Melbourne Art Retreat

Welcome to my new blog, I gave in and created one! And what a good time to start, right after the Artistic Journey's Art Retreat I attended in May in Melbourne. It was just amazing time with great friends, full of fun, shopping, eating and arting - what else would you want?

I travelled to Melbourne with Jo Wholohan and Gaye Todd and we were joined by Debbi Baker from WA.

From left: Debbi, Gaye, me and Jo

We were very lucky girls as we got to stay with the very generous Keron Lee who put us all up in her house and took us around shopping to many great Melbourne places - thank you Keron.

Keron with her gorgeous granddaughter Ellie

Keron took us to many great places - galleries, art supply shops, old bookstores, stationery and bead places. We had a ball and so did our credit cards (lol). Below are five of us exploring one of these wonderful places we visited.

Before the retreat started, Keron organised an Arty Farty Party and we were able to meet some of her arty friends and some we knew only through email groups.

Front row from left: Jo, Jacky and Shirley, back row from left: Gaye, Keron and me

On Friday we started our classes and the first one was with the wonderful Misty Mawn. This is what I created in her class but I must add that Misty completely has done the face, I just couldn't get it. She was a wonderful teacher and helped me a lot with the composition of this creation. I wish I had more time with Misty, she is so talented and there is so much to learn from her.

I was also a very lucky and happy purchaser of this wonderful piece of artwork by Misty. There are many jealous people who wish this piece belonged to them (lol). I will have to frame it soon and hang it in an honours place.

On Saturday I did the class with the very talented Nina Bagley and we did the little book of questions. Nina was so much fun, I loved her stories, her jokes and comments she made. I also managed to con her to write a little story throughout my book and to sign it at the end - how lucky am I? Here are a couple of photos of the book.

The last day I did the class with Traci Bautisa and again had a ball. Learnt so much and created these two paper quilts. The Melbourne art retreat was great, I am looking to the next one next year ...