The Art of Noticing Watercolor Painting Retreat with Leslie Baum. 

Explore the landscape of the Driftless. Attune to the late summer light and how your experience of the landscape shifts with the time of day. Paint in morning, afternoon, dusk, and evening.  

This 3 night plein air painting retreat includes guided and independent painting time, opportunities to share work, morning yoga, and an evening of star gazing with a local astronomer. Explore plein air painting as an expansive pursuit, one that encompasses more than rendering a view. Embrace the creative potential of noticing our environment, slowing down, and being present. Leslie will provide prompts and invitations to guide your painting – helping to cultivate a personal painterly approach. The focus will be on imaginatively responding to what the landscape evokes - the sensations, memories, images -and how that shifts from morning to evening.

There are both single and shared room available. Please let us know if you have a preferred roommate for shared. Fee includes all meals, welcome cocktail/mocktail,  morning coffee and tea service, instruction and guidance form Leslie Baum, morning yoga, and naturalist visit. Space is Limited. Payment Plans Available.

About Leslie Baum

Seeing is a subjective experience. As a teacher or a making guide, Leslie seeks to help people explore their own unique way of seeing.

When working in plein air, there is often a desire to capture all the beauty and complexity of the landscape. However, it is also can overwhelm both painter and a painting. Her approach is to encourage the letting go, to engage in creative play, and to arrive at what is essential.
 
Why plein air or painting outside? It's dynamic. Clouds go by, light changes, time passes. It's instructive to put yourself in the position where you don't have all the control and you are in collaboration with what you are viewing. There is a deep personal value and enrichment in being outside in a multi-sensory way.  Hearing, listening, and going deep in a moment. You enter a flow state. It's so good for us.