Yesterday I went with my friend Nicci who is hosting the (Into The HeART Art Retreat)to Loon Lake in Maple Ridge.  Oh my gosh…….i so fell in love with the log cabins and the stunning forest setting and the lake……oh gosh……the lake!! It was love at first sight!

Can you just picture yourself sitting here quietly with a cup of coffee in the morning writing in your journal?  That’s the first thing I thought of when i saw this chair on the wharf!

I don’t imagine the water is too warm at this time of year – maybe in a couple of months it will be! It sure looks inviting though doesn’t it?

We went to the Retreat center so i could see the setting and also so we could take some photos and shoot a bit of a video which Nicci will be posting soon to promote the retreat. 

Nicci brought along one of her frames so we could pose behind it.  Next to me is the sign that says “Good Times” – you can see Loon Lake in the background. You can view a slideshow of the rustic accomodations here.

Nicci posing with the sign!

Carolyn met us there as well.  She’ll be teaching Steampunk Madness at the retreat! Nicci has been wearing Carolyn’s amazing Steampunk necklace for a while now. You can see it pictured with the doll in one of these photos.

I brought along my Bohemian Bliss book (the class I’ll be teaching) so i could photograph it on one of the lovely weathered picnic tables.

I hope you’ll come and join us on this retreat – just being out in nature like this is a healing balm for the soul! Mix nature plus art and you’ve got a winning combination!

Happy Friday everyone!  I hope you have a great weekend.  We’ll be celebrating my sister’s 60th birthday at the Magic Cottage as well as Mother’s Day.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the special Mom’s out there!

Love, Violette xoxo

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I received my art journal pages i sent over a year ago to Stampington for possible inclusion in Art Journaling Magazine.  They were my very favourite pages and to be without them for over a year was like farming out my children to a distant land .  Ha!  Funnily enough my favourite pages were not selected for the magazines two page spread. 

Here are a few of the pages i had sent in – you may recognize some of them. 

This is the Magazine my pages appeared in. It was pretty exciting to be featured in the same magazine as one of my favourite Art Journalers of all time – Teesha Moore!

You may recall that i was visited by a woman from the Netherlands last summer – Karla and her husband Rolf who had been inspired by my work – you can read about the visit here. Karla was inspired by my small papier mache ladder which you can see in the above link.  Karla was participating in a year long workshop/creative/coaching program.  I believe that the final large project was to create something meaningful in 3-D – this is what Karla came up with!  Isn’t it incredibly amazing? She may donate this sculpture to a children’s school or hospital.

It really warms my heart to know that someone living so far away can be so positively affected by my work and then go on to create a unique piece of art that comes from their heart and soul.  The internet truly makes us all indelibly connected!

I’m off to teach a Junk Journal Workshop at the Surrey School Districts Pro D day. Should be a fun time!

Have a great weekend!

Love, Violette xo

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Happy May Day! 

I’m happy to let you know about an upcoming workshop i have co-created with the talented Taslim Jaffer of Let Me Out Creative. 

Inspired Mom’s Workshop

In this fun, jam packed workshop you will learn how to create a beautiful mixed media Girl using meaningful words unique to you.  We’ll show you how to personalize your girl’s hair to look like YOU.  You’ll learn how to create richly textured backgrounds that add depth and mystery.  Best of all you’ll have time out to look after yourself, stretch and grow creatively and have a lovely keepsake to hang in your home to remind you and your family about what’s important to you!

Join artist, author and teacher, Violette Clark and creativity coach and author, Taslim Jaffer  on Saturday June 1, 2013 from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm at Create-It Emporium 17582 56A Ave, Surrey, B.C. The fee, which includes materials and light refreshments, is $70.  You are welcome to bring your own lunch.   

To register, or for more information, please email Taslim. Space is limited!

This mixed media piece is created on a wood cradle board which means you can hang your masterpiece without putting it in a frame!  How cool is that?

I’m off to spend a bit of time with my grandsons Sam and Toby!  Should be fun!  See you on Friday!

Love, Violette xo

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I’m so excited that this is FINALLY going to happen!  We are having an art retreat in B.C.!  Hooray!  It’s so expensive to go across the line to attend art retreats so my friend Nicci – from Creative Finds has taken the bull by the horns and is making it happen here!

For the past few years a few of my friends and I have been discussing how nice it would be to have a retreat in our home province.  We kept trying to think of a location that would be perfect but we always drew a blank.  Thanks to Nicci’s persistence she’s found a lovely location in Maple Ridge.  Registration for Into the heART Art Retreat started yesterday.

I’m so thrilled to be offering a workshop on my Bohemian Bliss Journal book! 

My friend Debbie Humphrey will be teaching “Multi Media Art Bag”

You’ll recall that i made a fun and funky bag under the guidance of my friend Deb a while ago – it’s been so popular it just had to be transformed into a workshop!

The uber talented photographer Vivienne McMaster will be teaching “Be Your Own Muse”

Dawn Devries will be teaching Journalicious

Dawn’s newest book “Art Doodle Love” is now out and folks taking Dawn’s class are encouraged to bring it along!  I’m a big fan of Dawn’s art journaling so plan on buying her book today and maybe even take her class!

My friend Dale Anne Potter is teaching Personal Acts of Kindness. 

Dale is such a positive force and a wonderful manifestor – I’m sure this workshop is going to be life transforming!

My friend Cheryl Stephens is going to help educate us with her workshop – The Quiet Artist Goes to Market.

I’m sure Cheryl’s class will be awesome – so many of us creatives have difficulty marketing ourselves!  What a great idea for a workshop!

Lulu Moonwood Murakami’s workshop “Shadow Box Dollhouse” looks like such fun doesn’t it? She’s also offering another class!

Go here to find out more about the other classes which include steampunk jewelry, encaustic and altered books! 

I hope you join us and come along for an unforgettable experience!

I’m off to babysit and visit with my little grandson Cillian!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Love, Violette xo

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1. Fun Location – we hosted our mini retreat at the Magic Cottage.  You can plan your retreat in your home, at a cabin, in a tent in your backyard, in a room at a community center or wherever it’s okay to get a bit messy!

2. Artsy friends!  Invite a few artsy friends.  A couple of the girls were unable to make it (one is off on a Bolivian adventure ).  It doesn’t matter how many girls come as long as you have a love of art!  Here Nicci and Jenny are enjoying drawing in the studio. I sent out a “Shape of the Day” e-mail to all of the girls ahead of time to make sure they were all for it and they were!

3. Swag: Plan on sharing/swapping moo cards, prints of your art, zines, buttons.  Here we shared a zine from Jenny, button from Nicci, whimsical cards (jenny), my print and thank you card.

4. Show and Tell: Show your art off, books, comics and zines that influence you and that you love!

On the table you can check out Nicci’s washi tapes and also a few zines/comics that Nicci brought along to show.  The girls were fascinated by my extensive collection of art books so as you can see there is a pile next to Nicci that they were perusing. On top of the book pile is Jenny Doh’s book ART SAVES  and beneath it is Traci Bautista’s Doodles Unleashed. We shared our journals and drawings before starting to draw.  Everyone brought their own supplies however i did have extra supplies on hand.

5. Yummy food – serve yummy potluck food! I made a quinoa salad, Nicci brought homemade guacamole and Jenny brought strawberries and chocolate for desert! I had tea and coffee on hand as well. It was a gorgeous day so we ate in the backyard and lingered while talking about our art adventures.

Jenny’s magical drawing

6. Make Art – It doesn’t matter what kind of art you make – you can decide ahead of time if you would all like to work on one project – in that case the person who is doing the demo would have to send out a supply list ahead of time via e-mail or snail mail.  We decided to do our own thing and share ideas/techniques. I’m glad we did!

This is Jenny’s adorable doodle all drawn with her non-dominant hand. Doesn’t that look like a magic cottage in the corner?   Unfortunately i don’t have a picture of Nicci’s Girl she worked on but i’m sure she’ll have it up on her blog soon. She was a Steampunk inspired girl – very cool – complete with “cog” iris’. Nicci chose to use a combination of paints and dry media, Jenny did a pen and ink drawing and i created two art journal pages with pen and added colour with water colour pencil crayons.

Jenny’s whimsical drawings influenced me – that’s one of the side benefits of drawing together – you influence each other.  Jenny had a drawing of a simple person with a tiny house on their head.  It reminded me i want to move to the Sunshine Coast but lack of funds and also the scary thought of leaving the Magic Cottage behind has prevented that dream from happening.

There’s a magic cottage on my head !

pulling a magic cottage on a wagon!

So based on being inspired by Jenny’s drawing i created the illustrations which I’m sure will evolve into more later on! What you focus on you manifest right?

I know that just being together and chatting about our process and questions such as “What’s the meaning of the house on the person’s head?  What comes first the words or the art?” will get things moving, shifting and changing for us all!

I hope you have enjoyed this blogpost.  If you have please tweet it or mention it on facebook.  I plan on adding a Pinterest button today so that you can click on the button below to Pin anything you see here!

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Here is a cool art journal page created by Sieglinde Lohr during my workshop at the B.C. Art Teachers Conference.  Isn’t it cool?  She used two of my faces in the collage and attached them to magazine bodies.  I love how she altered them!

She used this face and…………

This face.  I had printed off some of my faces so that workshop participants could use them if they wished along with pre-made borders.  When you don’t have a lot of time to create a collage or two this is a good idea!

The Teen art Journaling Workshop went really well yesterday.  Many teens attended and you could tell they were having fun creating some awesome backgrounds – paint, glitter and assorted mark making tools were flying around.  Next week we’ll be creating collages, faces, borders and who knows what else! 

Pinterest and Facebook

The other day i was talking about how cool Pinterest was and Quinn MacDonald of Quinn Creative left a comment in the comment section.  She said that even though she wanted to love Pinterest she could not due to us losing copyright over our “pinned” images as well as violating others copyright  by repinning.  Gosh – i didn’t know that!  Were you aware of that?  Also were you aware that if you post images on Facebook you lose copyright over those images?  That means your images can be used by Facebook for free without giving you credit or any money for their usage?  Good grief?  How can that be so?  An artist at the B.C. Art Teachers Conference told me that he never posts his art directly on Facebook because of this.  He’ll post a link to his blog but will not post an image of his art.  I’m kind of blown away by all of this.

Off to the Sunshine Coast!

I am off to the Sunshine Coast to catch a bit of quiet for a couple of days today.  I’ll be visiting a friend and hopefully will be walking on the beach and enjoying the quiet and greenery!  Mr. G and I would love to move there one day! 

I won’t be blogging tomorrow.  Have a lovely weekend everyone! xo

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