Seaside Art Retreat

Last weekend I was lucky enough to go to Felixstowe for a seaside Art Retreat which was organised  by one of the people I met at Call of the Wild Soul. Seven lovely ladies met up for a weekend of fun, art, conversation and relaxation thanks to our fabulous hostess Marie and her family. 

Of course this kind of event is not without its dangers, the main one being ‘supplies envy’ when looking at the goodies everyone else had brought with them, and which, for some of us, has led to a post weekend online shopping spree!

Rather than write more about the weekend I  will post the time capsule I made as part of the course I am doing with Xanthe Berkley. This is my first attempted at Videoing which I found a lot more fun than I expected to  and only wish I had taken more film especially on the prom and by the pier. I shall know next time!

Hope you will find time to have a look - enjoy!

Seaside Art Retreat - Take 2 from Barbara Evans on Vimeo.

Wild Soul Workshop

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Call of the Wild Soul two day Workshop in London with a focus on Soul Portraits. I had a great time. First of all it was good to meet up with some of the people from the retreat in September as well as getting to know some new faces. 

Erin who was leading the workshop started off by giving us a guided meditation and from there we dived soul first into our art. Amongst the selected material it was suggested we bring was a number of self-portraits. Fortunately I had some of these to hand as I am doing the Now You 52 Course which involves taking lots of selfies.

I made 3 picture of the two days. The first one comprised photographs juxtaposed on a background. I loved the idea of  altering the pictures with gesso or sandpaper, both were new techniques for me.

My second picture is my favourite, I used a combination of drawing, photo and collage paper - when I look at it I feel calm and rested.

Finally my third picture had a seaside theme. I was brought up on the coast and have a great affinity with the sea, it always seems like home. The theme of this picture was the connection of the soul with the body and with the universe in a way that lights up or lives. Again I used altered photographs and if you look closely at the lighthouse you will notice that it is a row of beach huts turned on its side. I also drew the figure by only looking at the model not the paper - turned out better than I expected!

Call of the Wild Soul - Take 3

Day three of the retreat I went to Teesha Moore's  workshop. Much more physically relaxing than Flora’s  - you got to sit down a lot! Again there was a wonderful energy within the room. Each day of the retreat the energy has been unique and inspiring. I loved Teesha's laid back style of chatting, demonstrating and explaining, interspersed with stories of her life. She also brought lots of her wonderful journals for us to look at, and the class pack contained lots of goodies too!

 I found getting started quite hard particularly when we stopped collaging and needed to doodle and add our own changes to the pictures. Despite Teesha's warning for some reason I used the watercolor crayon, perhaps because they were a tool I was familiar with, which meant I was unable to write over the surface  with most pens.

Since I have returned home I have made a journal using the method shown on Teeshas website ( loads of great how to do videos here do visit) and have finished the first couple of pages. Now I am finding the collaging the most difficult part - I seem to be resisting going with the flow in favour of locating the perfect picture and generally over-thinking. That said, I am trying to take risks with my doodling and overall am quite pleased with the results. 

 

The whole retreat was inspirational and I can’t wait to go on another one! Aside from the art-making the community created was fantastic and the bonfire on the Saturday night under the full moon and shimmering stars was very special! thank you so much to Erin, Simon, Flora, Orly, Madelyn and Teesha and of course my fellow wild souls!

Call of the Wild Soul - Take 1

I'm just back from the fabulous Call of the Wild Soul art retreat at Croydon Hall on Exmoor. The retreat is the inspiration of Erin Faith Allen and was just amazing. My only regret is that it was only possible to take classes from 3 of the 4 wonderful teachers there. I have decided to write a separate post for each class starting with day one when I took Madelyn Mulvaney's Persisting Soul class, which was based on photography rather than painting. It was a relaxed and gentle day with words of wisdom interspersed with exercises in pairs and a post lunch photo walk.

During the first exercise we were looking and embracing and releasing and went out into the slightly damp and misty garden to take photos.

 

I also used the opportunity to take some of the wonderful moss covered tree trunks in the garden.

 

Back in the classroom we looked at examples of manifestos and began to brainstorm some ideas for our own - here is mine which I finished on my return home.

 

After a delicious lunch (would certainly recommend the food at Croydon Hall) we went on a photo walk. There was so much to capture even though we went a relatively short way. This is just a small sample of the photos I took

 

The second theme of the day  was journeys and destinations and my workshop partner and I took various  photos around the house and garden.

In between all the other activities we also played around with vintage Polaroid film which produced pictures with a soft light and interesting striped effects. I can remember these from my parents Polaroid owning days when striped photos were not seen as an interesting, artistic or desirable outcome, rather the reverse! Still finding it hard to get my head around this!

Finally we did the self portrait section of the class. Each choosing how we would like the other to photograph us and then choosing  a feature  of the other to shoot. my partner chose to have a photo just of her foot with adorning anklet and I chose to take a photo of her amazing eyes.

Finally I chose to have a head and shoulders portrait wearing one of my favourite pink scarfs from Marrakech( have photoshopped the results a bit!) whereas my partner chose to take a picture of my hair.

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It really was a fabulous day - big thanks to Maddy and all the other wild souls!

A Little Painting ...............

Back home for a couple of days between French holiday and the Somerset art retreat and have realized that what with all the pack and unpacking, son packing for university and general stuff do do after a holiday I am not going to get a blog post written about France anytime soon. So instead, and with the upcoming art retreat in mind, I thought I’d share with you some of the painting I have been doing over the last few weeks. 

The inspiration is Mati Rose McDonough’s book Daring Adventures in Paint.  Mati takes you through a series of lessons and techniques, each building on the last, until in the final lesson you can use all the techniques in the book. I think it works very well as a guide and like most good things you can take from it what you need, adapting the techniques to your preferences and tastes.

 

So far I have done three pictures all of which are new departures for me, building on the techniques in the book. I would welcome your comments. 

Back after the art retreat so excited about it!