Two Weekends for Play and Passion

Not to mention: pears, peaches, pool (cool), plenty, and well, just lots of fun.

Coming up: July's Play Art and Attention and August's El Cielo Workshop will be hot-as-lava, fired-up with spirit and full of heat-based artcloth techniques that take advantage of the weather, the countryside and the grand vistas to inspire a new perspective on life, the artist's path and your place on the road.

First, we'll put play to the work of imagination and inspiration, with a variety of surface design techniques and creative exercises that open up possibilities for all kinds of new mixed media on paper and fabric. AND, we'll take a mid-year look at your annual art goals, how to reinvigorate your artistic studio focus, and set up some targets to hit with intention. Play and focus come together with a bit of yoga, some time in nature, and your hands in a zappy happy mix of new and fun materials.

In August, spend a couple of days exploring heat related techniques: textile paint sun-printing, rusting (afterall, a slow oxidation -- or burning -- process) and kitchen utensil and vegetable printing. We'll put your new fabrics together in a small art quilt art  Kitchen Altar, using a wooden frame and stitched work. Enjoy an August retreat from city's heat -- sure South Texas and the Hill Country are hot even up here in on the ridge, but it's always 10 degrees cooler at night than in the asphalt-ribboned city (and there's the pool, too). 

We'll be taking advantage of the  heat, with dye processes, using batik on fabric and to create screen-printing and more. Use the heat of the season to ignite your creative imagination, enjoy a convivial time with other artists and feast on the bounty of the season (some of it from El Cielo's own new veggie garden). 

If you're interested in making artcloth like the ones you see here

PLAY, ART AND ATTENTION

July 29-31

Making time to play with odd-ball materials; learning to focus upon artful tasks at hand -- sounds like opposite sides of the coin? At this exploratory and full-of-play weekend, we’ll explore the relationship between the time, play, art and focus. Where does time management intersect with open-hearted fun? Expect bubbles, playdough, sparklers, jello, yoga and seeing the world from new angles and attitudes. 

BURNING WOMAN WORKSHOP

August 19-21

Embrace your inner goddess of summertime. Design and make a small art quilt “altar” for kitchen or dining room with tools and materials that depend on heat, sunlight and passionate delight: sun-printing, vegetable prints, fusing, hand and machine stitching and “found” fabrics from attic, thrift store or kitchen closet. We will recycle napkins, tea towels and other like objects and design a thermofax featuring a meaningful symbol, favorite fruit, icon, saint, culinary heroine, angel or other meaningful design as the centerpiece for the altar. 

For more information, email me with the contact form on the sidebar.