Virginia Teacher Spotlight: Eric Scott

We love having Eric Scott teaching at our events! He is one half of the Journal Fodder Junkies, and he's dedicated to helping people discover their artistic potential and cultivate their creativity. He is a mixed media artist, an educator, and an author. He provides workshops, presentations, and seminars all across North America on the visual journal and mixed media art.

For Eric, the visual journal is vital to his mixed media art. As a place to explore and experiment, to document and reflect... he sees the journal as a testing ground for ideas, techniques, and imagery. All of these ideas and notions ferment in the journal before they begin making their way into separate pieces of art. Eric is an expert guide into the unknown, and he'll make you feel comfortable and free there! Check out what he has planned for you at Art & Soul Virginia this year...

Luminous Liquid Layers
In this full day workshop, you'll be pushing your creativity as you delve into the world of liquid acrylics. You'll explore a multitude of exciting techniques as you paint, drip, scrape, splatter, and stamp. Sure, that may sound like the basics, but you’ll also learn to use a wide range of unconventional tools and materials to create exciting textures and luminous layers. You can even throw in some of your favorite images and personal ephemera to add a mixed media flair to your work, or you can simply focus on building your painting skills. Either way, you’ll learn to open yourself to a new painting process as you build texture, embrace color, and develop rich layers. You'll definitely get to see how easy it is to develop dynamic images as you work, and you'll walk away with vivid pieces of art ready to hang on the wall.

Monster Maker Workshop
Eric's 3-hour evening class will help you unleash your mad scientist. You'll bring a variety of creatures of the imagination to life in this fun mixed media workshop! You will learn how to conceptualize and create cute & cuddly, or scary & menacing monsters with pencil, ink, paint, and collage. Build your creations from stock parts or invent your own. Customize your monsters with a variety of details, textures, and accessories, and walk away with your own menagerie of little beasts. Evil laugh is optional. Muah-ha-ha-ha!


Stencil Savvy
Stencils have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and we all look forward to the latest releases by our favorite mixed-media artists. But what if we could design and make our own? What if we could use our art, our handwriting, and our photographs to make personally meaningful stencils?

In this hands-on evening workshop, you’ll see just how easy it is to create your own distinctive stencils and templates. You’ll start the day by working with simple shapes and designs, and wrap up with using more complex artwork and photographs. You will leave with a variety of unique stencils and templates ready to be used in all of your mixed-media endeavors. That's pretty awesome!


So whether you love journaling, stamping, painting, drawing, stenciling, or just want to be brave and try something new, Eric has something for everyone. The great part is that everything you learn can translate to your own mixed media practice. What a great way to uplevel your art! For more information about Eric's classes and our Virginia Beach retreat, visit our website...

Virginia Beach Art & Soul

October 1-6, 2018

Virginia Beach Resort Hotel

As a former public school art educator, Eric Scott frequently travels and provides workshops on the power of art and the visual journal to schools and education organizations. In 2005 he officially teamed up with friend and artistic accomplice David Modler to present at a variety of venues, conferences, and retreats on visual journaling and the importance of authenticity in art education. Eric is coauthor of the bestselling books, The Journal Junkies Workshop (2010) and Journal Fodder 365 (2012), both released by North Light Books. He lives in Purcellville, Virginia with his wife and their menagerie of animals. You can find out more about Eric by visiting the Journal Fodder Junkies website.

Teacher Spotlight... Helen Garcia!

This is just one of Helen Garcia's amazing projects from the amazing workshops she'll be teaching at our Kansas City, MO Art & Soul Retreat! We got to experience this class — Crinkly Iridescent Vestiges Quilt — in Portland and it was... amazing!  This paper quilt is loaded with colorful crinkly textures. The paint and ink flowed into the crevices giving the papers a wonderful aged look. Students got to experiment with this special watermedia batik-like technique on Masa rice paper. They used an acrylic ink technique to make marks and paint with watercolor, letting the colors blend and fuse together naturally. Simply stunning!

Helen Shafer Garcia is a painter, mixed media artist and award winning illustrator. Her whimsical style shows a love for living creatively with a studio filled to the brim with found objects! She’s currently working with watercolor, pastel and mixed media creating contemporary images on paper along with a series of Icon folklore triptychs with wood, watermedia and found object construction.

For the past 20 years, Helen’s watercolor illustrations have graced the cover brochures, garden articles and advertisements of numerous International resorts and magazines. Awards include four San Diego Press Club First Place Awards of Excellence in Illustration for San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles Magazine. Helen holds a BA degree in Fine Arts and currently teaches college level Watercolor and Acrylic painting, Book Arts, and Pastel.

Here's a sneak peek of what Helen will be teaching at our 2015 Kansas City retreat, which is just around the corner I might add!

Poured Painted Surfaces

Tuesday Evening, April 28

Block Collage Prints

Wednesday Evening, April 29

Inky Prints Folded Book

Thursday, April 30

Crinkly Iridescent Vestiges Quilt

Friday, May 1

Such colorful and graphic workshops Helen has to offer! So why not come play with us and make something beautiful?

Kansas City Art & Soul

Mixed Media Art Retreat

April 27 - May 1, 2015

The Elms Hotel & Spa

Excelsior Springs, Missouri

For more information on Art & Soul or to register for any of our events, visit us at www.ArtAndSoulRetreat.com

See you soon!

New Instructor Added to Portland! Introducing Rebekah Meier...

We are so very excited to announce the addition of one very talented instructor to our Portland Art & Soul roster... Rebekah Meier!

Rebekah is an established author, designer, and teacher in the mixed-media and fabric collage community. Her books, magazine features, and product development exemplify her signature style of combining fabrics and fibers into beautiful collage assemblages. Rebekah is the author of the best selling books, Fabric Art Collage, 40+ Mixed Media Techniques and More Fabric Art Collage. 

Here's what she's offering this Spring at our 2015 Portland event. Check out these lovely layered cloth and paper creations!

Collage Fabric Painting - Friday, March 6th 

Students will learn techniques to create their own custom designed fabric. Layering the applications of color, texture, design will be covered. Instruction will also be given on how to create foam stamps and using found objects for printing. The one of a kind designed fabric will then be used to create a no-sew wallet.

Ripped, Peeled, and Dripped Paper Relic Collage - Saturday, March 7th

Students will create a canvas wall art collage. Techniques will be step by step, allowing students to build up textures and interesting designs. If you like ripping, peeling back layers, and random application of paint, then this class is for you.

Fiber Art Tapestry - Sunday, March 8th

Students will learn a layering technique that incorporates both fabric and paper. Each student will go home with a small sampler incorporating embroidery and lots of texture.

Pretty awesome stuff, huh!

Registration is now open for Portland Art & Soul 2015, as well as all of our 2015 events! For information and registration, visit our website at www.artandsoulretreat.com.

Art & Soul Radio... Interview with our Host Lesley Riley, Mon. July 22

Lesley Riley, the host of Art & Soul Radio for the past three years is the guest on this, her final show.
 
Artist, surface designer and former show guest, Jane Dunnewold, turns the tables on Lesley and conducts the interview of this multi-talented artist, instructor, writer, craft book author, artist coach & mentor and soon to be former host of this Art & Soul Radio show.

Lesley 's books include: Quilted Memories, Fabric Memory Books, Fabulous Fabric Art with Lutradur and Create with TAP Transfer Artist Paper. She is currently at work on her 5th book. She is the creator of, TAP Transfer Artist Paper the state of the art in transfer paper, and winner of CHA's 2011 Most Innovative New Product award.

Lesley teaches workshops internationally and online. After having conducted 76 interviews over the last three years, Lesley is stepping down to follow her own advice that "art is what you make it".

 

So please join us as we turn the tables for this inspirational chat Monday. And remember that all our episodes will still be available in the archives!

Art & Soul Radio featuring host Lesley Riley
with Lesley Riley
Monday, July 22
7:00pm EST
blogtalkradio.com/art-and-soul-radio




Want the opportunity of a lifetime? 
If you're interested in taking over the hosting of Art & Soul  Radio, promoting our amazing retreat, getting the opportunity to speak with talented workshop instructors, and providing exciting and interesting content for our mixed media audience, please contact Glenny Moir with your credentials!

We'll miss you Leslie!

A Picture's Worth 1,000 Words... But A Video Is Like 100,000!

So, have you ever checked out a workshop you might like... looked at the project photos... read the description... and were still undecided? Maybe you thought, "the finished project looks so cool, but I'm not sure if I can do that". Perhaps you wondered about the background of the teacher, and their inspiration behind the class. Or maybe you just wanted to see more examples to peak your excitement and make you hit that Register For This Class button!

Well, awhile back we started featuring workshop videos on our website to help you make those class decisions a little bit easier! Made personally, by the instructors themselves, they give you a little bit more insight into what they have to offer. Right now, you can check out some of our Portland workshop videos as well as a few from our Kansas City retreat.


Like this video from Jill Timm who has a 2-day workshop at our Portland venue called The Amazing Dremel. It really gives you a great look at what you'll be doing in class and the techniques she'll be showcasing. HINT! If you're at work, turn your sound down... there's lots of Dremeling going on!


And another, created by Jane Davies, giving you a glimpse into her Kansas City workshop Layering With Transparencies. Warning... you will be amazed at the simplicity of the techniques and the wow-factor of the results!!

So check out our Portland video page and our Kansas City video page and see if we can't "talk" you into something!

Those that understand, teach...

Aristotle once said, "Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach."

You know, lots of posts we do talk about what a great time the attendees have at Art & Soul's various retreats, but maybe you didn't know that the workshop instructors have just as much fun as the students! And it's actually one of the many reasons why Art & Soul has been a destination for creative souls for over a decade. The pride that our teachers take in passing on their knowledge and guiding you through a new artistic adventure is just as important to them as it is for all of you on the learning side of things.

The lovely and talented Erin Keck recently made a video showcasing some of the classes she's taught at Art & Soul, featuring some very excited students... so we thought we'd share it with you. An Assemblage Artist residing in Mechanicsburg, PA, Erin's artwork results from re-purposing found, discarded objects. She loves to breathe new life into castaways from yesteryear.

Erin will be teaching this year at our Kansas City, Missouri retreat, as well as our Virginia Beach Art & Soul... AND... at our Portland, Oregon event too! With everything from vintage tin art dolls to upcycled antique chimes to Steampunk art and jewelry, you'll find Erin's workshops simply riveting!