Teacher Training

What did the mixed media queens do the day after an intense weekend workshop? Why they insisted on making more art of course! Here we are on Monday morning eager to learn more ...

Look at how intent Win and I are to watch Meg make what are called pours

Below Meg drizzles fluid acrylic paint diluted with Golden GAC 800 directly onto a canvas before tipping and tilting it to have the colours move and flow into one another. Airbrush colours (which are even thinner paints) can be and were also used. 

Gloss medium will create interesting lumpy textures as in the pour (below) that Meg made on a sheet of high density polyethylene. Much later it will be peeled away like a skin. These skins can take weeks to dry. 

I love the richness of this sensational pour!

This is a pour I made on canvas. I was going for intensity of colour, but it lacks the variety that white would have added

It was a most glorious, hot day, without any wind, enabling us to work outside. The down side of the fine weather was the acrylic paints dried so very quickly that we had to bail out of making use of Win's demonstration. She recently purchased a Gelli printing plate and is using it with her own hand-cut as well as commercially made stencils. Take a look at what Win has done with this new toy here. We moved the Gelli plate indoors but ...

Win shows us how to make mono prints on her Gelli plate.  

... the truth be told Win and I were running on empty and even after taking ourselves out for lunch we couldn't rally enough to finish anything. Only Meg - who knows how to pace herself - was able to continue making art.  And the next thing you know we were into the wine ...



Meg showed Bill how to use gold leaf and here he is giving it a whirl

What we did accomplish was to enjoy one an others company on a beautiful day. We learned yet more techniques which will surely incubate and distill in our brains and ultimately show up later in and/or on more  mixed media paintings!

Mixed Media Rocks Claresholm

On May 4th and 5th, 2013, Win Dinn was back in Claresholm giving her Mixed Media II workshop. You know the community is embracing mixed media madness when enrollment was up 50% over her workshop last spring, that all 15 spots were filled before the end of February and the couple of cancellations were filled immediately!

Win demonstrating a texture technique using drywall compound with an assortment of household objects as stencils

We are very fortunate to have the use of the expansive, brightly-lit Senior's Drop-In Centre. All weekend long the room was vibrating with busy participants wielding paint, embellishments and assorted tools. Win's infectious energy sustained us through all of the 20 techniques she presented!

Using mulberry paper, laid out on butcher paper, we made painted papers ...

With alcohol inks we coloured textured white wallpaper and using acrylic paints we tinted and scrubbed over the dried drywall stenciled pieces (the two on the right) ...

Win invited me to do a cob webbing technique demonstration, on watercolour paper, which I learned in an Ursula Reynolds workshop last fall.

Below Sherry and Cathy show me theirs ...

At Sally's table, full of colourful "starts", she peels her music sheet "skin" off a piece of palette paper ...

Meg demonstrated how to apply gold leaf and other metallic leaves to our pieces ...

Art was made with the usual, the imaginable and the inconceivable! Items/products employed included bubble wrap, fabric, string or elastic band wrapped paint rollers, dishwasher rise aid and nail polish remover! There was scraping, splattering, smearing and finger painting .. a ton of fun! 

Still smiling, at the end of Sunday, here are the happily exhausted participants ... 

Back: Meg, Jean, Dorrit, Brydon, Linda, Dominique, Betty and Sherry
Middle:  Jeanne, Marikka and Glenda
Front: Kerry, Sally, Billie, Judy and Cathy
And, out in front, our illustrious leader takes a moment to lie down!
(missing are Saturday participants Kari and Susan)

I'm thrilled to announce that we have just confirmed Win's return to do her next mixed media workshop, here in Claresholm, on November 2nd and 3rd, 2013.  There will only be 12 spots this time and taking one day will not be an option. The registration forms will be ready early in June. Please contact me, Alice, to be put on the mailing list.