A PATCHWORK OF MEMORIES WITH ALEX CASTRO FERREIRA

Our workshop in Oaxaca with Alex Castro Ferreira was so much fun that we have asked her to teach again. But this time, in her own neighborhoods of Lisbon and Sintra, Portugal.

Join us in this UNESCO World Heritage Site in this charming Portuguese town located in the hills of Serra de Sintra, once a summer retreat for Portuguese nobility for a mixed media workshop.

Alex loves to create worn, raw, rusty journals that you can write, paint, doodle, stitch, and play with. What inspires us about her work is the use of rust, resin and metal. All the things we love!

Here are some of the journals created in Oaxaca.

Itinerary

Day 1, May 23. Everyone arrives in Lisbon for a transfer to Sintra, about a 45 minute drive. Plan to arrive by 4 p.m. We will welcome you with a drink, an amuse bouche and then dinner.

Day 2, May 24. All breakfasts will be offered in the hotel. It’s an exciting morning - off to the Feira da Ladra flea market where I’m sure we will find a treasure or two! This will be followed by a 1 hour sightseeing tour. This evening we will eat at Tasca da Ana.

Day 3, May 25. Breakfast and lunch at the hotel, class with Alex. Dinner is on your own to explore Sintra, a quick 15 minute walk into town, or the hotel has sandwiches or salads. You can also order through Uber Eats. The workshop room will be open until 11 p.m. each evening.

Days 4-5, May 26 & 27. Breakfast and lunch at the hotel. Class with Alex. Dinner on your own.

Day 6, May 28. Breakfast at the hotel. We will finish our projects and share our work. Lunch today will be at the Restaurante Nortada on the beach. You will have free time then we will meet at Taberna dos Trovadores for a some traditional Portuguese food.

Day 7, May 29. Breakfast at the hotel, then we will walk to Quinta da Regaleira. Designed and built in the late 1800s, it is an architectural feat. Its design focused on the Manueline, Renaissance, Medieval and Classical styles.

You have free time this afternoon to shop and dinner will be on your own.

Day 8, May 30. Breakfast, free time, then lunch at the hotel. We will have a tile workshop at the Fundacao Espirito Santo this afternoon followed by our farewell dinner at Mesa Dos Frades.

Day 9, May 31. We will have our last breakfast together before leaving for the airport. You should make your return flights to leave in the afternoon.

This itinerary may change due to weather, new opportunities or the whim of the group.

Only one spot left!

This Escape Includes

• 8 nights accommodation at Hotel Sintra Jardim - a historical hotel

• Transfers from airport to hotel and return

• Welcome reception

• Three and a half days lessons with Alex

• Visit to the Feira da Ladra flea market

• Guided tour in quinta de Regaleira

• Portuguese tile workshop at Funacao Espirito Santo

• A very special farewell dinner at Mesa de Frades

• Private Facebook group

• Some supplies

• Four dinners, 7 lunches, 8 breakfasts

• Free time to explore

• New art tribe

The price for this workshop is $3950 and is limited to 15

A $1,000 non refundable deposit is due upon registration. Final payment is due December 1, 2024.

Price does not include airfare to/from Lisbon, alcohol, travel insurance (must have) or personal shopping.

Accommodations:

You will feel like royalty in your own en-suite private room at the historic Hotel Sintra Jardim, once the summer residence of Viscount Tojal. The hotel sits below the hills of the Serra de Sintra.

Airport: Humberto Delgado Airport (IATA: LIS, ICAO: LPPT), is an international airport located seven kilometres (four nautical miles) northeast of the city centre of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

We will arrange transportation from the airport to Sintra (and reverse). Please arrive by 4:00 p.m. on May 23. We will meet at the Starbucks and travel from there. Should you plan to arrive earlier to stay at the hotel, you will be responsible for your own transfer fees. Marina, Alex’s sister-in-law and a travel agent, can help you arrange your transfer and extra night.

Supply lists

We will provide:

• cyanotype kit

• turmeric and sea salt

• flowers/plants and transparent film

• iron transfer

Artists Supply list:

• Original fotos, passports, ID documents, handwritten letters, driver’s license, drawings from you children, old recipes from your mother

• White/colored fabric such as linen, cotton, old T-shirt

• Gel medium

• a foam brush

• scissor and a bone folder

• needle and DMC threads

• 1 or 2 alcohol inks (optional)

• rusty papers and fabrics if you already have them

• an awl

• black ink

• a brush for the ink

• 8.5” x 11” pad of watercolor paper

• a stapler with extra staples

• a rag

• 2 pieces of cardboard (8 1/2” x 11”)

• inkjet small fotos and ephemera like stamps, dictionary pages, washi tapes, etc.

• UHU glue

• Two vintage hardbound book covers ( 7” x 5”)

• Objects that will fit in the book cover like old brushes, feathers, rulers, vintage stencils

• double side tape

• strong glue

• Rusty wire

• pliers

Portugal mixed media artist Alex Castro Ferreira embraces her French and Portuguese cultures in her altered books and journals. She uses rust, resin, recycled objects and talisman jewelry to tell her story, where she is from, and where she is going. A world traveler, Alex collects ephemera everywhere she goes.

IRISH ANTHOLOGY - CREATING A COLLECTION OF ARTISTS BOOKS WITH GILLIAN LEE SMITH

Belfast, Ireland - May 31-June 8, 2025

UK Artist Gillian Lee Smith has always loved books and, in recent years, has found making artists books to be a lovely companion to her main practice of painting. Join Gillian in Belfast, Ireland for an Irish Anthology.

As a child, Gillian was gifted a box housing the tiniest books you can imagine. A set of fairy stories, all housed perfectly in a small, purpose-made container. These memories led her to imagine a set of artist-made books housed within a house – books that allowed the capturing of memories from a particular place in a particular time.

The humble book form is so familiar to us. Yet books can be art, sculpture, a container for recording what we see and experience and all we can imagine. A wonderful way to remember a journey to a land such as Ireland.

We will sketch the places we visit—the landscape, castles, and buildings of Belfast—to capture inspiration for both the container and the various book forms.

Itinerary

Day One – Saturday, May 31. Everyone arrives at the hotel and we will meet for dinner this evening at the Wolff Grill.

Day Two - Sunday, June 1. Have breakfast and then meet in the studio at 9:30. Gillian will share her handmade artist books and sketchbooks in the morning and talk about her landscape sketching practice before we visit Belfast Castle to sketch in the afternoon. Throughout the workshop, you also can sketch from the buildings in Belfast City.

The estate contains landscape gardens, mature mixed woodland and a forest trail. It is home to many different wildlife species, including long-eared owls, sparrow hawks and the town hall clock. We will have lunch at the castle in the Tavern Coffee Shop before returning to the studio. Dinner will be at the Mourne Seafood Bar.

Day Three - Monday, June 2. Meet in the studio at 9:30. We will discuss ideas for making the book box, the container that will house our collection of hand-made books.

Gillian will have a couple of options for a pattern you can use, but you are free to adapt them or create something unique from scratch. You will make the book box and internal and external papers so that you are ready to create your books. Lunch will be at the hotel. Dinner will be at Home.

Day Four - Tuesday, June 3. Meet in the studio at 9:30. Today is a day for playing with watercolors, color, granulation, and layering. We will create a series of pieces to inspire our books, which could also be folded and divided into our book pages. Lunch will be at the hotel and dinner will be provided at White’s Tavern or Beer Hall, the oldest bar in Belfast.

Day Five – Wednesday, June 4. Today, Gillian will share some ideas for book forms using the pages you created and time to make more using imagery, text and anything else you can think of. Lunch and dinner will be at the hotel.

Day Six – Thursday, June 5. Have breakfast and then it is a day out to explore the Ulster Museum that explores the past, the present and the future through collections of art, natural science and history. It champions diverse voices and new perspectives to promote positive change in society.

We will have lunch nearby and you will have the afternoon to explore the Botanic Gardens.

We will meet for dinner at Deane’s at Queen.

Day Seven – Friday, June 6. Today, Gillian will show options for making covers for our books as well as other finishing details such as enclosures and detail work. After our Show N Tell we will visit the St. George’s Market where we will have lunch and then you can continue to explore the market. Dinner is on your own.

Day Eight - Saturday, June 7. Today we will visit the Titanic Experience in Belfast which is next door to our hotel. Lunch is on your own and you will have free time this afternoon until our final dinner together this evening at Edo.

Day Nine - Sunday June 8. You may leave anytime on this day or continue on to Gillian’s second workshop in Inverness.

This Art Escape Includes

• Five days instruction from Gillian

• Eight nights accommodation at the Titanic Hotel based on double occupancy

• All meals except for one lunch and one dinner

• Visit to Belfast Castle, The Ulster and Titanic Museums

• Some supplies

• New Art Tribe

The cost for this Escape is $4,100, based on double occupancy. A single room supplement charge is $800. A $1,000 deposit is due upon registering. The remaining balance is due February 8, 2025.

Travel insurance is required.

Where we will be staying: Located at the heart of Belfast's Titanic Quarter, the legendary Harland & Wolff Headquarters and Drawing Offices is now the world's most authentic Titanic Hotel, offering an unforgettable experience for anyone visiting Northern Ireland.

Explore the Building

Artworks & Artefacts

Half-hotel, half-museum, the building is home to an original collection of over 500 artworks, artefacts and photographs transporting the viewer back to the 'Golden Age of Ocean Travel.’

Titanic Hotel

Queen’s Road, Titanic Quarter

Belfast, BT3 9DT

Northern Ireland

+44 28 9508 2000

Materials List

We will provide:

• Waxed bookbinding thread

• Curved needles and sewing needles

• Dip pens

• Deli paper

Students Please Bring

• Camera or phone camera

• A pad of watercolour paper

• Three or four sheets of 2mm thick greyboard/book board

• A few sheets of copy paper

• A couple of sheets of drawing paper

• A few sheets of handmade paper

• A sketchbook

• Drawing pencils, sharpener, eraser

• Paper scissors, sewing scissors

• A small portable palette of watercolors with a mixing palette

• A water container

• A selection of watercolour brushes

• A small spray bottle

• A cutting mat (roughly 8 x 10 inches or 10 x 12 inches)

• Book glue or PVA

• A small ½ inch Glue brush

• Letter-sized plastic sheet or file (to glue paper on for easy clean up)

• An Exacto knife and a scalpel knife with spare blades

• A metal edge ruler

• Ribbon for books, buttons for closures,

• Acrylic ink for outside of the container - Gillian likes Liquitex transparent inks

Optional Extras

● Embossing tool

● Hand-dyed or vintage fabric scraps

● Embroidery threads

● White pen

● Color pencils – Gillian likes Derwent Drawing Pencils (natural colors which go well over watercolors)

This itinerary may change due to weather, new opportunities or the whim of the group.

Gillian Lee Smith is a Scottish artist living in the beautiful, historic North-East coast of England that daily influences her work. As a teacher, Gillian is inspired to bring her love of people and place to each workshop using a wealth of techniques to make new discoveries along with her students. She has several very successful online courses and a mentoring program.

METAL QUILTS - AMISH MODERN WITH ARUNAS OSLAPAS

July 18-20, 2025, Port Orchard, WA

To all our fellow metal lovers, this workshop is for you! Join Bellingham artist Arunas Oslapas of Red Rivet Studios for a weekend of creating metal quilts. Formerly a Professor of Industrial Design at Western Washington University, Oslapas has experience creating and selling his work through his studio and art shows throughout the U.S.

In this three-day workshop, you will learn how to cut, paint, distress, and rivet metal to a cradled board. The pieced metal panels can be embellished with found objects, ephemera, and transferred images or text onto metal.

Here are some of the pieces that the artists created in Arunas’s Bellissima Art Escape.

This Escape Includes

• three days instruction by Arunas

• assorted metal scrap pieces

• banding

• spray paints

• paint pens

• rivets

• three lunches, one dinner

• new art tribe

This workshop will be held at Bellissima Art Escapes studio in Port Orchard, WA.

The price for this workshop is $800

A $400 non refundable deposit is due at registration with the remaining $400 due April 18.

The workshop is limited to 12

Port Orchard is the site for the workshop. The location is 9 miles north of Gig Harbor, WA which is listed as one of the most desirable cities in the US to visit (or live). It is located south of Seattle, across the Narrows Bridge on Hwy 16.

The Bremerton-Kitsap Airporter stops in Gig Harbor and in Port Orchard.

There are many AirBNBs and B&Bs in the area. A list of accommodations will be provided if requested.

STUDENT SUPPLY LIST

• Two 12’x12” x 1-5/8” cradled birch panels

• organic vapor respirator

• safety glasses

• gloves (knit garden gloves with vinyl coated palms

• ephemera to attach to your boards

Itinerary

Day One, Friday July 18. We will meet in the studio at 9:30 a.m. for introductions and to go over the workshop schedule. Lunch will be provided.

Day Two, Saturday July 19, It’s a whole day in the studio working on cutting and assembling our metal strips. Arunas will also address how to patina our metal strips. Lunch and dinner will be provided.

Day Three, Sunday July 20, We will meet in the studio at 9:30 a.m. to finish up our pieces. We will stop for lunch, then finish any last minutes details before we clean up and have our Show ‘N Tell. Class will be over at 3:30 p.m.

Arunas taught Industrial Design at Western Washington University for 33 years, having recently retired. He weaves metal baskets and metal quilts and sells his art in festivals throughout the west. When things get too rainy they pack up the family and head south of the border to dry out. Educationally, he got a few degrees from Montana State University and the University of Illinois. Prior to teaching, Arunas worked for Haworth designing office furniture, a Chicago architectural firm, and has consulted on many products from carbon fiber snowshoes to hog feeders.

Kathie Vezzani who is hosting the workshop, also is an artist who paints, rusts and waxes. She organizes trips for other artists and in a former life was a caterer. She has 30 years of experience organizing trips for foodies and artists.