Wisconsin, Italy, Greece and Turkey --- Oh MY!

I am happy to announce that our venues for 2010 are finally complete. We begin our year in February by traveling to fabulous Las Vegas. Art & Vegas --- what a combo!!

From there, in May, we will journey to the East Coast for our fifth year in Hampton, VA. Hampton feels as much like home as does Portland. The staff is already asking about our return.
Our newest venue will be in the Midwest ---- Madison, WI. Our host hotelier, John Q Hammons, has a spectaular property for us to utilize and we are anxious to bring our instructors to those of you who have been asking for a retreat in the center of our country.

Madison Marriott West
Registration will begin October 11, 2009

And then, just when you think there could not be anything new to excite you -- we have our first CRUISE! We are pleased to announce our affiliation with Walker Travel Agency in coordination with A&S cruises! Lesley Riley and Linda & Opie O'Brien will be our guest instructors on this most exciting venture.

We begin in Venice -- cruising down the Grand Canal. From there we go to Dubrovnik, Croatia - Kusadasi (Ephesus), Turkey - Santorini, Greece - Corfu, Greece and then back to Venice. We will utilize 2 days at sea for our classes and the classroom will be open in the evenings for our artistic endeavours.

Santorini

Corfu

The classes are as spectacular as the location!

Lesley is teaching:

Ancient Scavenger A Portfolio of Patina, Color, Texture & Treasures

You will learn how to create and recreate ancient surfaces: verdigris, rust, stucco, cracked plaster effects, peeling paint and more. We will create texture and patina sample cards and compile a color compendium using paint and collage, found ephemera, color and samples collected on your scavenger hunt through ancient lands. Yes, there will be a real scavenger hunt. You can work in teams or alone. The only rule will be to have fun. Your mini works of art will find a home in the portfolio case you will construct on your first day of class, a unique container constructed from 2 canvases which you will work your magic on to create texture, patina and color. A unique storage system will be devised and an ancient binding technique will complete the case.

Linda and Opie are teaching:

An Aegean Travel Atlas-Map Journal Sketchbook & More… Oh My!

Over the past year we’ve been collecting the perfect vintage map that shows the Greek Isles, Turkey and even a small portion of Italy, our starting and ending destination. We folded it accordion style so you can work on both sides, bound it with heavy book board and even added a hand-bound coiled sketchbook with heavy watercolor paper to the back cover for additional field notes, sketches, collages or whatever inspires you. Whether you make your atlas-map/journal/sketchbook a doll or not is up to you and a simple process that we will share, but each of you will receive an original vintage map in a handmade bound book to begin our adventure. ... Opie even made everyone a small photo journal to hold your Pogo prints, a very cool process that we will introduce you to. Pogo printers are very small and a great journaling tool and best described as what happens if you crossed a Polaroid snapshot with an inkless printer.
We'll spend our workshop time collaging, painting, pogo printing and embellishing our book inside and out with pop-ups, windows and incorporating the various treasures we collect along the way. Save everything… beginning with your airline tickets and boarding passes.
So let’s create a memory together.
A $20.00 material fee payable to the instructors includes your handmade and bound atlas-map/journal/sketchbook, a pogo photo journal and 5 zinc sheets, materials to add a head, hands and feet, hardware and more.

Registration is now open for the cruise by going to: http://www.artandsoulcruises.com/

And our year would not be complete until we gather in Portland! Our "flagship" event, Portland continues to be innovative, creative and exciting. Hampton is giving Portland a run -- lets see what Madison does!!