Crave Creative Nature
Summer Retreat
We hosted our second Crave Creative Retreat in Ojai at the end of September. So grateful for this amazing group of women. Putting on a retreat is a labor of love, and I get such joy for connecting with and connecting amazing people together. Our Retreat group shared so many wonderful conversations and moments. Friends from near and far came to Ojai to celebrate the end of summer and take time for themselves to nurture in nature.
We celebrated summer’s colors with three days of creative workshops in magical Ojai. It was a special time to escape daily bustle in a peaceful setting, surrounded by a nurturing community, beautiful nature and inspired art making. Days were full of eco printing, color dyeing and cyanotypes. Nights were full of sitting in our creative sanctuary, crafting and connecting together. We ate delicious meals artfully prepared by Souley Nourished. With a surprising gray and drizzling morning, our Celebrate Summer Retreat evolved into a Welcome Autumn Experience. We appreciated the change of weather, change of pace and change of mood. We suddenly desired warmth and comfort. We cocooned inside the womb-like home, reading, chatting, eating and painting.
About Our Retreats
We bring the “creatively curious” together to meet, eat and make something new. Each retreat will be crafted to help participants tap into their creative place while rediscovering the fine art of play. We want our participants to leave at the end of the weekend, inspired by new skills, connected with a new friend and fulfilled to bring home something beautiful.
OUR RETREAT INCLUDED:
Playing with Nature: Playing with Wild Inks
Our first night we were treated with a special session taught by Cheryl where we got to play with inks foraged from nature. Cheryl made these inks using local flowers and plants including sage, eucalyptus, lavender and ash from the Thomas Fire. The colors were magical!
Dyeing with Nature: Colorful Dyes Workshop
Our second day, we got to dye with nature’s colors. Dyeing slows our conscious thinking and awakens your subconscious imagination. We experimented with the beauty of nature’s colors and textures. We dyed using vibrant pigments inspired by summer’s bright rays, experimenting with jar dyeing + tub dyeing.
Painting with Nature: Cyanotype Sun Prints
At our second Crave Creative Retreat we decided to add something totally new. Cyanotypes, or sun prints, are a super magical process where we use the sun to expose patterns on paper. It’s like dark room photography but with daylight instead of the enlarger. Even under gloomy skies, we had a blast exposing beautiful patterns with leaves. It was so fun making botanical artworks with nature’s beauty which we foraged from the local garden.In this workshop we used sunshine to make images on paper and fabric. We guided our guests through the process of making cyanotype photograms, one of the oldest forms of photography that doesn’t use a camera. Participants learned how to prepare paper and fabric with light sensitive chemicals, compose images using a variety of objects and materials including fresh botanicals, and develop the prints.
Printing with Nature: Eco Contact Printing Workshop
Making art with nature is a special experience. On our last day of the retreat we got to make beautiful patterns with local florals. The results were surprisingly bright with this eco printing technique. It was the perfect ending to our Nature Nurtures weekend! Eco Printing is a process of using plants to dye and print on fiber through contact printing methods. Participants explored the alchemy of water, plant materials, heat, and metal and finish the class with beautiful prints on silk. We used natural plants and flowers gathered near the retreat center and brought with us from our gardens.
