Artfest: Day One- Wednesday March 28, 2012

Still trying to overcome my jetlag, here are my overdue recollections of the last Artfest, hosted by Teesha and Tracy Moore at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, Washington. I flew in from New York to Seattle on Tuesday, not leaving it up to chance that I might miss my shuttle to the Fort on Wednesday (which happened to me last year). I took the shuttle from the DoubleTree Hotel by the airport (very nice too- love the warm chocolate chip cookies at check-in!) back to the baggage claim to pick up the Hogwarts Express Artfest shuttle at 2:00 pm. Two and a half hours later we made it to the Fort and checked in at the Commons.

After I got my stuff into my usual room (this is my 6th Artfest and for 5 of them I've had the same room- Dorm 202 Room #16) I gathered up my trades and went back to the Commons for what I call the Trading Frenzy in the lobby before they open the doors for dinner. I didn't last till the end, reaching my limit with trades to spare for trading in classes and other activities. Here are some pictures of all the trades I did get over the five days of Artfest.

After dinner we went to the opening ceremony at the Pavilion. Teesha and Tracy gave a little speech about how Artfest has been a part of their lives and how they are looking forward to the next artistic endeavor. Teachers were introduced and then the crew that helps make Artfest work. At this point Tracy made a special introduction of David who came down from the audience as a teacher? and proceeded to propose to Tracy and Teesha's youngest daughter Trista (and she said yes!). Lots of standing ovations for Tracy and Teesha. Jesse Reno wrapped up the opening with a rambling talk on creativity and following your gut and being creative. After this I left the pavilion and picked up the fatbook 4x4 collaborative project I had contributed to. It was an incredible collection of work by Artfest artists to commemorate this last Artfest.

The other collaborative project I contributed to and picked up at Artfest was hosted by Penelope Harris "The Book of Faces" which was an awesome project inspired by classes we had taken with Roxanne Padgett. Penelope had requested people send her drawings of faces (I submitted four to the project and all were included!) What a fun thing to have and play with!

Journalfest- Classes Days 2 & 3

We are all born children. The trick is how to remain one. Picasso

My class on day two of Journalfest was "Making Faces" by Roxanne Padgett. Of the three classes I signed up for at Journalfest, I probably expected the least of this one, and maybe that is part of the reason I enjoyed it so much. I find when I just go with the flow and play I am very happy with the results at the end of the day. Roxanne does a fabulous job of getting you out of your head and back to that childlike state of play and making art for the pure joy of it, and not for some grand result. The picture to the left was one of the first exercises we did as a class. After loosening up drawing ovals on pages we drew an oval, put our name in the lower right hand corner and were told to pass it to the right. When we all had someone else's oval in front of us we were told to draw a facial part- an eye, nose, ear, mouth, whatever we wished, but just one. Then we had to pass that on and get another 'face' to add one element to and so on, until the pages ended up back to us, complete with portrait. Fun!

We did a lot of painting, drawing simple portraits and then doing things to them: coloring them, collaging them, making stamps of faces with foam sheets and cardboard. Here are some of mine:

My class on Day 3 was Grimoire with Juliana Coles. She had hinted that we could get dressed up for the occasion and donning my Luna Lovegood Spectospecs and witch's hat I attended a class filled with a few more witches, an enchantress, and Juliana looked absolutely grand in her enchantress outfit as she led the class through journaling spells to enter into a mystical place where we could reach inside and draw out our own magical secrets to put down on the pages of our special journals. A fun, relaxing class, even though she had us working fast and furious through several points in the morning. Since the journal is supposed to be personal and secret, I won't be sharing pictures here, except for the one posted yesterday:

Countdown to Journalfest

I've been very busy the past two weeks working on projects and gathering supplies for Journalfest in Port Townsend, Washington October 26-30, 2011. I am taking Shimmer & Bling with Lisa Engelbrecht, Altered Portrait Portfolio with Roxanne Padgett, and The Grimoire with Juliana Coles.

If you've never been to an art retreat before, one enjoyable activity is trading with other artists some homemade token of some sort. The item you make to trade is usually dependent on the event. Since Journalfest is about art journaling, I make mini ephemera packs to trade. I am also working on another item that I have made for other art retreats and since Journalfest is so close to Halloween, I thought this one would be fun to have to trade. You'll get to see what I am up to in my next blog post.

I made this smaller journal for my class with Juliana Coles on Saturday. From the class description this class looks like it should be a lot of fun.