Fall Watercolor Workshop – Menucha Retreat and Conference Center

October 25-28, 2021

Exploration, Principles of Design and Texture

Instructor: Rebecca Sentgeorge

Offered in partnership with the Watercolor Society of Oregon

Cost: $800

All participants will have their own table in the classroom, and be assigned their own bedroom. For now we are not having a commuter option.

Overview

This workshop will cover an exploration of media and techniques, texture, and design principles over three days. Loosen up and make intuitive choices based on knowledge rather doing lots of preliminary sketches and intensive preplanning.

Students will be presented with smorgasbord of ideas and approaches to explore. Our focus will be on process, not the end result. Students are encouraged to integrate any tools or techniques from this workshop into their own art practice and make them unique to their personal style and voice.

Workshop Description

Day 1: Painted collage, creating artist-made collage papers, utilizing the papers on a collage employing the principle of variety, then over painting on the collage to harmonize the composition and create unity.

Day 2: Exploring texture with Masa paper, visual closure and simplification, simple digital and phone apps as design hacks in creating and editing a composition.

Day 3: Composition and strategies to add letter forms or Asemic writing to a painting, counterchange, positive/negative space

Each day will begin with a warm-up activity to spark creative ideas followed by a short talk and demo. Students will have an opportunity to explore any of the ideas presented or ignore the lesson and treat the time as their own. Following lunch there may be another short starting activity followed by individual work time. There will be a short critique of in progress work at the end of each day. Students may use the painting studio in the evening or follow other pursuits.

Artist’s Statement

“I have always had trouble narrowing down my artistic endeavors to a single medium. I enjoy working in watercolor, mixed media, acrylics and printmaking. I get my inspiration for my subject matter from my everyday life. I see possibilities everywhere. I have always created art that reflects my surroundings. I lived in Asia for nine years and enjoyed painting items found in Japanese flea markets. Since returning to Oregon my subject matter is changing to reflect my new surroundings in Central Oregon. I work from reference photos that I have taken and like to complete a series of pieces based on the same subject matter. My mixed media pieces have a whimsical or nostalgic feeling, collaging in ephemeral bits from my life, such as tea bag tags, used Sudoku pages, train tickets, items from my travels or printed material I find around the house.”

Bio

After returning from almost a decade living overseas, Rebecca Reed Sentgeorge currently resides in Central Oregon. She began her art career creating whimsical functional ceramic animals, but after a few years gravitated towards painting, mixed media, and printmaking. Much of her art process is intuitive and with changes and edits at various points throughout the creation of an artwork. Rebecca enjoys challenging herself by creating compositions filled with the visual chaos created through the use of multiple shapes, patterns, or textures while counter balancing this chaos and harmonizing the work through the use of layering and simplification of the subject.

Rebecca has exhibited her pottery, prints, paintings and mixed media pieces in galleries, juried exhibitions and internationally. She currently has a monoprint in the High Desert Museum’s Art of the West show and is represented by RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.

After earning her BA in Visual Art (graduating with high honors) she attended graduate school at San Jose State University to earn her teaching credential in art. Rebecca has taught art at every level from elementary, middle school, high school and community college. Her most memorable job was teaching Advanced Placement 2D Studio Art, Advanced Placement Drawing, and Advanced Placement 3D Art in Japan. Retired after forty years as an art educator, Rebecca now teaches an occasional adult workshop.

Rebecca is member of the High Desert Art League and an award-winning member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon. She was also a Fulbright Memorial Fund Participant and was selected to participate in the National Consortium of Teaching about Asia, and the Teachers Institute of Contemporary Art. Her work can be seen on her website RebeccaSentgeorge.portfolio.site

Lodging and Meals

Workshop is limited to 10 participants.

Everyone gets their own bedroom and their own painting table. Housing and painting will be in Wright Hall. If you have any mobility concerns, please let us know so we may assign you an appropriate room.

Menucha’s kitchen prepares excellent, plentiful, cooked-from-scratch meals. If you have any dietary restrictions, we’ll ask you to fill out a form ahead of time so we may prepare to feed you properly. Due to pandemic health restrictions, meals will be served on covered plates or take-out style (in individual boxes on trays). Participants may opt to eat at a dining room table (socially distanced from any other guests), in your room, on the terrace, at a picnic table outside, etc. As guidelines change, we will update this description.

Attending an In-Person Workshop during Pandemic Times: Please Care for One Another

As you consider whether to attend Rebecca Sentgeorge’s workshop, please keep the following in mind.

ALL participants of in-person events at Menucha must submit proof of vaccination in order to attend.
We will give a full refund, even up to the day of arrival, to anyone who feels ill or learns they may have been exposed to Covid-19. Thank you for staying home.
By order of the governor of Oregon, everyone is required to wear masks inside Menucha buildings (except when in their own bedroom) regardless of vaccination status. For up-to-date information about how we are operating safely during shifting Covid times please click here.