My weekend with Nick Bantock

What can I say?
Supercalifragilistisexpialidocious!!!!!

Or something like that. Yep, to me, it was truly amazing.

I did get to stay in their cottage, feet from their house, so my time on Salt Spring island was total Nick Bantock immersion.

I never bargained that I would be invited to a gallery opening with them, and onward to dinner, with just Nick and his wonderful wife Joyce! My hero. For hours!!!!

What can I say?

Of course, he's a 'normal' man, not god-like. LOL, although those dark bushy eyebrows give him a Puck-ish look and you suspect he could be a practical joker. He is certainly very funny, which for some reason, I didn't expect.

Truly, the whole weekend was amazing. Not the least seeing the famous painting of the cover of "The Artful Dodger", with THAT rabbit. What a shock it was that the painting is actually 3D and the flipping rabbit is pretty much jumping out of the picture, it's a full head! Geeeez...

What can I say? Wonderful conversations, wonderful time, wonderful workshop! I know, what a pathetic writer I am!!! Is that all I can say? But one runs out of adjectives to describe Bliss.

I did have an awesome time. The workshop itself was brilliant. It was not so much a 'techniques' workshop, as a process to free the inner artist. Still, Nick promised to explain any technique he uses that we'd want to know, and I did learn some fantastic new ways.This one below I produced during the class, under directions from Nick, who called out what steps to do.... It was great fun. Until we had to give it to someone else to work on!!! Talk about an exercise in letting go.... Then you get a totally foreign piece to work on. Geeeez. That sure stretches the boundaries of intimacy!!!!

I posted more photos of the workshop on Flicker:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21854397@N02/

And here is one that I did since the workshop. The one above is only 9x12.  This one is 24x30.