Classes and Workshops

Creating Characters in Color

Bring several reference photos of people you find interesting (can be on your phone or printed on paper). We will be creating fun loving characters from our unique interpretations. This means your personality will come to life through your character. There are no right or wrongs with this class. Characters can take on their own body style, distortions and movement. The secret to this class is to have fun! There will be several drawing exercises to loosen folks up, several trial and errors periods to get you over the hump of “Mistakes are ok!”, and we will experiment through color and the color wheel. Our final characters will be created on mineral paper and if time allows, yupo paper. I will bring several examples of my characters from my book “Undulating LaRoux.”

Being in the Flow

Flow allows freedom to occur while creating. There are several techniques that I will use to loosen students up, including blind contour doodling, shutting our eyes while listening to descriptions and upside down techniques. These exercises will lead to experimentation through the use of water (lots of water) and pouring paint on different surface matter. The surface… truly does matter, each one holds magic and reacts differently through the use of dyes and acrylics. Certain colors will retract while others will interact with each other.

Our final piece will be created on a piece of muslin and a watercolor postcard. We will use mono-printing on our final pieces. This will consist of pouring dyes on yupo paper, allowing it to dry and then using the dried surface to imprint on muslin and the watercolor postcard.

Tree of Life on Muslin Cloth

This workshop focuses on the love of trees, Celtic history and connections to the trees and print outs (designed by me) from the book “The Healing Power of Trees” by Sharlyn Hildago. There will also be quotes on trees and plants from “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Each participant will receive a tree calendar print out which is based on their birth date. (I’ll be gathering dates before class). This calendar will include information from Celtic history with symbols (such as ogham and runes), astrology symbols, totems (animals, etc) and trees that correspond with birth dates. We will create your own unique Tree of Life. Instructional focus will be creating a tree using dyes and acrylics. Old clothes or aprons are suggested due to the pouring of paint/dyes and spraying of paint/dyes.  There will be extra muslin to cut into shapes/symbols that can be glued or sewn into the Tree of Life.

Private and group instruction available:

Art experiences with Annie include:

• Techniques such as blind contour drawing, doodling, upside down techniques, and listening to descriptions as we create with our eyes shut.

• Experimentation with water: pouring, spraying and sponging. This leads to questions such as when to apply paint on a wet surface and how long to wait for surfaces to dry. It’s a magical quest where nothing is wrong.

• Each surface reacts differently to water, dyes and acrylics. This is also pure experimentation and fun!

• Certain colors will retract while others will interact with each other.

• Study of the color wheel will be discussed. Complimentary, primary, secondary and mixing (with white and dark) will be visited.

• Our final pieces will be created on muslin and watercolor postcards. We will be learning about mono-printing and using this technique for the final piece.

Contact Annie to set up a class or learn more.