Thursday: Michelle’s Studio Session

Thursday morning dawned brightly, and everyone exclaimed over the sight of the beautiful, tasseled bookmarks and iridescent foil butterflies hanging from ribbons over the wall of windows! As you can see in the photo below, they made a lovely foreground to the spectacular ocean view.

Marbling, and Paste Painting, and Stamping
During our 17-hour kitchen marathon, Penny made the solutions for marbling and the paste to add to acrylic paint. This meant that we could dive right in without waiting for them to cool. After breakfast, it was my turn to lead the morning Studio Session which gave our Creative Explorers the chance to explore paste paper painting, mark-making with a variety of tools, and how to create custom stamps using foam sheets and acrylic blocks. The afternoon session was a whirlwind of paper marbling, more paste papers, and some work with stencils. As I described in the “Great Reveal” post, one goal was to create painted papers to embellish the wooden book boxes, but I could tell that our artists were eager to try everything. I could see the ‘wheels turning’ as they envisioned how these new painting and mark-making techniques could enhance their own work. The gallery below shows just some of the images from our creative Thursday:

After dinner, we continued the Creative Exchange, including the “spin and win” box of Sharpies, Jeanne’s alcohol ink magnets, CJ’s shell creations, and Theresa’s adorable little ocean-themed pouches. Open Studio time after dinner was filled with the sounds of boxes being sanded, laughter, and camaraderie. Another satisfyingly creative day was done, and we were all looking forward to the next day, and Penny’s Studio Sessions….