Art Classes in Seattle:  Joyful Mixed Media

Photo Transfers & Other Mayhem
No art experience required. All supplies provided.
More mixed media mayhem! Join us for a delightful day and learn eleven techniques for altering photos and for making gorgeous photo transfers. Learn techniques that work with color copies, magazine tearsheets, newspaper, maps and ink jet photos. Each technique yields a different effect. Some are great for creating interesting backgrounds for your work, others give you new ways to manipulate or add texture to your image. Mimic the look of a double exposure or Photoshop layers with transparent techniques with which you can layer and overlap your photos. You'll make test swatches of each technique for future reference, and creating another piece in which you use all the techniques together. Come find out why this is so addicting to do!

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"Thank you so much for a fun class and for opening the door to easing up inside around the process of creating art.

My favorite thing was being given permission to be open to exploration without judgment or restraint. It helped me to relax around it and not feel like I have to love or show every piece; it helped me make more peace with process."

Deirdre

Wild Whimsy: Paint, Collage & Found Objects
No art experience required. Please bring any found objects you'd like to use to personalize your piece. All other supplies provided.
Join us for this terrific class where we'll be starting with a small canvas, and using acrylic paint, collage, markers, glitter glue, ribbon, nails, wire, small beads or other objects to create unexpected imagery for the sole purpose of delighting ourselves. The layering of two dimensional imagery with three dimensional objects is magical and gives you even more ways to tell your story. This class is about following your heart and learning how to use color, composition, textures and depth in your work. Do you have any special buttons, beads, or other small objects that you'd like to build a picture around? Or maybe there is a place, memory, or fairy tale that you'd like to illustrate and bring to life with your hands? You'll love how delightful it is to express yourself in this way! Unleash your creativity!

Creative Collage!
No art experience required. All supplies provided.
Most everyone has access to some gently used magazines, glue and paper! Learn about the wide variety of materials to choose from, which glues to use, and whether to use torn or cut edges. You'll get to learn about and create six different methods to compose or use collage in your work such as: abstract forms, funky interior "redesign", and creating images from your imagination. You'll also learn how to recreate a photograph with collage by tracing the original image and then using collage to recreate the values in the original. This is a fun class where you can be a kid again and let your imagination run free! All materials will be supplied, but you are welcome to bring any images or papers you have collected.

"I have received so many compliments on the collages! Your class was delightful and really fed my soul.

My ""AH-HA!" moment regarding being in a collaboration with materials instead of "working" them has helped TREMENDOUSLY in so many areas of my life. What a gift!"

Rachel

Fantastical Bird Houses
No art experience required. See supply list below.
Enter a fairytale land where you get to merge art and play to create your own magical birdhouse. You’ll start with a plain wooden birdhouse and transform it into a fanciful home with many fun techniques including: luscious layering and texturing with paint, selective sanding, and decoupaging found text and images. Now add to that the delight of incorporating decorative tin. You’ll learn how to deconstruct a decorative tin, cut out detailed shapes, smooth edges, and punch holes. Embellish the roof and sides of your delightful abode with simple or compound shapes of tin. Discover how to decorate and “age” tin with paint. And if you like, add whimsy with wire and beads. Let your imagination take flight in this very fun class!

Supply list:
Wooden birdhouse (Joann's or Michael's craft stores), detail tin snips (highly recommend-Fiskars Softouch Micro-Tip Pruning Snips), gloves (stretchy garden gloves with rubber palms are perfect), hammer, small nails (escutcheon pins are a perfect size), 2 decorative tins to cut up, if you already have chain nose pliers bring them too.
Teacher will provide: paint, collage materials, wire, beads, aviation shears, metal punch, and handouts.

"First I have to say thank you a million times over.  I had the best time I have had in a long time. I cannot tell you how it felt to do something creative.  Since that class everything I look at is different.  I see things I did not see before. Thanks so much for opening a new world."

Rob

Mixed Media and Watercolor
No art experience required. All supplies provided.
This is a fun class where you get to combine watercolor with a wide variety of other media. Learn how to print photos and text onto tissue paper and embed them into your painting. You'll learn how to add texture with colored pencil, ink and drips. You'll build rich layers with beautiful art papers, ink pad rubbings, and stamped images. Add in textures with watercolor pencils. We'll explore lots of techniqes not usually combined together. Join us for a really fun class!

My Favorite Places: Fights of Imagination
No art experience required. All supplies provided. Optional: Bring a journal to work in.
Ever wish you could take the real world and add a few twists of your own? Come give your imagination wings as you combine photos with acrylic paint and markers to create your own favorite place to be. Create your fantasy house, vacation destination, or a whole other world of your choosing. You can include anything you want! You'll layer images and paint, using paint and markers to embellish and transform your image into a delightful escape. Learn several painting techniques for merging photos and paint together seamlessly. This not only is very fun for your creative self – it is nourishing for your soul to contemplate being in this place! This technique works equally well in an art journal or on paper.

"The class size/time length is good; I met many interesting people at your class and had a great time while learning quite a bit. You are a great teacher!"

Student