Las Vegas Art and Soul Retreat

This first photo was taken as is, on my first morning in Las Vegas, while walking to the Bally's resort from my hotel. It really sums up Vegas for me.

The departure from Vancouver Island was utterly gorgeous.

Then I had a wonderful sunset from my accommodation:

The first class I took was with Robert Dancik, working with faux bone, making a little book. It is an amazing material, very adaptable and flexible. The skills required are more in line with jewelry, not my line at all, but it was a fun class, and Robert is a great instructor. And the gorgeous book below is NOT mine, it's a sample Robert brought to show us the possibilities of the material.

    I don't need to recap my Thomas Ashman class, see below.
Many of the trips to the classes were interrupted by French pastry stops at the Paris casino, which connects with the Bally's....Oooooh ;-((( How could I resist?

The weather in Vegas was heavenly, balmy almost. 

Carla Sonheim taught how to make this amazing little journal out of junk mail. Her mind works in a different way than most of ours, I suspect. Her little animals flow from one page to the next, but on the following page, becoming something else. It blows my mind. She taught us her method, but it would take me years of practice to think that way. Still, it was amazing to watch the process.


Finally, on my last night, I went to the Wynn casino to see the show, Le Reve. The window shopping was out of this world. I spent some fun time in the Hermes shop, scarves and leather handbags. One of the store windows boasted this gorgeous platter, which is very reminiscent of the swap going on my Yahoo group, the sketchbook project Yahoo group, where we are swapping zentangle mandalas. My lady friends, you can see I was thinking of you...