DeKoven Center’s Sketchy Friends Retreat is a wintertime sketch event, offering you a cozy place to be with your sketch friends for a 3-night stay, 4 classes and 6 fun and unique sketch opportunities!  Your instructors will be Patti Fallon - Sketching with Paint Markers, Kris Von Stockum – Mixing Up the Composition and Rachael Pasch Grossman – Sketching with Gouache.  We will be learning new techniques and visiting local iconic restaurants to practice … including the famous Well’s Bros Pizzeria and Hob Nob Supper Club.

Beautiful and historic Taylor Hall, provides class space, lodging and dining facilities, ample parking, elevator access and complimentary WiFi. We are located on the shores of Lake Michigan in the Southside Historic District of Racine, WI.   

Our guest rooms offer unique charm with a comfortable and restful atmosphere. Shared bathrooms offer privacy stalls. Our meals will be shared in our beautiful dining room. We will develop a meal plan to accommodate food allergies and special diets including vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free options.

The deadline to register is February 1, 2025.

Prices

  • Early Bird (Before December 31st, 2024)- $350

  • Regular (After December 31st, 2024)- $375

Register Now

After submitting your registration form, please call (262) 633-6401 ext. 104 to make your payment. Your registration is not confirmed until payment is received.

 

The Artists & Workshops

Patti Fallon

Sketching with Paint Markers

I’m a doodler since childhood and an urban sketcher since 2019. Urban sketching is my way of exploring places and learning about my surroundings. In my experience, one of the many challenges of sketching on the go is portability and ease of set-up. Acrylic paint markers are easy to stash in a pocket or purse and can always be on hand. I’ve been enjoying their bold expressive qualities as well. In this workshop I will share tips on selecting and using acrylic paint markers for urban sketching.

Rachel Pasch Grossman

Sketching with Gouache

I’ve been a daily sketcher for about five years. At the beginning, I thought I’d learn more by limiting myself to black and white, but I only managed a few months before caving and buying some watercolors. I had no idea what I was doing. The paint swam around of its own volition, caused peculiar broccoli blooms, gave me wishy washy color – the learning curve for me was very steep. Then I found gouache. Gouache packed a glorious color punch and stayed where I put it. Another learning curve, of course, but this one seemed surmountable!

In this class, we’ll learn the most important tricks for getting gouache to do what you want, from controlling the water-to-paint ratio to working dark to light. We’ll also discuss strategies for starting a sketch, enduring the ugly stage, and finishing with sparkling highlights. I hope when we’re done, you’ll see the great possibilities gouache offers and want to keep playing with it.

Kris Von Stockum

Mixing Up the Composition

In this workshop you will learn how to create beautiful and interesting sketchbook pages.

I’ll share my favorite tips and strategies as we talk design principles behind each one.  You will learn how to add interesting elements, where to put them on each page, compositional approaches, adding ephemera, and how to create variety on your sketchbook pages.  We’ll take a look at how composition can be applied to an entire page, or a single sketch, and we’ll talk about materials and color.

I’ll introduce you to the design concept step by step with many examples and sketching demos so you can adapt to your own way of working.