A Private Creative Getaway! October 12-16, 2014

Dog chewing on your art supplies? Kids screaming? Husband wanting to know what's all this stuff on the dining room table? Well, perhaps you'd like to join us for a unique artistic experience on the Oregon Coast. A time to get away with your art supplies, breathe the ocean air and mingle with friends. At this special retreat, it's not about taking classes. It's about offering you a creative space... for you to bring unfinished projects or new inspirations. We'll create among like-minded souls, gleaning new "techniques" from our arty friends and experience "demos" in the spontaneity of the moment. Food "magically" appears — you leave our work stations as it arrives and either return to your spots, take a walk on the beach, go to town, or just hang out. The time is yours to enjoy.

We will be staying at the luxurious Inn at Spanish Head in Lincoln City, OR. Oregon's only resort hotel built right on the beach. Each of the Inn's 120 oceanfront rooms has floor-to-ceiling windows offering unobstructed ocean views. Most rooms have balconies and many have full kitchens. Miles of sandy beach and tide pools are just an elevator ride away. 

Beach Haven Art Retreat Getaway Includes: 
4 nights ocean front lodging

12 delicious meals 

Your personal creative space for 4 days
Printers and a copier will be available, as well as many art supplies to share
 

Single Bedroom - $875

Dbl Occupancy Studio - $675 each person

Dbl Occupancy Suite - $800 each person

For information and registration, e-mail glennymoir@gmail.com   Space is limited to 25 people. So sign up early!

Easy & Simple Photo(shop) Linocuts!

Wouldn't it be cool to take a photo that you love and create a linocut from it? "What the heck is a linocut?" you may be asking. Well, it's a printmaking technique — similar to woodcut — in which a sheet of linoleum is carved with a pattern and then used for printing. But to do that you need special tools and laser copies and acetone and lots of patience and printing ink and more! What if you could do it on your computer in a few minutes? Awesome!

Catherine Anderson — Art & Soul instructor extraordinaire and Photoshop Elements expert — explains how in this super easy tutorial. You'll definitely want to print this one out and save it in your art file!

1.  Open your digital photo in Photoshop and make a duplicate layer.

2.  Go to Enhance > Unsharp Mask.  Set the Amount to 500% and the Threshold to 0.  Try a Radius setting of 8 to start, but also adjust it to see if you like any of the other settings better.

3.  Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the Radius at about one quarter of the value of the Radius setting in Step 2. above.

4.  Repeat the Enhance > Unsharp Mask step in 2. above.

5.  Finally, go to Filter > Adjustments > Threshold and adjust the Threshold level until you create an image that you like.

You now have your black and white linocut! I printed my linocut barn owl out on white paper with my laser printer, then used the packing tape transfer method on page 95 of The Creative Photographer to make a transparent image which I pasted on a green background after cutting around the owl. This is a great way to use your photographs in art projects.

In Catherine's book, The Creative Photographer, the chapter on Photography as Meditation in Exploration 8 (page 140) shows you how to make linocuts using leaves from your garden. However, this method can be applied to any of your photographs as well.  This is how she created this black and white linocut of a photo of this Barn Owl using Photoshop Elements.

Catherine's Kansas City classes are all filled up (yes, she's very popular!) but she still has some room in her workshops in Art & Soul Virginia Beach so check them out! Her classes focus on incorporating photography into mixed media projects as she believes that the visual memories you create should be shared in meaningful ways.