My friend Jennifer Dunaway and I were only able to get in because two of their "regulars" were ill. Apparently Bill has quite a following and once you take a workshop from him, you definitely want to take another. Many of the artist here had traveled overseas with him as well. The workshop attendees were: Mary Ferguson, Christy Aldridge, Elizabeth Lines, Denise Jennings, Jennifer Dunaway, Teresa Rogers, Ron Weathers, Ellen Guillory, Vicki Lake, Susie Haugen, Palma Rhoades, Jan Eubanks, Holly Perrow, Arthur Jones, Tillie Yow, Ria Bruns and myself.
This workshop retreat was for 7 days and 6 nights. The setting was amazing. Pawleys Island is a unique 4 mile strip of land that is only one-house wide bound by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and salt water marshes on the other. The Grand Strand is what the island is called. It is in the heart of Carolina Low Country. We all stayed at the Sea View Inn and had exclusive occupancy. We were provided three meals a day and all the wine we cared to drink! (Thanks to Bill and Mary!) The Inn had numerous rocking chairs on the large porches facing either the Atlantic Ocean or the Marshes. The painting opportunities were endless. I will include lots of photos!
Bill was an excellent instructor. He would give us daily demos after our breakfast. When our lunch bell rang, the wine would start pouring and we would socialize over our meal. Then we would take our plein air equipment out to the beaches or the marsh and start our own paintings. Bill would find us and circulate and help us with our composition, any color mixing issues, capturing the light and shadow and or whatever we needed. Most of us painted until the dinner bell rang. You did have options: paint, shop at the famous Hammock store, or shop at other neat places, visit galleries and art shows, take a nap or sit on the porch and sketch or just relax. We were in heaven!
Jennifer and I were given our own little cottage on the marsh side with two private bedrooms and half baths. However, we had to take our showers in an outdoor wooden shower built on one end of our cottage. Some nights and early mornings were quite chilly in that shower! After a day or two, we got to love our outdoor shower! We had a great front porch with lots of chairs. We washed our clothes in the sink and hung them up on a clothesline. We had wet painting everywhere. Our front porch became the hangout for most of the artists!
In the evenings, all kinds of things would go on. Bill might demo again, or if the music was just right some folks danced, we had a Halloween Mask party one night, and we would sit out on the porches and chat about our day and get to know each other better. There was plenty of wine and plenty of fellowship and fun to keep everyone amused. After our last day of painting, we all selected two of our paintings and we had a critique session. Bill gave us pointers to improve our paintings and gave us lots of encouragement. Everyone participated and it was very helpful. This was an awesome retreat for me!! We sure had ample opportunity to make some new friends and learn about painting from a great instructor in a magnificent setting!! Jennifer and I picked up lots of good tips on plein air equipment and what NOT to pack!
Now the PHOTOS:
This is the Atlantic side of the Inn. Yes we were sandwiched between these two beautiful spots!
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Bill finishing up his demo.
Now it is critique time. We all brought two paintings and set them up on the benches. (Most of us had at least started 6-7 paintings this week.)
Bill went around to each painting and gave us very helpful advice on how to improve them and also gave us lots of encouragement! These are some of the paintings from our group, in no particular order. Enjoy! I think we all did very well.
What a great workshop!! It truly was a Painter's Retreat!
I will post my paintings on my next post.
