39th SDP Conference Report
Noreen and I left my house just after 7:00 am on Sunday, the 15th and arrived in Fort Smith, Arkansas about 7:30 pm. We went through a tornado damaged area of north Birmingham and it looked bad. We went around the south end of Memphis with no trouble. We saw flooding more in Arkansas, but the interstate was not in danger of being flooded anywhere we traveled.
From the time we got to Wichita until we left, we were going, going, going all the time.
On Monday afternoon, just after our arrival, we had a meeting with the Chairman of a Task Force committee concerning development of a beginner course. A couple of weeks before the conference, I was contacted by President-elect Sue Bowers and asked to serve on the Education/Foundation Scholarship Committee for the 2011-2012 year. After asking more about the committee's purpose, I accepted. Since I was asked based on the work our chapter has done for the past two years with our beginner course, I consider it an honor to our chapter members who worked on this as teachers and assistants.
George and Deann caught up with us while we were in the meeting and we saw them for a few minutes here and there during the conference. On Friday, George called me in a panic. The banquet table coordinator failed to get Noreen's table set up. (Breakdown in communications by SDP personnel.) She and George finally found the boxes and George set it up. It looked so pretty. I thought it should have won. Thanks to Noreen for doing all that work and to George to stepping in to save the day.
Beginning Tuesday at 8:00 am we were in classes, meetings or events until 10:00 pm every night. Andy and Bette from the DP Museum were staying at our hotel and we would see each other late at night. We met some gals from OK and TX that we really liked who were staying there too.
All our classes were good. Noreen took oil, colored pencil and watercolor and I took acrylic and watercolor. We had no classes together so we'll have lots to talk about and show. We enjoyed several make-it & take-it and demo activities on the expo floor. We learned about some new products, new ways to use products, and did some plain old fun things. I missed out completely on any colored pencil activity. Never could schedule it. Fiero texture is something I'll be using in the future.
I now have 3 Tjap stamps and will work at getting better at using them so we can all play with them at a workshop later this year. I bought several books and patterns. I bought some kits of new-to-me products. Wait till I can show you what you can do with "Shaving Cream". You'll be amazed.
What was big? Colored Pencil, Texture, maybe Lace painting.
What's new? DecoArt has a product that makes it easy to paint on plain Styrofoam and make it look like tile or stone. Great for kids classes. DecoArt also has a new art class program available to retailers and others. We painted a gi-normous cupcake from the program and I bought a couple of other patterns from the course.
New to me was the use of pigment inks, both dry and liquid, on fabric, wood, paper. Yes, I got some. I will have to play around with them.
When the expo opened, you should have seen Noreen running to get the museum's Angel Book. They only had 64 available.
I can truthfully say I enjoyed all my classes and learned things I didn't know in each one. My favorite class was "Flowers in the Moon" taught by Patricia de Torres from Columbia, South America. She only spoke Spanish and her interpreter got sick. We had a few people who filled in to help with the translation and we did just fine. We used new-to-me products and other than the usual floating for color application. So don't ever think that language is a barrier to taking a class. Painting is a language unto itself.
We left Wichita about 2:30 pm on Saturday after the Expo closed at 2:00 and stopped in Conway, AR about 10:00 pm. We left on Sunday morning about 8:30 am and were just ahead of the bad weather. By the time we hit Memphis, we were under clear skies and arrived at my house about 6:30 pm Sunday evening.
I was too busy to take one single picture, but Noreen got a few and we'll post them soon.
Next year, we aren't going to take classes all day and night. We are going to leave ourselves some time to visit the SDP Headquarters and a few other sights in Wichita. Hope you will plan to go next year too.
Linda
From the time we got to Wichita until we left, we were going, going, going all the time.
On Monday afternoon, just after our arrival, we had a meeting with the Chairman of a Task Force committee concerning development of a beginner course. A couple of weeks before the conference, I was contacted by President-elect Sue Bowers and asked to serve on the Education/Foundation Scholarship Committee for the 2011-2012 year. After asking more about the committee's purpose, I accepted. Since I was asked based on the work our chapter has done for the past two years with our beginner course, I consider it an honor to our chapter members who worked on this as teachers and assistants.
George and Deann caught up with us while we were in the meeting and we saw them for a few minutes here and there during the conference. On Friday, George called me in a panic. The banquet table coordinator failed to get Noreen's table set up. (Breakdown in communications by SDP personnel.) She and George finally found the boxes and George set it up. It looked so pretty. I thought it should have won. Thanks to Noreen for doing all that work and to George to stepping in to save the day.
Beginning Tuesday at 8:00 am we were in classes, meetings or events until 10:00 pm every night. Andy and Bette from the DP Museum were staying at our hotel and we would see each other late at night. We met some gals from OK and TX that we really liked who were staying there too.
All our classes were good. Noreen took oil, colored pencil and watercolor and I took acrylic and watercolor. We had no classes together so we'll have lots to talk about and show. We enjoyed several make-it & take-it and demo activities on the expo floor. We learned about some new products, new ways to use products, and did some plain old fun things. I missed out completely on any colored pencil activity. Never could schedule it. Fiero texture is something I'll be using in the future.
I now have 3 Tjap stamps and will work at getting better at using them so we can all play with them at a workshop later this year. I bought several books and patterns. I bought some kits of new-to-me products. Wait till I can show you what you can do with "Shaving Cream". You'll be amazed.
What was big? Colored Pencil, Texture, maybe Lace painting.
What's new? DecoArt has a product that makes it easy to paint on plain Styrofoam and make it look like tile or stone. Great for kids classes. DecoArt also has a new art class program available to retailers and others. We painted a gi-normous cupcake from the program and I bought a couple of other patterns from the course.
New to me was the use of pigment inks, both dry and liquid, on fabric, wood, paper. Yes, I got some. I will have to play around with them.
When the expo opened, you should have seen Noreen running to get the museum's Angel Book. They only had 64 available.
I can truthfully say I enjoyed all my classes and learned things I didn't know in each one. My favorite class was "Flowers in the Moon" taught by Patricia de Torres from Columbia, South America. She only spoke Spanish and her interpreter got sick. We had a few people who filled in to help with the translation and we did just fine. We used new-to-me products and other than the usual floating for color application. So don't ever think that language is a barrier to taking a class. Painting is a language unto itself.
We left Wichita about 2:30 pm on Saturday after the Expo closed at 2:00 and stopped in Conway, AR about 10:00 pm. We left on Sunday morning about 8:30 am and were just ahead of the bad weather. By the time we hit Memphis, we were under clear skies and arrived at my house about 6:30 pm Sunday evening.
I was too busy to take one single picture, but Noreen got a few and we'll post them soon.
Next year, we aren't going to take classes all day and night. We are going to leave ourselves some time to visit the SDP Headquarters and a few other sights in Wichita. Hope you will plan to go next year too.
Linda
