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Crafternoon Brunch Art Workshop with Leslie Watkins

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Delight the people you love by giving them beautiful and heartfelt gifts. 

Spend a fun-filled afternoon with friends and follow crafters learning to make gifts you will be proud to share. Leslie Watkins and crafty friends will demonstrate easy watercolor painting and paper crafting skills to help you get started.

Learn to use an assortment of techniques such as hand stamping, heat embossing and die cutting that will give you professional looking results. All the tools and materials will be provided at no extra charge. We will show you how to put together beautiful designs using fine archival papers and embellishments to create unique gifts in time for the holidays and for any special occasion. Everyone will make and take home a beautiful boxed set of notecards and receive a gift bag of goodies.

Chef Lisa will be serving us a special brunch buffet with a generous assortment of delicious entrees followed by dessert and Prosecco. Choose from a selection of pastries, homemade jam, fresh fruit, quiche tartlets, grilled cheese, chicken salad crostini and creamy tomato soup. 

After everyone's appetite is sufficiently satisfied the crafting will begin with Leslie demonstrating watercolor and stamping basics. A selection of easy "make and take" notecards will be created with plenty of individual instruction and all materials supplied. After everyone has thoroughly exercised their creativity we will celebrate our handiwork with cupcakes and champagne, and plenty of mutual admiration. What could be nicer?

Signup as soon as possible, seats are limited and RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED.

$42.54 (Includes sales tax) reserves your spot and includes: instruction by Leslie Walkins, materials, light-fare buffet and a glass of champagne or sparkling cider. Additional drinks will be available as a cash bar. 

Leslie Watkins

Connect with this artist:

www.lesliewatkins.com

Artist Bio

Leslie Watkins is an artistic descendant of the Old Lyme Art Colony, considered the bedrock of American Impressionist landscape painting whose luminaries include Child Hassam, William Metcalf, and Frank Vincent DuMond. At the Art Students League of New York, DuMond taught Georgia O’Keeffe, John Marin, Norman Rockwell, and Frank Mason. Mason later taught at the League, where Watkins studied the prismatic palette, alla prima (wet on wet) painting, and techniques of the Old Masters. Watkins continues in this cherished tradition.

Watkins is a plein-air landscape painter. When a scene attracts her attention, she paints an oil sketch in one session, and sometimes returns for several more studies. In the studio, these studies serve as reference for larger compositions in which she attempts to capture a sense of place, and the quality of the day.

Watkins’ botanical watercolors and nature studies have decorated note cards, placemats, textiles, Battersea enamel boxes, and educational materials. Her illustrations have appeared internationally on postage stamps, and in books and magazines. Clients include Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Tiffany & Co., Caspari, Disney's Animal Kingdom, and Nickelodeon.

She has instructed enthusiastic students for over 25 years. Both aspiring and experienced painters benefit from the classes, and have fun learning. Leslie has taught at the Wethersfield Academy for the Arts, The Lyme Art Association, the Washington Art Association, the Garrison Art Center in NY, the Berkshire Botanical Garden, the Housatonic Valley Art League, and at Noble Horizons in Salisbury, CT.

Watkins has exhibited at The Columbus Museum, The Lyman Allyn Art Museum, The National Arts Club, The Salmagundi Club, The Union League Club, The Hudson Valley Art Association, The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, The Lyme Art Association and elsewhere, including Japan.

Watkins is the founding director of the newly formed NWCT-Berkshire Plein Air Painters and offers plein-air painting and watercolor workshops throughout New England, the Berkshires, and in and around Norfolk, CT.

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