The Orcas Island Makers Guild hosts creative Wonder Camps and is delighted to be joining the Imagine Festival. Come l earn to make and play a Didgeridoo, explore writing and painting in Journaling the Journey, enjoy island flowers and watercolor Still Life Painting, try wildcrafted Botanical Banner printing, and check out handcrafted Blacksmithing.

Afternoon workshops are Saturday and Sunday, Sept 9 and 10, at the Kids and Maker Fun Zone Tent and feature Joy Hughes (didgeridoo), Alexis Bouchard (painting / printing), Debra Babcock (painting / journaling) and Zackarya Leck (blacksmith/sculpture). 

Learn more about the instructors, times and activity details at https://orcaswondercamp.org/imagine   

Having grown up in a creative household – blacksmith father, textile artist mother – Zack has always been engaged with the making of things both practical and artistic.  He started blacksmithing after watching his dad at work in the backyard and during high school began receiving commissions that I executed after hundreds of hours in his shop.  This has been his avocation and livelihood ever since.

Zack has undertaken large public art sculpture projects in the San Juans and manufactures household, garden and commercial pieces, often conducting a detailed design process that captures the client’s specific needs – and imagination. His work reflects the natural environment with marine, tree, bird, plant and free form shapes that turn functional pieces into remarkable works of art.

Learn more about Zack’s work here.

Find Zack at the Fire Pit through out the Festival.

Joy Hughes has played the didgeridoo for nearly two decades. Her offerings include the fun and interactive Didgeridiva show, blissful sound baths, and lessons on basic technique and the history of the instrument. Her album ‘Sound Awakening’ is a favorite of massage therapists and meditators.

Workshop provides materials to make a Didgeridoo and instruction on playing this amazing instrument. Limited to 12 participants and involves 2 hours of activities. Instrument making 5-6, how-to-play 6-7.

” I journal daily, create illustrated story books, and teach others to journal creatively in a course I teach called The Joy of Journaling. They are multi-media collage, watercolor, colored pencil, marker, pen and ink and pencil. Images from the journals often find their way into paintings, or are in preparation for paintings.

Debra has an MFA in fine art from the San Francisco Art Institute and is a certified ‘Intentional Creativity’ teacher.  

Learn more about her work here.

Workshop provides materials for painting and writing, and instruction in journaling processes that deepen your creative journey (teens and adults). Limited to 12 participants and involves 2 hours of activities.

Alexis Bouchard is a artist, painter, arts educator and flower farmer. She has her MFA in painting and after years of painting flowers started growing herbs, native plants and flowers on her property to make one of a kind floral designs. Alexis also joyfully teaches art through Art for Orcas Kids in the Orcas Island elementary and middle schools.  She works in a variety of media including clay, gouache and florals and has studied the Japanese floral arranging known as Ikebana. She loves being in her garden, making art and creating in and with nature.

Learn more about Alexis’s work here.

Workshops include watercolor painting (teens and adults) and nature print banner making (youth). Drop in OK during 1-3pm session).