Cancelled & will Rescheduled: 2020 North Carolina Zentangle Retreat: Tangle-Inspired Botanicals, Dancing with Petals & Leaves

Includes Friday evening welcome dinner, 3 breakfasts, 3 lunches & the majority of the supplies needed. NOTE: Lodging is NOT included, there are few rooms available onsite for an additional fee and Jan can recommend close-by hotels. email: rivertwist@gmail.com
Optional Dinners include wine: $30 per meal for Saturday, Sunday, &/or Monday

Sign up ASAP, retreat & rooms fills quickly

SMALL CLASS SIZE: Limited to 12 students for a small hands-on environment with frequent hands-on interaction and exchange of ideas between student and Sharla. Each student will also have a 1-1 portfolio review of past and present works with Sharla

Friday 4-9 pm:
Eco-dyeing Instruction, Welcome Dinner, Meet & Greet--Show & Share

Be inspired to dance with petals and leaves, expressive lines, shapes, and strokes that morph and evolve into curvaceous petals and blooms, patterned leaves, bending blades of grass, Reeds & Weeds, and fantasy-scapes . . . each dancing to your unique style of creative expression that moves across nature’s stage of organic and botanical forms under Sharla’s tutelage. (additional details below)

Suggested Attendees: Tanglers who are familiar with Zentangle with a desire to personalize their own style of mark marking and want to learn more about 'how' creative thinking, visual language, and informed intuition morph foundation tangles into organic style botanicals, petals, leaves, and scapes. Learn the fundamentals of great work that incorporate color, design, composition, and enhancers.

$175 Optional Early Bird Workshop
'Color is Not Color Until'
Create Mixed Media Backgrounds for tangling using color essentials
with Sharla Hicks, artist, CZT, author
Essential supplies are provided

Wednesday PM, Thursday & Friday am
October 28-29, 31 2020 includes Thursday breakfast & lunch

Thursday: 10 am to 6 pm: Use Sharla’s simplified "need to know Color essentials" to make magical color selections fto create Monoprints (one of kind print) that will become backgrounds for tangle-inspired botanicals. We will explore alcohol inks, watercolor & printmaker inks, brushos, and more.

Thursday pm & Friday till 1 pm: Thursday pm Buy your own dinner in town, begin 1-1 with Sharla, and Independent Study under Sharla’s tutelage that offers an opportunity for a deeper dive into one or two of the techniques offered on Thursday.

Forage for weeds and reeds, foliage, and textures and experiment with gel plates to develop a background that will become the visual guide for serendipity design using informed intuition.

Retreat Includes a 45-minute private one-on-one review of your work with Sharla: No need to be nervous, often the one-on-one is the highlight of your retreat with new insight and appreciation of your artwork. A small homework assignment completed before you arrive will kickstart a collaboration between you and Sharla to identifying design choices and your signature style that are the undercurrent across your work that you may not realize are there. This portfolio review is an opportunity to define and merge your desires, tangling, and talents with your artistic goals. Feel free to bring works for Sharla to review that may need additional help to strengthen the design, composition, color, and form.

tangle enhanced eco-dyed background

Retreat Description: The retreat begins with an introduction to Eco dyeing using a variety of papers. Each combination of paper, bits and pieces, botanicals, and mordants creates a unique, one of a kind look with the potential to stand alone. Often, the process produces organic shapes, and forms with color and value variations that will inspire tangle choices using informed intuition and serendipity design that evolve and morph into organic leaves, floras, botanicals, trees, stems, and fantasy-scapes. Learn how to add judicious line, color, and shading enhancements.

experiment on different color backgrounds using color, and shading

Sharla introduces the fundamental components found in many tangles that easily evolve and morph into botanicals that will introduce how simple lines, C & S curves, dots, circles, expressive lines, and repetitive patterning become the foundational tools to personalize your work as you define and refine your own sensibilities and style of organics.

Slide presentations, demos projected onto a large screen, hands-on exercises, paired with small class size create frequent student to teacher interaction as you explore 'how' enhancers, framers, textures, shade, shadow, color become the backbone of strong design and composition.

Exercises and instruction simplify the color essentials needed to make pens and shading choices using graphite, pastel pencils, color pencils, and color pens to develop a well-balanced piece using value, warm, cool, light, dark, greyed choices that sing together when making the correct magical, yet very strategic, color choices.

You will leave with a large handout for additional guidance at home, a sketchbook that will become your reference bible, completed works, and an extensive set of mixed media and eco-dyed backgrounds for additional play at home. A private (3) month membership in Facebook 2020 Retreat group offers continued mentoring by Sharla and other members of your class.

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What Students are saying about the Tangle-Inspired Botanical Retreats

Kathy Dudek, CZT: I was fortunate to sign up for the retreat with Sharla. It was amazing, from 9 or 10 in the morning til 9 or 10 at night. The only thing we really had to bring were our pens. If you get the chance to take her botanical series, you should sign up immediately. I grew so much in my tangling, the gourmet meals were incredible, and the sharing was so wonderful. This retreat was of the highest quality, and I've attended 18 years of retreats both in tangling and also polymer clay. My husband (a CZT too) and I plan to attend next year. Sharla put her heart and soul to make this a grand event.Many, many thanks.

Jan Brandt, CZT: I whole-hardheartedly recommend this fabulous retreat! I attended last year and was thrilled with the variety of exciting hands-on opportunities to expand my world of creative experiences. Sharla is a generous and passionate teacher as well as a gentle, thoughtful mentor. Attend if you can!

Pat Mathes, CZT: Sharla Hicks has been an inspiration to me since I first took a class from her on Mooka Blues at Tangle University 2015. Her style was a fascination to me. I had the opportunity to participate in one of her retreats in Wisconsin . This was one of the greatest experiences I have had. Sharla openly shares her work and techniques. Very hands-on training. Intense work in technique, color, style . . . one of the best things is she doesn't stop after the retreat. She remains open to questions and advice afterwards. It was the best thing I ever did to further my artistic endeavors.