Now I Understand!
Now I understand what the "Manor & Maker, Chateau Adventures in France" tagline is all about. Before I experienced the week of fun, food, and creativity at Château de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, I could only imagine what it would be like. Now I most certainly know.
I cannot express how much fun we had at the château this past week for our silk & gourmet retreat. Sel Hospitalité treated us with such care, serving us three times daily with delectable local foods; Sara & Stephen of Manor & Maker are the perfect hosts; and those creative souls Sherry, Ruthee, Brian, and Tom all created beautiful works of art. We traveled together to the local market for the day’s food and we went café hopping two days in a row. The château and the grounds are magnificent. Now we have our memories! What will next year's art retreat bring?
These two artists had fun no matter what they did or where they went!
Before we talk about the art, let's talk about the food! Oh my goodness, remember how the retreat was called "SIlk & Gourmet"? Oof! The gourmet was in there—every moment of every day. NOT ONLY during the three luscious meals, but also for snacks, infused water breaks, afternoon treats, OMG.
I've never eaten so much wonderful food in such a short time. We were welcomed the first day with a champagne apéro, and the next morning's meal was fabulous. This whole newsletter could be filled with glowing praise for our on-site chefs, Megan & Valerie of Sel Hospitalité, but I'll try to tell you about the artwork we created, too.
We created color samples with the dye on silk. We each created our design templates, then transferred the drawing onto the silk. We stretched our silk to prepare it for the resist line and dye, then we mixed our colors, painted them onto the silk, and before we knew it we had a room full of beautiful silk paintings! Even Stephen, our host, joined us to created his very own koi silk painting.
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Here is a sampling of photos from our delightful week of creativity:
But wait!! There's more! Just as I am writing this and trying to describe our work and our week "with words" (a term I used often while teaching silk painting techniques), Manor & Maker just released a video about our art retreat. It is the perfect representation of the fantastic time we had together. And I promise, we learned art, too.
Watch the video by clicking here .
Now the cat is out of the bag: the dance party was the highlight of the week!!!!
I hope you can join us next time,
-René