Retreat - Part Last (the art)

So much wonderful stuff happens on our retreats - visiting, hiking, eating(!), communing of all sorts in general, but the primary purpose is to be making art!  At the end of our stay, we try to hold a brief critique/show and tell to look over what we've worked on during the week-

Rebecca plowed through a pile of wonderful things! Bright creatures all (warm-up paintings here) -

She made it through nearly an entire deck of these fabulous-critters-as-tarot-characters.

Aren't they fabulous? We're all hoping she gets them printed so we can buy our own.

Gudrun dabbled in various mediums - pencil, colored pencil, watercolor pencils, clay and felted critters. Lovely, delicate things...

Kathleen, who does such wonderfully expressive drawings, is experimenting with translating them into painting.

(and it is so *fabulous* to have so much ready input here together at our fingertips. Immediate feedback!)

The fabulous Michelle - lots of mini-landscapes and Sculpy sculptures....

Suzy continues to work on her underwater-themed silk paintings...

(as well as sketching some chicken-based designs for future paintings. So adorable.)

Jo is slaving away on her current book (look at how amazing those teensy color comps are!)

And as for me, I set a significant personal record for things accomplished. My best retreat thus far, *by* far.

Retreat - Part IX (art 'mascot')

We had an interesting phenomenon spontaneously occur this year-

-Kathleen has been taking a class, and did this lovely little pastel still life for an exercise. We all really liked it, 

and throughout our time there, most of us ended up doing a version of it in our own preferred medium (a fun, new exercise for all of us to try).

It became the week's art equivalent of a 'mascot'. :-)

(This was my watercolor version. I was not only attempting to copy a pastel in a water medium, but was trying out some M. Graham pigments as well. They are luscious!)

So, here are various versions - the original pastel, acryla-gouache, watercolor, watercolor-miniature, pencil and watercolor on Yupo... (you can click on this for a larger view).

So, I was not only trying out a new brand of paint, but a very limited 3-color primary palette. Fun exercise!

Retreat - Part VIII (POBL members)

Another project I dabbled in whilst at the retreat was to watch the Wendy Froud DVD with Michelle. We both spent an evening with my mini-DVD player and a batch of Sculpy....

(Michelle was sculpting a benign witch - I was attempting a troll...  Fun, but need more practice for sure!)

The thing that *makes* the retreat of course, is the lovely lovely co-attendees. They are all creative, committed, accomplished women. We work very hard -

-by the fire, in the evening...

..or out soaking up the sun during the day (it was gorgeous out this year..)

We work in so many different mediums up there... Suzy is painting gorgeous underwater themed silk scarves.

Kathleen is experimenting with oils, Jo's painting in watercolor, Michelle is playing with sculpy, Gudrun is drawing in pencil, Suzy is doing color comps, and Gudrun also sculpts (felting here, also in clay..), etc....

(and then of course, there is the always amazing food we have on our retreats. These women cook like artists as well. :-)

And of course, besides the working and the cooking and the visiting there is the walking in the woods and the relaxing in the sunshine... So rejuvenating on so many levels...

Retreat - Part VII (downed trees)

One of the main projects I wanted to work on at the retreat was a book dummy based on a poem that Jane Yolen wrote in response to my IMC Trolls at Tea piece -

It is a riotous romp through a number of problematic meals with mythological critters. SO fun to think about and design. I'm trying to put together a finished enough dummy to shop around since this happened rather spontaneously rather than commissioned. There will be updates!

I have no good segue into this entry's visuals. :-)

As I mentioned in a previous post, there were quite a few downed trees this year, some brand new - such as this tree. You can't really tell the scale of the root ball here, but it is a good 3 feet taller than I am. *Enormous*. Our hostess called it the Inception tree - you stand next to those roots and it feels like the rest of the world is tipped sideways...

Another recently downed tree - it's branches festooned with long tufts of celadon moss...

A longer time downed tree - whose roots now look like the entry to a fairly scruffy fairy lair....

More twisty tree trunks..

Always cool peeling bark.. Up close, it's like an abstract painting.

Always lots to see, and lots to love...

Retreat - Part VI (stumps and chips)

In a class I took last year it was strongly suggested that we develop a memorable signature for our work. It could be our name or a graphic element based on our name/initials. I played with some graphic ideas then,(notepaper on left) -

Tried some more fitting options at the retreat (on the right) but am now looking forward to finessing something with the help of some of my font books at home-

And speaking of 'graphic elements', I always find the stark beauty of skeletal roots, driftwood and tree shards sparsely beautiful...

The man-made-lake-that-used-to-be-forest still has quite a few 100+ year old stumps around..

Apparently at the end of every summer, all the dead wood that floats to the end of the lake near the spillway is gathered up in preparation to be burned...

(see how *huge* this one single pile is! There are multiple piles. That's going to be quite a bonfire.)

The lake shore is literally carpeted in places with wood chips....

Rustically beautiful...

Starkly, graphically beautiful...

Retreat - Part V (the lake)

Another long-neglected project that I made good progress on was a rough of an historical/fantasy map...

(I love maps... Am hoping this project gets the green-light to go forward..)

Speaking of shorelines, here are some views of the lovely lake that the cabin is on the edge of...

(it is a man-made lake - still showing signs of the trees that were cleared for its existence. There are always protruding stumps in the fall that didn't get cleared before the river was dammed and the lake was filled).

It is ringed by mountain tops...

Our hostess, who has been studying the history up there for years, showed us archaeological remains along the shore line....

We did a little beach combing - remains of a 100-year old cabin are still in evidence (rusted nails and cables, weathered planks, broken crockery - still there!)

The pottery bits are probably from said flattened cabin - and possibly some of the molded and frosty glass. Other pieces - more current glass, pine cone cores and an osprey feather...

Always new and different things to see...

Retreat - Part IV (Dragon's Eggs!)

A couple of years ago I did The First Day of Christmas as my holiday mailer.

This year I've decided to do the second day. Did an initial sketch for it the second day of the retreat. :-)

Some of you may recall that last year, I did caroling dragons....

This year up in the cabin environs there were many many downed trees (they had a near hurricane last winter). They've been tipped over for months now and the dirt in the roots has washed out, exposing quite large rocks tangled in the roots which looked remarkably like nested dragon's eggs!

(Here are some 'eggs' still underground - seen before the 'nests' are fully exposed...)

Aerial dragon's nest - can you see the rocks held in the upper roots?

Ground nest - with the 'eggs' gently nestled in some soft dirt....

'Eggs' precariously hanging in the air...

'Eggs' in a hollowed stump...

Dragon's eggs nearly everywhere we looked! I suspect we'll have to watch our step next year if they've all hatched by then.