest of the album and post later.)

This is an easel "perpetual" calendar. One side of the flips is a monthly calendar and the other side is a card to write down birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays that don't change from year to year. The monthly cards are attached with removable tape so they can be replaced in 2019 with new ones. The gal who shared this project is a consultant for Fun Stampers Journey (a stamp company) and the easel is from that company. It would be equally cute with the month on one side and photos on the other!

And, lastly, we created a gorgeous fabric book. The base is a long piece of canvas fabric folded accordion-style with 1/4" "valleys" between each page. The cover is a vintage velvet fringe piece. We are unsure of the original use of this but it may have been a placemat (small) or maybe a prayer rug or a decorative piece to place on furniture?  At any rate, it makes a pretty cover.  The gal sharing this project brought tons of vintage lace, fabrics, trims, ribbons, flowers, etc. that she had been collecting for years. She put it all out for us to choose whatever we wanted. I will share photos of all the pages of this book in a later post as well.

As you can see, we were very busy at the retreat, but we also had some down time, lots of good food and great fun with artsy friends! It's a retreat I look forward to all year. Friends come from Utah and New Mexico as well as several from Texas and it's a blast.