This class with instruction by Alice Meyer Wallace will focus on classic watercolor techniques-Sargeant, Homer, Rodin, Nolde, and particularly Charles Demuth, from Lancaster, PA. Come enjoy this fun and relaxed class! The class will work predominantly from still life but on occasion, the instructor will lead the class in painting from the model (2 times) and there will be an option of experimenting with watercolor and collage.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Alice Meyer-Wallace
Cost: $270
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This class with instruction by Alice Meyer Wallace will focus on classic watercolor techniques-Sargeant, Homer, Rodin, Nolde, and particularly Charles Demuth, from Lancaster, PA. Come enjoy this fun and relaxed class! The class will work predominantly from still life but on occasion, the instructor will lead the class in painting from the model (2 times) and there will be an option of experimenting with watercolor and collage.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Alice Meyer-Wallace
Cost: $280
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This class will introduce students to acrylics, watercolor, inks, pastels, crayons and collage materials. Learn to play with these mediums and express yourself in your own unique way. Students will explore texture, shape, line and color with a focus on composition and design. Come unleash your creative spirit!
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Laurie Daddona
Cost: $235
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Create keepsake journals with beautiful, handmade pages and covers in this engaging retreat. These all-inclusive 3 day retreats feature intimate group instruction (max 8 participants), serene Flint Hills setting, balanced schedule with instruction, work time, family style meals, free time and social gathering. Lessons will include cyanotype printing, block carving and printing, paper marbling, botanical printing, collage, collating and composition, and Coptic bookbinding.
 
Location: Manhattan, Kansas
Instructor: Hollie Blakeney
Cost: $595.00
Sponsor: Flint Hills Arts & Happiness
Website, email, 785-840-7940

Explore flowers and other natural forms, beginning with line and value drawing and progressing to full-color rendering in watercolor and mixed media.  Topics will include sighting techniques, line quality, tone and value, creation of depth, composition, texture, and basic color. All levels welcome. Tuition includes a $15 materials fee for floral subjects, provided. 
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Linda Gist
Cost: $465
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Artist, philosopher, and influential 20th-century composer John Cage, along with artist and educator Sister Corita Kent, developed a set of 10 Rules for Students and Teachers to encourage artistic production. Learn to apply these valuable guidelines to your own creative processes to find useful and meaningful ways of generating ideas, moving past ruts or stumbling blocks, and maintaining a steady and productive studio practice.  This hands-on drawing/mixed-media class will utilize engaging exercises to challenge you to go beyond your comfort zone and find inspiration in chance and impediments. Work on paper in your choice of media from imagination or prompts to explore means of building abstract imagery through personal means of mark-making and layering.  Instruction will be supplemented by discussions.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Keith Leitner
Cost: $295
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Often, Southern folklife is represented visually as a whole in redundant cliches. The repainted tropes strip away all meaning, beauty and dignity, and unfortunately, result in a loss of interest and respect, with the real danger of having no societal contribution. Nonney shares new visual archetypes that are based on specifics – regional folklife, folklore and indigenous flora and fauna, but with an added personal twist. These twists reclaim individuality, and use modernism coupled with tradition to create a new depiction of Southern Art. Create your own new archetypes influenced by her presentation.
 
Location: Key West, Florida
Instructor: Nonney Oddlokken
Cost: $80 / $65 for members
Sponsor: The Studios of Key West
Website, email, (305) 296-0458

Push the boundaries of what it means to paint with acrylics in this exciting exploration into experimental techniques. Explore the fluid, sculptural, assembled possibilities of acrylics! This hands-on, one-of-a-kind journey will take you places that you never thought you would go in acrylic painting: pour paint to make layers of color that can be peeled up, sculpted into three-dimensional forms, or collaged and layered into other works. Create flexible tiles of acrylic color that can be snipped, shaped, and assembled into mosaics or applied to a variety of surfaces for artistic or decorative effects. Discover a myriad of alternative supports, brushes, and methods of paint application to incorporate abstract effects into your current body of work.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Anthony Ciambella
Cost: $295
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

The workshop includes a short lecture and presentation highlighting storytelling through mixed media collage with the use of historical imagery. Participants will observe a demonstration and view artwork made by the artist instructor. A hands-on session follows, covering the use of mixed media collage including examples of methods and projects as well as reference materials for the classroom. Lavett Ballard is a female mixed media visual artist, art historian, curator and author. She holds a dual Bachelor’s in Studio Art and Art History with a minor in Museum Studies from Rutgers University- Camden and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Ballard’s art has been commissioned twice as a cover for Time Magazine.
 
Location: Key West, Florida
Instructor: Lavett Ballard
Cost: $100 / $75 for members
Sponsor: The Studios of Key West
Website, email, (305) 296-0458

Special Interest 9 day Plein Air Painting/Sketching Workshop in Grand Canyon National Park *Painting White Water, Side Canyons and Botany * Managing artwork in the wilderness, Setting up quick compositions *Talks on Art History in Grand Canyon *Workshops on sketching, limiting colors and quick composition
 
Location: Grand Canyon, Arizona
Instructor: Ani Eastwood with Grand Canyon Expeditions
Sponsor: Grand Canyon Expeditions Company
Website, email, 1-800-544-2691

Immerse yourself in a deep dive into the creative process of Abstract Painting with elements of collage and mixed media. Students who have a desire to find their own personal voice and style while learning the fundamentals of painting with acrylics (and mixed media) in an abstract manner, will find many opportunities to flourish in this robust workshop. Jodi Ohl, artist and author of “Abstracts in Acrylic and Ink,” will guide students through a variety of inspiring chats, comprehensive demonstrations, and provide personal guidance daily. Students can expect to work on multiple pieces on both paper and canvas (or hardboard) to develop their own personal style and build on their body of existing work.
 
Location: Glastonbury, Connecticut
Instructor: Jodi Ohl
Cost: $975+
Sponsor: Artists Rising Creativity Retreats
Website, email, 860-633-7374

I love painting florals!!! And I work in different techniques and mediums… including watercolor, acrylics, and alcohol inks. At this retreat, I will share all kinds of approaches to capturing the joyous spirit of flowers!!! We will play with drawing, stenciling, collaging and painting my very favorite subject matter… glorious flowers!!! It will be a Flowerpalooza!!! Any skill level is completely welcome!!! From beginner to established. I really enjoy bringing out the creativity in everyone at my retreats. And we will laugh, share and maybe even dance a little?? Being with kindred spirits is pure joy!!!
 
Location: Glastonbury, Connecticut
Instructor: Lori Siebert
Cost: $975+
Sponsor: Artists Rising Creativity Retreats
Website, email, 860-633-7374

Explore textile pattern design using DIY acrylic inks and textile paints that will leave your fabric with a soft hand and give you exactly the colors you want. Explore a multitude of ways to create richly textured “base” fabrics by applying acrylics inks with different types of brush-strokes, sponges, altering ink and water ratios, adding salt, mono-printing, and scrunching, as well as pleating, stitching, clamping and pole wrapping fabric with a variety of shibori techniques. Learn how to successfully print with foam, rubber and wood stamps. Master screen printing with thermofax screens, then apply pattern design principles using various types of repeats to print on your textured “base” fabrics. It’ll be a blast of inspiration, innovation, information and fun.
 
Location: Glastonbury, Connecticut
Instructor: Judy Coates Perez
Cost: $975+
Sponsor: Artists Rising Creativity Retreats
Website, email, 860-633-7374

Join me and immerse yourself in the creative process. The experience begins the moment you register as you source, find, and gather your own personal collection of papers, fibers, ephemera, and other bits & pieces that will become the basis of your creation. As the workshop begins and unfolds, we will gather together, both within the workshop space at The Connecticut River Valley Inn and at some special, local locations. You will spend your time transforming your treasures into a series of what might loosely be called artist books. Instruction will cover the range of techniques used in mixed media: surface designing, using paints and inks, hand stitching, book binding, rusting, dyeing, embossing, mark making, gel printing, collaging, creative layering, and more.
 
Location: Glastonbury, Connecticut
Instructor: Seth Apter
Cost: $975+
Sponsor: Artists Rising Creativity Retreats
Website, email, 860-633-7374

Learn a non-traditional approach to oil painting or explore oils for the first time. Cold wax medium is an additive that thickens oil paint, speeds up the drying time (a bit), and neutralizes the paint so there’s no concern about “fat over lean” rules. We will be using R&F’s Pigment Sticks (compressed oil paints) along with tube oils to create paintings without brushes or smelly solvents. You will discover new tools and methods for creating rich and authentic small works on paper and Ampersand’s Gessoboard. With Arches oil paper as our primary substrate, you’ll have several paintings going at once. This workshop is fun, a bit messy, and will change the way you think about oil painting.
 
Location: Glastonbury, Connecticut
Instructor: Julie Snidle
Cost: $975+
Sponsor: Artists Rising Creativity Retreats
Website, email, 860-633-7374

Open to students of all artistic levels, Paper and Book Artistry is for those who are ready to ditch perfection, get messy, and play with no rules. Roben-Marie’s teaching style is friendly and easy going with a focus on having fun and playing with supplies in non-traditional ways. Join Roben-Marie in a lovely historic inn located in The Connecticut River Valley for an inspiring and joyful workshop designed to help you with creative play, building up a stash of amazing art papers, and exploring the mixing of different mediums and journal making. Paper and Book Artistry is more than creative time…it’s time brimming with togetherness and friendship.
 
Location: Glastonbury, Connecticut
Instructor: Roben Marie Smith
Cost: $975+
Sponsor: Artists Rising Creativity Retreats
Website, email, 860-633-7374