Full heart, paint smeared fingers!

Plus early bird for Make Create Express extended!

Hello lovely creatives,

I’m still coming off of the high of the Creative Retreat Weekend; it was a wild ride! The immersion in the creative outpouring in the classroom, seeing all the the work that the participants shared from my lesson, titled Wild Soul, and watching and working on some of the sessions myself. If only more weekends could be that amazing!

And my heart, it’s filled to brimming, seeing all the beautiful art that the participants created from my lesson during the weekend.

Some of them had never tried intuitive painting before, others had never attempted to look for figures in their painting. Some of the artists loved the process so much, they said they would use the technique in their art journals for years to come.

Seeing each creation, reading each person’s experience with the lesson, filled me with warm fuzzy feelings that have lasted all week!

And the creative immersion of watching and working along with some of the lessons that the other artists shared during the weekend retreat was just so satisfying, you know?

It’s so inspiring to watch how other artists approach their art. No matter how much experience one has, I think there is a lot that we can learn from watching how other artists work. And there’s certainly no better way to stay inspired and curious!

Psst…You can still get access to all the lessons from the Creative Retreat Weekend, plus a new lesson every week for an entire year. AND the early bird has been extended until Monday, 22 July, so if you’ve been sitting on the fence, now is the time to snag this course! Click HERE to register.

During the retreat weekend, I chose two lessons that pushed me out of my comfort zone:

Doodling Organic Shapes with Susan Yeates

I’m not much of a doodler, and I generally don’t have much patience with fine line work. But I loved Susan’s organic shapes, so I decided to give them a try while watching Netflix in the evening.

I started doodling this organic shape from the bottom of the page, working my way upwards. As you can probably see, it took me a while to really settle into the process, and my lines became finer and closer together the longer I stayed with the simple process of moving the pen across paper.

While I’m not likely to fill a sketchbook with organic doodles, I do think I will give them a go again.

Spontaneous Intuitive Watercolor with Angela Fehr

Watercolors are another medium that are way out of my wheel house. And I am absolutely fascinated with them — I went through a phase of compulsively buying watercolor tubes and pans, as if just the act of buying them and bringing them into my studio would magically make me better at them. Talk about wishful thinking, eh?

I’ve tried working with watercolors a few times, with mixed results. And I tried again this weekend. While this is no masterpiece, it was interesting to follow Angela’s instructions and work with watercolors and see what they want to do, rather than trying to control them and giving up in frustration.

I think I may have to dedicate a month to watercolors some time soon; find some good tutorials and just practice. Because when you can let go of needing to control the outcome and let the watercolors do their own thing, interesting {and sometimes unexpected} things happen. {Also messes, but that should get better with time and practice, right? Right!}

And two lessons that were very much in my wheelhouse:

The Journey of Texture with Shawn Petite

If you’ve been with me for a while, you probably know that I LOVE texture. My paintings feel incomplete unless they have some sort of texture: be it messy etched scribbles or layers of paint and marks or paint that’s been skipped across the page with a palette knife. And modeling paste, oh, how I love the ahmazing texture that it creates!

So of course, I had to give Shawn’s lesson a go.

I mean, just look at that yummy texture — the photograph just doesn’t do it justice!

I am going to go in and add some white to the leaves, but this is where I left off during the weekend, because there was one more lesson I really wanted to do.

For the Love of Jug with Pam Thorburn

It has been an age since I’ve done a negative space painting, and I’d forgotten how much fun it can be! I already had a page in my journal that was filled with some yummy layers of paint and marks, so all it needed was a bit of additional color and marks before I could add in my shapes.

Instead of jugs, though, I decided on The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party as the theme, and I have to say, I adore how playful and fun this page of wonky, crazy, teapots looks!

I’ve had so much fun with these lessons, and I have a couple more that I’m itching to try. I see another creative immersion in my near future!

Did you know that when you sign up for Make Create Express, you get access to all 24 sessions from the weekend retreat {which alone is worth the price of admission}, PLUS a new lesson every week for an entire year?! AND the early bird has been extended until Monday, 22 July, so if you’ve been sitting on the fence, this is the best time to sign up for class. And yes, you get forever access to the sessions.

Will I see you in the classroom?

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