Home from ArtFest

I had a wonderful time, playing with all sorts of media that I don't normally play with and having some bead time as well. Thursday's class was with Sunny Carvalho and while the subject matter wasn't terribly appealing to me initially, I wanted to learn how to use the Genesis Heat Set Paints that she uses for her faces. It was a wonderful class and I even grew to like the little big-eyed girl when I was done. Sunny is an excellent teacher - I just wish the class had been two days so we could have gotten a bit more in-depth about portrait painting.



The second day of class I took another class from Karen O'Brien. I took a different class from her last year and really enjoyed her class and thought I could learn a bit more from her, which I did. The other great part of this class was sitting with my friend Lelainia Lloyd as well as meeting a delightful married couple. The four of us chattered away all day whilst painting and gluing - It was really a fun day.

My Saturday class was with Keely Benkey (previously Barham). Keely is the best teacher, bar none - My friends and I say we would love an ArtFest where it was 'all Keely, all the time' and this class was no exception. Though there were several people in the class who quite possibly had never held a beading needle before, Keely managed to have everyone work at their own pace. I'd never done bead weaving before, in fact, I must admit, I didn't even know the simply peyote or square stitch before this class, but I had lots of fun (with the help of my buddy Sarah) and anticipate using some of what I learned in future Bead Journal Project pages.

As much as I enjoyed myself at ArtFest and laughed until all hours of the morning and survived on far too little sleep and saw friends I only see once a year, I was happy to be on the ferry boat coming home early Sunday morning. And I'm already looking forward to ArtFest 2010!