Class Content: Want to loosen up while experimenting with composition, color, and value? Mixed Media Collage is the perfect medium, and abstract art is an ideal platform. Collage allows the artist to experiment with shape, texture, placement, and values before committing to a composition. It’s adjustable, so it allows zero-risk experimentation. Abstract art is the perfect playmate if you want to explore the tenets of composition. It’s easy to be distracted by subject matter when painting something representational like a flower, landscape, or figure. With abstract art, the artist must command the eye of the viewer using nothing but shape, texture, line, color, and values.

In this class you will learn how to:
• Build a collage using a variety of papers, tools, and application methods.
• Create purposeful papers using a limited palette of a few colors plus black and white. You’ll be surprised by the range of options you can achieve with so little.
• Direct the eye of the viewer with your unique composition of shape and values. Abstract art has a voice unique to its’ author, allowing both artists and viewers a distinct sense of freedom and expression. Join me for some experimental fun. Discover what can be achieved with a little paper, scissors, 2-3 colors, and some glue!

Supply List: Click here to view the supply list

Biography: I have been a collage artist for 15 years and a collector for many more.
Initially, collage was appealing because it was accessible to me as a novice. Existing images could be cut, pasted, added, deleted, and assembled to make something entirely new. I learned to create palettes of color and texture from magazines and old books. While I often use paint to enhance or unify collaged images, magazines continue to be my primary medium. Re-contextualizing fragments of images into alternate realities captures my imagination. On a visual level, I enjoy the element of surprise. An automobile ad can become part of a face. A face can be hidden in a flower. Images that don’t generally belong together can be woven into a cohesive story. There’s a philosophical appeal as well. I have always been fascinated (sometimes horrified) by the malleability of communication. Leave one word out of a sentence or change the context, and the meaning shifts – with positive or negative impact. Images can be twisted just as easily. In my case, I enjoy spinning an image for artistic fun, statement, and discovery.

I feel honored that my collages have earned attention in Texas and Tennessee. My collages and poetry were featured in the “Art I Become” show at the George Memorial Library in Fort Bend, TX in 2019. I have been featured in juried shows including Oakridge Art Center, Tyson McGhee Airport, and Emporium Knoxville.

I consider myself to be an artist-in-training and hope that I stay that way! With a degree in Chemistry and an MBA, I spent most of my career as a management consultant. Retirement has allowed me to deepen my artistic skills. One hold-over from my prior career is that I thoroughly enjoy teaching. My workshops are filled with techniques to make collage fun and easy for artists at all levels. Come join me! Let’s rip some paper!

Bring your Favorite Media. Acrylic, Watercolor or Oil

Class Content: Join me in painting a restful water scene with a little boat. Bring your favorite media and join us! Newcomers I recommend Acrylic so you can follow the demonstration closely but If you are experienced with WATERCOLORS or OILS you can bring your preferred Media. I have taught in all three media and can come around the room and assist when needed. Lets paint together and create something wonderful!
I will provide an outline and transfer paper if you would like to use it or you can freehand.

I provide personal assistance around the room as you all create your own special Water Scene and learn techniques to take home and try on some more paintings. The sample image is done in Watercolor, but we will paint it in Acrylics and add even more color if you want to! Some painting class experience will help, even if it was just a Painting with a Twist class or something like that.

Supply List: Click here to view the supply list. NOTE: If you do not have time to buy the paints before class, I will loan my paint. Fee is $5 and you can pay cash at class for using my paints.

SIGNING UP: If you have trouble signing up online or miss the deadline, you can email me and just bring money to the class on the day of the event.

Supply List: Click here to view the supply list

Biography: Tennessee artist Carol Robin King was born and raised in Argentina where she discovered her love for drawing at the tender age of 3. At 13, Carol advanced from drawing to painting with oils and acrylics. While in Argentina, she attended 3 years of professional Art School. She loves continuing to learn and perfect her techniques through workshops and online classes. Art has always been a part of Carol’s life. She made extra money selling paintings as a child and painting portraits in college. Throughout the last 30 years, she has had the privilege of teaching art classes for children and teens as well as adults.

Current projects are recording online video Watercolor lessons, teaching acrylic classes and working at the shared Studio 106 located inside the Emporium in the downtown Knoxville art district. Her work can also be found at Pivot Point Gallery in Knoxville and she just opened a gallery with a couple other artists in Gatlinburg Tennessee in the Morning Mist Village on Glades Road. We hope you can stop by and visit at one of these locations!

Instructor Website: Carol Robin King | Inspiring Your Space – Original Art and Giclee Prints

Class Content: This Watercolor Wash with Pen and Ink class is designed for beginners and intermediates with a desire to learn essential skills and techniques using the two mediums together. We will learn the technical side of drawing and painting and then I will show you the fun and easy way to turn a photograph or reference picture into a simple, yet beautiful work of art.
In this hands-on class, we will explore pen and ink techniques as well as watercolor to complete several paintings while learning drawing and painting skills that will allow you to feel more confident in both mediums. Come have a relaxed day discovering a new depth to painting and drawing.

Supply List: All supplies included

Biography: Glenda Bowles has over 30 years of experience in the Arts and nearly this in teaching. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Tennessee Knoxville specializing in watercolor. She furthered her education at the University of Tennessee with a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction and then went on to receive a Certificate in Counseling in Saint Louis Missouri. She has taught for 25 over years to affluent and impoverished students, over a range of ages – from 4 years old to adults, including art therapy. With her extensive experience teaching domestically and abroad, she brings a wealth of knowledge and perspective to any classroom. She focuses on core technical skill building, art history, and art theory, as well as instructing in multiple art mediums in the classroom. She enjoys just about every medium of Art that is out there. Presently, she is creating art in watercolor, pen and ink, oils, acrylic, gouache, and graphite predominantly.
She has exhibited her artwork in numerous settings from Fine Arts shows and sales including the Brentwood Academy show in Nashville, Memphis College of Art, the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Emporium, and in smaller settings in Knoxville and Morristown. She has a permanent exhibit of murals in Knoxville as well as in Greece, Belize, and Jordan. 
 She has lived cross-culturally, which has brought such a deeper love for this world. She loves to be outdoors on warm days, especially in her kayak or on her bike.

Workshop Content: Our workshop is intended to be an introduction to a Middle Eastern style of paper marbling. While this workshop is an introduction, the historic nature of materials and processes covered will accommodate the most experienced paper marbler. This variety of marbling is different from most marbling done in the world today. Historically appropriate materials and techniques of the paper marbler will be the foundation of this class. Instruction will include discussion and application of basic tools, materials, and technique. There will be plenty of time to create a variety of patterns and make a sizable stack of marbled papers. It is important to wear clothing that can become stained with paint. This warning also applies to shoes.

Suggested uses for marbled paper:
-Matting for framing
-Stationery(envelopes)
-Book binding
-Box making(lining interior/exterior of paper or wood boxes)
-Marbled paper as framed art

Paper marbling is the art or process of staining paper with paint or ink. Patterns are achieved by floating and manipulating paint on the surface of water, vegetable gum or the combination of each. This surface is called the Size. Middle Eastern marbling uses finely ground pigments in water as its paint. Bile, a natural detergent from animals, is added to the paint. Bile changes water’s behavior by decreasing its surface tension. The vegetable gum will draw back from the paint as it contacts its surface and the paint will effortlessly spread until it reaches an equal surface resistance. A difference in surface tension between the gum and the paint allows the paint to expand and remain separate from the gum. At this point the paint can be distorted. Distortions in the paint can be achieved by moving the paint over the gum’s surface. A variety of tools can be used to distort these surfaces. These include tools with one stylus, or multiple tooth bearing rakes and combs having teeth of various diameters and spacing. Each tool will produce specific effects. Distortion is considered a pattern. Once a pattern has been produced, paper is then carefully laid on the paint where it is transferred from the gum’s surface to the paper’s surface. This is due to attraction of the paint to the paper, or through the papers inherent absorbent nature. In most instances, its a combination of both. This is especially true with papers of traditional composition.

Ebrú, as Turkish marbling was originally called, is believed to be the first marbling to use vegetable gum and water based paints with ox gall. Gum tragacanth is the sizing used as a base to apply the bile and water color paint. Examples of ebrú date back to the mid fifteenth century. A strong association exists between books and marbling, due to the long history they share. Many historical pattern examples survive today because of the protection afforded between the covers of old books.

Supply List: John will have all that is needed for the workshop. Students are welcome to bring their own variety of paper specimens for experimentation.

Biography: John C. Bielik is an itinerant artisan, instructor, and historic trades preservationist. He received a B. F. A. from Missouri State University(Springfield) and an M. F. A. from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has held classes in 14 states and performed historically inspired demonstrations at County and State fairs, historic sites, and festivals. John has been a guest on the American documentary television series Barnwood Builders and his paper and products are featured in the shops at Colonial Williamsburg, the Atheneum in Historic New Harmony, as well as, other retail venues. John’s marbled paper has been selected for inclusion onto Early American Life Magazine Directory of the top 100 Traditional American Artisans. He is not an artist. He is a preservationist. His goal is not to create something new, but to save something that is old.

Goals and objectives:
Preservation through education.
Historic trades, such as paper marbling, are tangible forms of living history. They help us connect to history by entertaining us while we witness process and technique. The process becomes as important as the product. Sharing this arcane trade that has been producing decorative papers for centuries is brought forward and explained. Value and respect of the trade, and history, are potentially preserved.

Class Content: This is an introduction to felting over a resist and using a special technique to create a 3D texture on the surface of the felt. I will walk you through step by step so you can create an 8 inch tall wool lampshade. The fibers are natural and lovely and create a beautiful soft glow when illuminated. The lampshade will sit on top of an LED puck light. All materials are supplied for you. The image shows white and yellow fibers, but I will also have other colors for you to choose. The LED puck light is included in the price of the class. I will bring all the fibers you need to create one lamp.

Supply List: Students should bring:

• 6 dish towels/hand towels
• 1 ball brause if you have one
• 1 plastic bowl (about 2 quart size)
• 1 ruler or tape measure
• 1 pair of scissors
• Lunch

Biography: Lori has been wet felting and needle felting for 8 years, creating vessels, purses, and sculptures. She was a high school English teacher for 20 years, during which time her favorite pass time was creating lesson plans. Presently, she is pleasantly obsessed with the activity of teaching others the joys of manipulating wool fibers into felt.

Instructor Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WoolFeltedDesigns?ref=seller-platform-mcnav