Collage Journeys in Vermont, 2013

We had our Collage Journeys in Vermont workshop last week, with twelve creative and enthusiastic participants.  Janet, from Ohio, blogged about it here.  Take a look at her fabulous photos, including a good one of my post-office-with-chickens.

Here is a little video of the workshop, to give you a taste:

I took the opportunity to show off my Nova Scotia roots in the video by featuring James Hill on the ukulele with a very maritime-sounding uke-and-fiddle tune.

And a few pictures:

Big Fat Art on the Floor

More Big Fat Art on the Floor

One of Bette's collages

Marilyn's table

This is a piece I did as a demo.

As you can see, we did both collage and Big Fat Art.  For the collage, we spent the first afternoon painting papers and printing with the gel plate from GelliArts.   Then we did collage-paintings focusing on various compositional parameters. On the third day we started exploring Big Fat Art, which is REALLY fun to do in a group!

Big Fat Art it a state of mind rather than a particular type of art.  It is process-oriented, and part of the process is making a LOT of it.  Then you use your "starts" to explore and play, develop different concepts, go out on a limb, and, most importantly, keep the process going, moving forward.  

Next year's Collage Journeys in Vermont will be posted in the next couple of weeks, and open for registration.  The dates are August 12 - 16.  I will send out an e-mail when it is up on my site, so if you are interested, and not on my mailing list, please join it (in the right margin of this blog "join our mailing list" in a yellow-green box).  

I'm considering adding a Big Fat Art retreat in the spring, here in Vermont.  This may be a five day event or something shorter.  If that interests you, please comment with your ideas and suggestions.

Thanks for visiting!