Day three at art camp was spent in an all-day "Happy Painting" class with artist Juliette Crane, in the most beautiful classroom ev-er! Juliette is one of the main reasons I signed up for Lucky Star. She has made quite a name for herself in the mixed-media world, appearing in most every magazine I've picked up lately. I knew that if Lucky Star was bringing in instructors of this caliber, it must be a camp worth attending!
I love the way she builds up a piece of art in layers. She starts by just squirting globs of paint onto the page, then smearing it around with her hands. Anything to get past that fear of the blank page, right? She then adds layers of stenciling, bits of collage, and even a few squirts of graffiti-style spray paint -- all of which may get covered up in the end, but which adds bits of texture which peeks through here and there. Next she showed us how she creates her whimsical creatures out of circles and rectangles -- so, so precious!
Then it was our turn. We worked on several backgrounds at once, which not only allowed one canvas to dry a bit as you worked on another, it also kept you from obsessing too much over every little thing!
That evening, after supper, we adjourned to the ballroom to hear speaker Shawn Stratmann talk about making dreams come true. There was no singing around the campfire that evening, but we somehow ended up with quite a crowd on the porch of our cabin, until well past midnight.
In addition to her dream-coaching, Shawn happens to be a licensed instructor at a school for Irish Dance up in Maryland. And, with the help of a little wine, we managed to wrangle an impromptu lesson in river-dancing!
Quite appropriate, when you consider our location!
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