Wild Weekend of Classes with Donna Downey!

WOW! What a fun, creative, informative, happy, messy, joyous, exhausting weekend! Donna Downey taught four classes this past weekend at the Queen's Ink and I was in all four. I have followed Donna's blog for some time and NEVER miss her Inspiration Wednesday videos. It was such a pleasure to meet her and her husband Bill in person. She's exactly what I imagined and then some. Very friendly, great sense of humor, down to earth, and unbelievably talented. Such a great couple! 

We started with a class in Pan Pastels Friday night called From The Heart. LOVED this class! I'd seen the samples around the Queen's Ink from a class Patti Euler and friends took with Donna last year and have been wanting to make one ever since. Here's mine: 

Saturday we started with the second class in Pan Pastels, Explore the Artist Within in a Whole New Way. Well, that was a true title for me! I don't paint or draw a 'thing' -- ie, no still life, no horses, no trees, no landscapes. I'm more of an abstract type. We did learn a lot about Pan Pastels, and although I don't expect to be painting any still life or scenes, I now know how to use them and can't wait to try them in my journals and on canvas. 

Now Saturday night -- that was my favorite class by far -- Paint Like An Artist -- StencilART! We did a canvas using some of Donna's techniques and Golden Fluid Acrylics and Gesso. LOVE!  When we started the class, everyone was kind of looking around like, really? Is this right? Donna had us go crazy with layers of stencils using spray paints we made using the Golden Fluid Acrylics and some spray bottles she gave us. They were a mess! But then the magic started. We all picked a focal element -- I went with the Lotus flower, placed that where we wanted it on the canvas, then began to isolate some bits of the stenciled mess underneath with a shape to expose it thru the new foreground. I chose circles -- I know, shocker, right? Then we used more paints and gesso to paint around the focal points and the isolated bits and this is what I ended up with: 

    

I WILL be doing this again for sure! I love the way it turned out. 

Then Sunday, the class was Inspiration Journal - Layered Composition. Of course, being an Inspiration Wednesday fan, I was not going to miss this class. Donna gave each of us a new Inspiration Journal - love those! I'm holding the one I snagged in the first pic. We played with many of Donna's favorite techniques -- drippage, texture, mixing paints, etc. throughout the journals. Great fun and learned a lot. 

Be sure to follow Donna on her blog and every Wednesday for her Inspiration Wednesday videos. She also does Collage Mondays. Lots going on at her blog, website, online store and studio in North Carolina. Check it out! And keep an eye on her class schedule to see when she'll be in your area. If you've never taken one of her classes in person, you really should treat yourself to as many as you can. You won't be sorry.

For those of you in my area (Maryland), be sure to keep an eye on The Queen's Ink schedule. They get some of the most requested artists from around the world right here in our back yard! 

Thanks for stopping by!