Posted in daily painter, Flowers, Landscape, Workshop/Retreat, tagged impressionism, Shenandoah Valley Artist, Virginia Artist, wildflowers on March 14, 2015| 1 Comment »
Wildflowers Along the Road, acrylic on canvas
“Wildflowers Along the Road“, acrylic on canvas, 8″x10”.
Reference Photo by Suzanne McMinn, http://www.chickensintheroad.com
This is a demonstration painting for an upcoming retreat that I will be teaching in West Virginia that’s theme centers around wildflowers.
Posted in Workshop/Retreat, tagged Crochet, embroidery, Retreats, soap making, wildflowers on March 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Ever dream about getting away with friends to enjoy a couple of relaxing days of fellowship and creativity? Well here is your chance. There are three exciting retreats scheduled that offer you a wide variety of creative and learning opportunities – 1 in Virginia and 2 in West Virginia. Check them out and invite your friends to join you.
Spend a weekend creating! We are offering a schedule packed with terrific projects that you will be thrilled to learn to make and at the end of the weekend you have loads of new creations to take home as well as new knowledge you can apply to future projects. Make a felted pin, a cigar box purse, glass yard totems, crochet a mug mat, learn to paint, make an embellished sweatshirt jacket and learn more about Pinterest.
Click here for more information and to register.
This retreat will be two full days, from 8:30 a.m. until approximately 5 p.m. each day, with themed workshops centered around treating yourself with some old-fashioned DIY style and indulgence. Soap-crafting workshops will focus on the art of melt-and-pour soap with a variety of styles and designs as well as crochet crafts related to the bath and learning to paint as well. For more detailed information on this retreat click here.
Embroidery Wildflower Sampler
Get your wildflower power on! This retreat will be two full days, from 8:30 a.m. until approximately 5 p.m. each day, with themed workshops centered around flower power! We will pick flowers then make some wildflower jelly, create wildflower syrups and infusions, bake with wildflowers, make candles with flowers, embroidery wildflowers as well as paint them. For more information click here.
Posted in Embroidery, Workshop/Retreat, tagged embroidery, hand embroidery, wildflowers on February 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Embroidery Wildflower Sampler
For the past few weeks I have been working on demonstration samples for several upcoming retreats where I will teach. We will be doing all kinds of creative things from painting to crochet to embroidery to sewing. Trying to get all this done while also keeping up with my regular classes has been hectic.
Here is a little “Wildflower Sampler” in embroidery that we will be doing at a Retreat this summer at Sassafras Farm in West Virginia. It’s very sweet!
More details on the Retreats in West Virginia coming soon. Here is a link to the Retreat coming up at The Studio.
Posted in Crochet, Workshop/Retreat, tagged Crochet, infinity scarf, The Studio-A Place for Learning on January 7, 2015| 4 Comments »
Lincoln modeling Infinity Scarf
Janet modeling Infinity Scarf
I spent some time working on another Infinity Scarf. We have a Beginning Crochet class coming up this Sunday at The Studio and I made one sample scarf but decided to do another and make it a little smaller so the students can see the difference.
Lincoln was nice enough to model this one for me since Janet wasn’t here to model like she did the first one. 🙂
Be sure to check out the calendar for classes coming up at The Studio-A Place for Learning.
Posted in Animals, Workshop/Retreat, tagged sewing, sock monkey, The Studio, The Studio for Learning, The Studio-A Place for Learning on December 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Our Monkeys
Begin with socks and directions
Starting with legs
Body complete
Wonderful old Singer
Hat, Arms, and Mouth
Rebecca and Sandra
Last night I took a class at The Studio (instead of teaching one!) and we made a Sock Monkey.
He is so cute. Sandra Charles taught us and boy is she good.
Thanks Sandra for being so patient and making it so much fun! I can’t wait to try it again…this time it will be a “Sock Puppy”!
Learn more about the classes coming up at The Studio by clicking here.
Posted in Collage, Paint Parties, Workshop/Retreat, tagged Initial Painting, Paint Party, paper and paint on December 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »
We have two great workshops coming up at The Studio. The first on is this Friday morning, December 5th from 11-12:30. We will be making these terrific “Initial Paintings” using paint and paper. These are pretty simple to make but produce a really nice work of art that would make a fabulous present for anyone on your list. You can see more about it here. 
(And if you can’t make it Friday morning we will have a Tuesday evening class for this one on December 9th.)
The second is our 1st Saturday Paint Party where we will be painting this beautiful winter tree scene on Saturday, December 6th at 2 pm. And we will finish just in time to watch the Christmas Parade go by! Click here for more information.
There are only a couple of spaces left in each of these workshops so be sure to contact kwalker@doubledogdesigns.com to reserve a space now.
Posted in Art Class, Holidays, Workshop/Retreat, tagged Art Class, Christmas gift making on November 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday at The Studio we had our “Gift Making Workshop for Kids”. And make gifts they did! Lots of them. They made a set of snowman candle holders, a broach with little gift packages, 2 gift bags, and a miniature canvas painting of a snowman family.
They all look GREAT! There are going to be some really lucky people this Christmas who receive these gifts. Well done!
Posted in Holidays, Workshop/Retreat, tagged gourd painting, snowman on November 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Step 1- Pick a great gourd!
Step 2-Paint it white
Step 3- Paint a cute face
Step 4- Give him some buttons
Step 5- Add a scarf, ear muffs and arms
Step 6- Add a hat
A Snowman Lineup!
What a terrific time we had yesterday at The Studio-A Place for Learning. Janice and Ruth taught a super fun class on making snowmen from gourds.
And everyone made the cutest little snowmen and snow-women. The laughter was contagious and fun was had by all.
Thanks everyone for making this workshop a success!
Posted in Holidays, Workshop/Retreat, tagged The Studio on November 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Have you checked out the calendar for The Studio yet? Well, you should. We have all sorts of fun classes for kids and adults coming up in the next few weeks including some to make your holidays a little easier.
Just this week we have a fun “Air Dry Clay Leaf Dish” class.
There are two Paint Parties this coming Saturday and next weekend there is a “Paint a Gourd Snowman” class for kids and adults!
And you don’t want to miss the “Top 7+ Do-It-Yourself Easy Gift Ideas” for the Holidays seminar. This one will provide instructions for many unique and easy ideas for everyone on your list.
Be sure to check out the calendar at The Studio. We have weekly art classes as well as lots of fun workshops for everyone! Just click on the link for the information for registering for any of these or email kwalker@doubledogdesigns.com to sign up. We want to see you at The Studio soon!
Posted in Workshop/Retreat, tagged Chickens in the Road Retreat, Sassafras Farm, Shenandoah Artist, Virginia Artist on October 13, 2014| 1 Comment »
Painting buckets
Painting more buckets
Beautiful Buckets
Great job on the Folk Art Buckets
Bread Rising
Loaves of Grandmother’s Bread ready to go home
The second day of the Pioneers & Primitives Retreat at Sassafras Farm with Suzanne McMinn was just as much fun as the first. (See the first day here.) The attendees spent the morning making bread…homemade, old-fashioned bread and each created a loaf to take home. They also made the “Burnt” Sugar Cake cupcakes to take home.
They completed their potpourri by gathering more items and incorporating dehydrated sliced corn cobs, orange slices, apple peels, cucumber peels and some amazing scents.
And of course, we painted Folk Art Buckets! And each person painted their own amazing design! GREAT JOB!!!
So many other fun things happened as well with the many animals at the farm and I will try to describe some more of it to you tomorrow. In the meantime you need to consider coming to one of our retreats next year. We will have several scheduled next spring and summer. Suzanne will post the descriptions and dates soon and I will share those with you. It’s fun to learn new (or improve) on skills.
The Studio 