Some Art Time

This past week I spent taking some Art and Soul workshops in Portland, Oregon. I met up with my friend from Ontario (I picked her up from the Vancouver airport) and we then drove to Portland. It was a whirlwind week spent shopping some of my favorite places (Ruthie B's in Springfield, Monticello Antiques in Portland, Bridgeport Shopping Centre in Portland, Anthropologie, 23rd Avenue in Portland, Pearl District in Portland - just to name a few). We ate many places too but one of our favorites was P.F. Chang's below...

I signed up for three workshops and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. I came home with 2 finished projects - one still to finish. One of my workshops was the mini copper journal taught by Thomas Ashman. This was an interesting project and I learned a lot of neat things. These next photos are of his work...

Another workshop I was in was the Selective Seeing taught by Stephanie Lee. This was by far my most challenging class and this would be why I didn't bring home a finished project. This will be something I will work on at home and I'm sure it will be just as challenging. We started off with a copy of a black and white photo and painted out what we didn't want in the photo and accentuated what we did. These next few photos were Stephanie's...

This is the one my friend finished...

Another version of it that she made for her parents...

The girl with her arms outstretched in the photo is her...

The last class I took was called Vintage Gentleman taught by Charley and Kerin Gale. I also finished my project in this class. Instead of using a vintage photo of a man I used one of my grandmother. I still have to take some photos of my finished projects so I will post them once I do. Learned a lot in this class too - many techniques that I will put to use in the future.

I think by far the most fun thing was reconnecting with Christina and sharing lots of laughter and stories. We had fun in Italy last summer and again this fall. Check out her website of her store called St. Elmo's Fire in Stittsville, Ontario. She is a fantastic artist and definitely one to watch!