Art & Soul adventure

Been so busy since returning from Art & Soul Sunday night ... catching up, filling orders and making stuff for Chick's Picks https://www.chickspicksbyhillary.com/ show next week. I haven't even unpacked the vendor night leftovers from the car! I really need to do that.

Anyway, I had a great time at A&S. Friday night there was an informal art journaling session with Diana Trout (*love* her!) Saturday I took a class with Carla Sonheim. I was not familiar with her work prior to A&S, but that's the beauty of weekends like this ... you get to experience something or someone new! I adore her whimsical style.

We started the class with some very casual, no pressure drawing exercises (including a portrait of the person sitting across from us ... done with our non-dominant hand!) We then moved on to applying watercolor and gesso to small boards. We then either drew a simple line drawing or "found" an image in the gesso blobs. The whole class was very relaxing and I was very pleased with the six(!) panels I created. The bunny drawing at the top has special significance for me. Long story short, when I was about 8 years old, a teacher told me that a 2-dimensional, simple line-drawing rabbit I'd drawn did not look like a rabbit and proceeded to show me a realistic pencil drawing of a rabbit. I've never forgotten that (I've gotten past it, but never forgotten it). So the top image of a rabbit (which was "found" in a gesso paint blob) is my triumph over that nasty old teacher's comments!

Carla has a new book coming out on July 1. I ordered my copy! http://www.carlasonheim.com/ Had a great time at vendor night ... I love to see other people as excited about vintage finds as I am. I met a number of other wonderful vendors, including Sue from Vintage Rescue Squad (a true kindred spirit!) http://vintagerescue.typepad.com/ And I sat behind instructor/artist/vendor Julie Haymaker. http://juliehaymaker.blogspot.com/ A friend of mine said we were like twins! Love her work and bought one of her lovely necklaces (she says they don't photograph well ... trust me, they're beautiful in person!)

Wow, I'm wordy tonihgt. So that's the experience in a nutshell. Because I've been away two weekends in a row, I've been slow to post new finds to the shop. I apologize for the delay, but new goodies are coming next week!