My Inspired! Weekend at Donna Downey Studios!!

Inspiring does not even begin to describe my weekend!! I will try to be brief but I am still on a bit of a high from spending 4 days in the presence of the amazingly talented Donna Downey. Her studio is the happiest place on earth!! (Yeah I know...screw Disney :) Donna wins hands down!)  Not only is she talented she is humble and funny and her enthusiasm is contagious!! She also knows how to pamper and cater to her students.

We were showered with gifts (clearly these are not mine since my name is not Katie but I was so excited I forgot to take a pic before I dove in and made a mess of mine)! The canvas roll is filled with brushes, pens, pencils, graphite paper and a palette knife and under the white note is a Moleskine journal. There is also a Faber Castell tool kit. The large flat canvas is the cover of the journal we worked in and bound over the weekend. Both the canvas roll and journal cover were hand made and embroidered by Donna!

This was our ride to dinner on Saturday night...and yes, that gentleman is waiting to open the door just for me! Really, everyone else was inside already.

Here Donna is explaining that the red cabinets on the wall, the white drawers under them and all the shelves in the corner house supplies that we are welcome to use whenever we please! Just about every art supply you can imagine just on the other side of the room...like I said...Happiest place on earth!!

I got to play with lots of grounds and surface preps I had never used...black, grey and clear gesso, glass bead gel, fiber paste, molding paste, pumice gel, pouring medium, absorbent ground, acrylic ground for pastels, tar gel and opaque white flakes.

We learned how to layer, blend and shade with acrylic paint, do image transfers and carve our own rubber stamps.  I got to play with lots of new mediums: water soluble oil pastels, gouache paints, water soluble graphite pencils and Montana paint pens...these are the kinds of paint pens graffiti artists use.

With all of that truly the best part of the weekend was being surrounded by other talented, charming and encouraging artists! I learned as much from the women around me as I did from Donna. There were only 18 of us in class so we really got to share bits of ourselves as well as our art and become friends.  I've connected with many of them on Facebook and traded emails or phone numbers with others. The personal connections are priceless to me!

Here is the one page I actually completed over the weekend...

Acrylic paint, India ink, Pitt Big Brush Pen, Uniball Signo Pen

Here are a few of my favorites that are still in progress...

PanPastels

Acrylic paint applied with a palette knife.

Acrylic paint...finger painting!

I traced the main details of the image on the right for a starting point. I wish I had left her fingers out! Mediums: acrylic paint and water soluble oil pastel.

Acrylic paint applied from palette pad in a circular motion, finished with finger painting.

Glass Bead Gel applied through Potholes stencil (Donna Downey) color is gouache paint.

Image transfer on the inside cover of my journal coated with tar gel.

Thanks for stopping by! I'm grateful for all comments and I'd love to hear from you if you have the chance! Have a great day!