Visitor Center Artist Camp is an Artist Residency site in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, nestled between rural townships, abandoned mines, and the vast wilderness of the Ottawa National Forest. We hold one residency session each summer, hosting artists from around the country for two weeks of camping, exploring, learning, making, and sharing. Choose the Wild Clay Workshop with master ceramicist Amy Joy Hosterman of Stinky Cheese Ceramics to immerse yourself in the clay process, learning everything from harvesting clay on-site and mixing clay bodies by hand with local natural materials, to firing using electric kilns or experimental wood-barrel kilns, atmospheric propane kilns, and raku kilns, all while camping in the woods! All skill levels welcome!
 
Location: Ewen, Michigan
Instructor: Amy Joy Hosterman, Rebecca Meszler
Cost: $1000
Sponsor: Visitor Center Artist Camp
Website, email, 612-385-2835

Visitor Center Artist Camp is an Artist Residency site in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, nestled between rural townships, abandoned mines, and the vast wilderness of the Ottawa National Forest. We hold one residency session each summer, hosting artists from around the country for two weeks of camping, exploring, learning, making, and sharing. Choose a workshop in Green Woodworking with Alo Osberg to explore the techniques for shaping fresh-cut, undried timber for uses big and small, using locally harvested materials and working mostly with hand tools. Whether you’re interested in making furniture, carving a spoon, chiseling a sculpture or constructing a cabin— it all begins with building a relationship to place and material.
 
Location: Ewen, Michigan
Instructor: Alo Osberg, Mel Seeger
Cost: $1000
Sponsor: Visitor Center Artist Camp
Website, email, 612-385-2835

Join me for 4 days of sketching with watercolor in beautiful Santa Barbara. We’ll enjoy the free-flowing and colorful nature of watercolor at its best while sketching and having fun! I’ll help you develop observation skills, color awareness, simple design principles and learn about light and shadows. We’ll investigate various techniques, sketching tools, and approaches to watercolor. Enjoy time with fellow artists, instruction and friendly critiques.
 
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Instructor: Brenda Swenson, www.swensonsart.net
Cost: $1,590 (Hotel is not incl.)
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Immerse yourself in the beauty of Santa Barbara for five blissful days, and capture all the fun and memories on the pages of your illustrated watercolor journal. Each day, we’ll sketch outdoors in the warm California sunshine, and I’ll share practical ways to narrow your focus and sketch what you love about a scene. I’ll give you the building blocks for creating dynamic sketchbook pages filled with colorful images, hand lettering, and creative page layouts that complement your images perfectly, and, along the way, I’ll show you practical ways to confidently draw even the trickiest subject matter. If you’ve always wanted to sketch on location, this is a great opportunity to give it a try.
 
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Instructor: Leslie Fehling
Cost: $1,590 (Hotel is not incl.)
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Close by or across the globe, travel light and capture your views with pop and zing. All it takes is a small watercolor palette (with five basic primary colors), a classic Ticonderoga pencil, a black office pen, a medium size watercolor brush, a small water container, and a medium-size sketch book. You are now at the ready to knock off joyful sketches! To keep those sketches rolling, I’ll teach you how to visually K.I.S.S. (Keep It Super Simple) what you see and what you draw and paint.
 
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Instructor: David Lobenberg
Cost: $1,590 (Hotel is not incl.)
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Join David on a Watercolor Journey, learning the most valuable watercolor concepts and techniques. This workshop will save you countless hours of trial & error by demonstrating approaches in an easily understood manner that will open new doors of discovery and creativity. David will discuss outdoor equipment options, considerations when choosing a composition, value study options to help prepare for the painting process, and provide numerous demonstrations and individual attention. Regardless of your level of experience, you’re almost guaranteed to leave with a handsome work of art, and the skills, concepts, and confidence to take your paintings to a higher level.
 
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Instructor: David R. Smith, AWS
Cost: $1,590 (Hotel is not incl.)
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Come and paint in beautiful, historic Santa Barbara with Carol Carter. We will begin each day with a watercolor tutorial. In the studio, Carol will share her watercolor technique while teaching site specific tutorials gathered from various vistas in Santa Barbara. The workshop will provide templates, reference photos and materials information. After lunch, we will visit the painting site downtown Santa Barbara that will be the topic of our next day painting: time for photography and sketching: the Mission, the Rose garden, the Wharf, the Presidio, the Court House, etc… Relax, enjoy, learn a new watercolor technique or two.
 
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Instructor: Carol Carter
Cost: $1,590 (Hotel is not incl.)
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

We will be painting on-site at the Santa Barbara wharf and along the coastal waterway (beaches) with emphasis on capturing the light and water-in-motion in pastels. I will do daily live demos at each location and assist everyone at their easels as you paint from the same subjects. Boats, buildings and people along the wharf area, set against the distant atmosphere over the Pacific will play into your paintings. On one of the days we will paint the famous courthouse buildings and gardens in spring color, as well. Emphasis on all will be learning to “see like a painter” and utilizing small sketches (thumbnails) that you produce, to get the values and design patterns before you paint!
 
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Instructor: Steve Hill
Cost: $1,590 (Hotel is not incl.)
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Old Pasadena with its Victorian and art deco buildings, palm trees and flowers, awaits your paintbrush. Enjoy a California painting getaway and start your summer early as we paint in Pasadena. Theresa and Cindy will guide you through painting experiences with daily demonstrations, personalized instruction, and encouraging support. They will share how to design and simplify your subject, draw confidently, jazz up your colors, paint with flowing serendipity and experiment with new techniques. Enjoy creating colorful paintings with an emphasis on your own unique point of view.
 
Location: Pasadena, California
Instructor: Cindy Briggs and Theresa Goesling
Cost: $1,590 (Hotel not included)
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713