What happens when Mary Beth Shaw of StencilGirl and Kristin Williams of Ephemera Paducah plan a weekend retreat together?  Magic called StencilGirl & Friends: An Art Journal Affair.

Who was sharing their art journaling talents with us? Pam Carriker, Traci Bautista, Seth Apter, and Mary Beth Shaw.  But they weren’t the only ones- in the evening there were Pop-Up Demos from Sherry Canino, Glenda Miles, Mary Nasser, Debi Adams and Kiala Givehand.

Here’s a peek at the play from my pre event workshop gel printing with Gel Press plates. These ladies were a blast and some had never made a print before!

What did I do Friday morning at the StencilGirl and Friends Art Journal Affair? I got to play and make @gelpress prints with fun and creative women…I mean teach a class…some of these ladies had never made a print before but I am not going to tell you who! @ephemerapaducah and @stencilgirl_products put on one amazing weekend. I am so grateful to have been a part of the play and able to spend time with these women! . . #acolorfuljourney #artplay #gelpress #stencilgirl #monoprinting #gelprint #gelprinting #arteveryday #artretreat #becreative #artworkshop #stencils #ephemerapaducah

A post shared by Carolyn Dube (@carolyn_dube) on Sep 26, 2017 at 5:12pm PDT

The thing that made this retreat so soul nourishing for me was the people.  Being able to spend time in person getting to know online friends over our art journals was pure joy.  My face hurt in the best possible way from all the laughter at the end of the day.

This is an art journal spread by Valerie McCoy over the weekend that sums it up, we were all with our tribe.

There were colors and ample products to try like a cruise ship buffet of art supplies!  This was my first time using the scrumptious Paper Artsy paints, and I will be doing a blog post just on those in the near future.

This may look like all fun and games, but there were some very scary times for me. For some, the fluorescent paint was out of their comfort zone. That wasn’t what made me nervous.

Seth Apter used browns, lots of browns.  And I was a good student and used them too, well, I wasn’t that good of a student, I snuck in some hot pink and purple. But I did use a whole lot of the browns.

Pam Carriker and Mary Beth Shaw were using a tool that causes me to twitch…the ruler…but I dodged the bullet with that one because they didn’t actually measure a thing with it!

I was so in to the play that I didn’t know which way was up, in my journal that is.

Upside down pages in a journal are just an O.O.P.S., an Outstanding Opportunity Presenting Suddenly.  In this case, the opportunity to see things from a different perspective.

Where was this all happening?  At Ephemera Paducah.  If you are ever near Paducah, KY, I recommend stopping into check out a wide variety of creative goodies from art supplies to vintage treasures can be found.

There are ample places to sit and peruse the books and have conversations and take in all the art covering the walls, including in the bathroom!

A perk of being around this artsy group is that no one questioned the weird behaviors of a creative…when I bent down to take a photo of a fun shoe…no one batted an eye.  When I do this stuff around other types of people, they give me a pretty strange look.  Glenda do you recognize your feet?

All the play, all the fun stencils and supplies, they were fabulous but the part that meant the absolute most to me was the people.  Thank you to everyone who made this weekend so joyful!

What can you do with a stack of gel press prints? Make crazy collage critters!   All you need to create these are some Gel Press prints, scissors and glue.  Roald Dahl, one of my favorite authors whose imagination knew no bounds, inspired this play.

Why do I choose gel prints for collaging? Because all the little details make every print interesting, even the ones that look basic as one large print.  Notice in the video how the patterns and details really jump out when cut up and assembled into these characters.

Watch Using gel prints to make collage critters on YouTube

If you’re brand new to gel printing, I’ve got a getting started video and downloadable PDF for you here.

The stack I grabbed is an assortment of colors and patterns. What mattered to me was having an assortment of prints, not exactly what was on each print.  Why such a large stack?  I wanted choices for my crazy critters.

When creating these, I simply look through the prints and start with whatever shape jumps out at me. For this one, it was an oval shape that said body to me.  After finding a body…the next step was a head…blue to coordinate with the belly button of course.

There are 4 body parts I tend to put on a critter.  Head, body, arms, and legs. These are just guidelines as this little one, a cross between Marvin the Martian and an octopus, didn’t get any arms.

Inspiration can also come from real animals.  Oh what fun it would be to find this bird hanging out at the pond!  I was thinking cute little flying bluebird when I started cutting the shape, and then it became more duck like. To get the feathers just right, I channeled a bit of that Thanksgiving turkey making from kindergarten.

What will I do with these silly critters?  These make playful gift tags for kids and adults (they enjoy the silly too).  They might become cards or make an appearance in an art journal or perhaps they will inhabit my studio walls.