I attended the Art & Soul Mixed Media Art Retreat in Colorado Springs, Colorado from Monday, October 18th, 2021 through Wednesday, October 20th, 2021.

During my time there I took the following courses:

• Snapshot Paintover with Lisa Bebi
• Boro Needle Case with Ruth Chandler
• Wabi Sabi, Boro and Collage with Donna Watson
• Pet Portraits with Lisa Bebi
• Cabinet Card Reinvented with Clarissa Callesen

I will cover each course over the next few blog posts.

Snapshot Paintover with Lisa Bebi

My first class began at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, October 18th with Lisa Bebi instructing the workshop on how to paint over black and white photocopies of family/loved ones or images she provided. She taught how to colorize an effective art piece on photocopy paper and adhere it to a substrate (canvas board or wood in this case). She is a Certified Golden Paints Artist Educator. Her works include a huge variety of whimsical and fun paintings featuring her family members. As she said in class, she has “sold her parents” numerous times. Ha!

A lot of her customers/clients identify with her work because it reminds them a certain family member of their own during a different time period. She uses a lot of older images that portray a bygone time period. And sometimes she’ll take those old pictures and place the subjects in a new time period (such as a painting of her mother in a spaceship).

I made my mug shot image provided by the instructor into a witch. Perfect for Halloween! And the final image I painted over was of an adorable little girl I gave collage wings to courtesy of Lisa’s collage images provided by a couple of graphic elements books she brought to the workshop. Check out the gallery of images: