AU -Shopping & 5th & 6th Classes

This is my last post about my fantastic time at Art Unraveled. There has just been so much to show, it would have been the longest post ever if I had piled it all into one. I hope that this will encourage you all to attend AU if possible because I can't stress enough how much this retreat has become one of my favorite weeks of the year.

So now on to Saturday's Shopping Extravaganza. Many also call it Vendor Day... I call it Heaven! There were (I believe) 55 vendors with yummy goodies for sale. All there to sell their jewelry, sculptures, vintage items, stamps, art supplies, journals, fabrics and fibers, clothing...etc. You name it! If it's artsy then it is probably sold there.

That evening I was lucky enough to attend the Artist's Showdown. This is the first year I could make it to this event. It was rather fun. There were many of the teachers who were grouped into pairs to make a piece of impromptu art that was then auctioned off to the highest bidder. All proceeds were given to YDI (Youth Development Institute). Here are a few pics of the fun night:

This was the cute cake to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of AU. Paint brushes as candles... clever!

Below I have a couple of examples of the artists and their masterpieces.

Ruth Rae paired up with Leighanna Light. This is their finished piece. 

Jane LaFazio & Mary Beth Shaw paired up to make this eclectic turquoise piece.

While we (the spectators) were waiting for the masterpieces to be made, we were treated to some pretty fancy glitter tattoos applied by none other than the Crafty Chica. Fun stuff!

Now on to my final day at AU. I had two classes that day as well. First came a class called Transferring Memories taught by Lisa Cheney-Jorgensen. Lisa is new to teaching at AU so I hadn't heard of her or seen her work before. I just knew that I wanted to learn some transferring methods and this sounded like the class to take. I was right. Lisa was very informative and had a nice packet with the information all there for us to work on these techniques at home as well as in class. She had some amazing journals for us to look at. Lisa is an unbelievably talented artist. I would certainly take another class from her in the future! 

Here is Lisa giving a demo on making our little journals that we were to use the transferring methods in. I am now realizing that I didn't take as many photos this day of classes. I guess my hands were just so busy working instead.

My sister Holly came over to the hotel that evening to join me for dinner and to see what I was up to. It was fun showing her a bit of the goings on. 

My last class was called Resin Wire Forms taught by Deryn Mentock. I am so glad I signed up for this class very early on, because it sold out very fast! I had never worked with resin before and really wanted to be introduced to this product in a class environment because I was kind of intimidated by it. I guess it is because of the need for very precise measurements. I now realize that it was no big deal. I am so excited to use this stuff with my art! Here are some photos from class. 

These three photos above are of Deryn's class samples. She does some amazing things with resin and wire. The photo below is one of my little pieces that I made in class. I actually made quite a few more, but don't have photos of them yet to show you. I also cannot believe that I don't have a single photo of Deryn to show you. I was really slacking on the photo taking that day!

Alas, it is over. I am going to be dreaming about the next AU all year. I hope to see all these teachers and new friends at next years as well. I also hope to finish all these fun projects soon too. I'll post them as I do... but don't hold your breath. It will probably take me a while :)