Walk in Nature... for Inspiration

Yesterday, we went for a walk in the local area of Huntsville, Utah. We were to take shots of the plants, and later we would paint similar plant life in watercolor. The walk was simply good for the soul. The beauty of Utah and the open space can't be expressed easily, even with photographs.

Here is info from Huntsville's home page. (http://huntsvilletown.com/about.html)
Huntsville is located twelve miles east of Ogden City up Ogden Canyon. Its elevation is just under 5,000 feet. At the south west end of the valley, a shimmering man-made lake “Pineview” forms a mirror for the mountains above. More history.

Population facts

As of the 2010, 717 people, 218 households, and 174 families reside in the town.Huntsville is rich in Pioneer history including the women who trekked into the valley.

Here are some shots from our walk.

The Wheels on the Bus

go round and round..

Here is our Retreat Group, en route to the fabric store. More to come on that! This was the first group transport.

And tomorrow, we tackle the train .. as we head to Milan.

Our goal? Lunch in the Armani Cafe, amongst other things.

Ciao!

Art Workshop at Retreat

On Saturday we had our art workshop with Italian artist Giada Floris. This was a mixed-media workshop, and we all had to push ourselves to create a portrait-type piece using painting and collage techniques.

Here, to the left, you can see the results of our afternoon project.



Meet Giada. You can contact her at giadafloris@tiscali.it




Here you can see the group at work.... and the chaos of a creative workspace!

2011 Design Retreat in Italy

Ciao all!
We have just begun our Design Retreat.

Here is the group this year, with our English and Italian names.

Back Row, L-R
Maureen from Texas, aka Morena
Mary from Michigan, aka Maria
Shari from California, aka Sara
Kath from California, aka Katerina

Fron Row, L-R
Susan (me), aka Susanna
Maria from New York, aka..... Maria (surprise)
Cynthia from Conneticut, aka Cinzia


Here we are at Dante's statue, in Verona.