As an early birthday present from my family, on Thursday morning I will fly to Perth for the Artistic Journey Art Retreat. A first for me to attend an Art Retreat, and a first, that I know of for an Art Retreat to be held like this in Australia. How lucky are we, I'm proud to support such an event! It is also my first time to Western Australia, it is the only state/territory in Aus I haven't been to and that's about to change!! So many exciting things!!
The tutors are Nina Bagley, Lesley Riley and Michael de Meng from the US and Dale Rollerson from Aus, all very talented people.....not an easy decision choosing which workshops to take! I know I will have a great experience and learn a lot, but I know the time spent at the retreat will be extra special because I am going with my dear friend Megan. She is a kindred spirit with a beautiful soul and a big heart.
I have been busy since Christmas trying to complete the challenges. Altering (most) of a deck of Playing Cards (entering 5 in a challenge with the rest to swap with other attendees), A Paper Doll Challenge (making a doll from a bag of goodies supplied), A Hall of Fame Challenge (decorating a photo "True Colors" style with a guessing comp at the retreat - this I only did today!) and a Design a T-shirt for next years retreat (well, I can't really take too much credit for this as Megan did most of the work!). I know that I don't have to participate in all of these things but I believe that that is half the fun of attending the retreat......there are great prizes!!! and also because Jo & Jacky have done a tremendous amount of work putting this together and it only seems fair to participate.