About Latasha Dunston
Latasha is a young freelance illustrator originally from Baltimore City but now based in Denver, CO. She loves being outside whether it be gardening, hiking, camping, climbing or snowboarding. Her artwork is heavily inspired by her adventures and attempts to capture the fleeting joyous moments we experience. She create mainly with watercolor, ink, and digital programs.
Latasha received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts with a concentration in Scientific and Medical Illustration. When she is not in her studio, she is cooking up a storm in her kitchen, tending to her plants, hiking and camping , or traveling to somewhere new! Her love of the outdoors is a vital part of her identity and she tries and share that passion with as many as she can to help show that the outdoors is for everyone! She is lives in Colorado with her partner, Jason, and her furry kids Leelo and Noodle.
With her work, Latasha hopes to inspire others, like herself, to explore more and to try new things!
Her clients include: Otterbox, Range Magazine, Craghoppers, SNEWS, Symone Center for the Arts and more. Hi, you can call me Tasha! I am an illustrator, painter, and plant lover. My artwork is suited for walls, in between the pages of books and magazines, on stationary, packaging and more!
About CLAIRE GIORDANO
Wilderness Watercolor
Painting outside is an incredible experience grounded in the joyful practice of observing and interacting with the landscape around us. But, it can also be incredibly intimidating and hard to know where to start! In this three hour outdoor workshop Claire Giordano - an internationally published artist and the founder of the Adventure Art Academy - will share with you the foundational skills needed to translate what you see into sketches and paintings quickly, and with lots of fun along the way. Claire began painting outdoors over ten years ago and loves sharing with others her go-to techniques and shortcuts to make creating outside a fun and exploratory art adventure.
The Magic of Watercolor
Explore the magical properties of watercolor and learn to paint a beautiful North Cascades landscape. In this three hour workshop Claire Giordano - an internationally published artist and the founder of the Adventure Art Academy - will share her go-to techniques for painting trees, mountains, snow, rock, and skies using a single beautiful color of pigment. Then, she will guide us through a painting from sketch to final layers of paint in an accessible step-by-step process.
About Instructor Claire Giordano:
Claire is a painter and writer exploring how art can forge connections between people, place, and science. Her work is grounded in firsthand outdoor experiences and painting outside on-site during hiking, backpacking, and climbing trips. In her workshops Claire strives to share how the fun, versatile, and unpredictable nature of watercolor can be a tool for capturing both how a place looks as well as how it feels to experience it.
Her work has been featured in Alpinist magazine, by the REI Journal and Force of Nature publication, Stay Wild Magazine, She Explores, and the Waymaking anthology of women’s stories. In addition to commercial work for local outdoor companies like REI, Claire collaborates with scientists to blend art and data and was recently an artist in residence at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest.
About Amelia Kaiser
Visual Travel Journaling | Watercolor & Pen & Ink
Explore simple techniques for capturing moments with pencil, pen, and watercolor paints. Learn how to apply composition and color, look at what you see rather than what you know, and practice ruthless prioritization to create unique visual memories. Bonus - an artist’s perspective makes you more present to adventures as they unfold!
About Instructor Amelia Kaiser
Amelia Kaiser is a Pacific Northwest artist who shares the joy of nature, adventure, and simple living through her art. She immerses herself in the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest through day hikes and mountaineering and uses her art to share the joy and rejuvenation she finds outdoors.
In addition to nature-inspired works, Amelia finds special joy in creating commissioned pieces that commemorate milestones in her clients’ lives – be that a graduation, the birth or death of a loved one, wedding, anniversary, etc. She believes all moments in life are sacred and worthy of recognition.
ABOUT SOPHIA TRIHN
Sophia Trinh is an American Vietnamese watercolor artist from Seattle, Washington. She started painting at the age of four while attending Seattle Waldorf School. In kindergarten, Sophia was introduced to the primary colors through wet-on-wet painting which focuses on the experience of colors rather than form. It was through these early experiences of painting that Sophia developed a love for watercolors.
In high school Sophia was selected to attend a rigorous interdisciplinary arts program at The Oxbow School in Napa, California. It was at Oxbow that Sophia was inspired to use art as tool to engage others, and communicate ideas.
Sophia’s work is a synthesis of creativity, and imagination, science, and geometry. Many of her paintings use white space to draw the viewers focus towards the image.
In 2015, Sophia began sharing her artwork with the public. Since then, her paintings have been a part of weddings, marriage proposals, birthday gifts, and artwork hanging in people's homes. Sophia’s hope in sharing her art with the world is that others will be encouraged to find space in their lives for art, and creativity.
This Class is Only Available in September
From Art to Finish - Kula 101
In this 3-hour class, you will be encouraged to take your art from idea to inception and completion. Amanda will provide tips and tricks to creating a compelling design, will discuss color theory including what makes an attractive color palette, and how to balance and place images in your design to best fit a Kula. We will work with gouache paints on watercolor paper. So, get ready to paint and have a ton of fun with Amanda!
If you're new to painting and would like a concept to work from, Amanda will provide a few templates of woodland animals. If you have a landscape you want to paint, bring the photo to class for reference and Amanda will help guide you.
Kula's Founder, Anastasia Allison, will have her sublimator on site to print your art on a Kula! If there are technical issues the Kulas will be printed after the retreat and mailed out.
About Our Instructor Amanda McIntyre
Amanda Nicole McIntyre is a New Jersey based artist and graphic designer. She graduated college with a degree in graphic design and has worked for both large and small companies, as an in-house graphic designer, freelancer, and her all time favorite, Kula Cloth’s Creative Director. She has backgrounds in both print, web design and now thanks to Kula, textile design. Amanda LOVES helping artists during the creative process from art to Kula. She creates many of the seamless patterns and custom Kulas as well as painted a few artists series Kulas such as the Sleeping Fox and the magical Unicorns.
Painting since childhood, Amanda always loved to capture the beauty of nature. She is inspired by the foxes, bears and birds that pass through her backyard, painting them in a whimsical and illustrative fashion, she imagines they each have a story to tell. Amanda also loves to capture the natural landscape, painting local hiking trails and arboretums, she loves to paint on site when she can but will most often take photographs to reference in her studio when tackling detailed paintings.
Amanda is also a mom to a 3 year old boy, often juggling life as a primary caregiver and artist. She is grateful each and every day to do what she loves while caring for her son and family.