A Mixed-Media Creativity Retreat

• The secrets to cre­at­ing pow­er­ful, mag­i­cal visual jour­nals you will actu­ally work in and use reg­u­larly, and how to use them to get spe­cific results
• All about art sup­plies: the best, cheap­est, funnest—and most meaningful—ways to incor­po­rate imagery into your jour­nal, includ­ing spe­cial field trips to my secret Mex­i­can sup­pli­ers (well that sounds elicit, doesn’t it? not those kinds of supplies!)
• Ways of deal­ing with pro­cras­ti­na­tion, self-criticism, judg­ments and other emo­tions that keep us from not working
• Tam­ing Sketchy ideas: How deal with want­ing your work to look “artis­tic” and still get your rough ideas down. Yes, you can have both!
• Writ­ing with­out fear: what to write, when to write, how to write, eas­ily and effort­lessly for evermore
• Inte­grat­ing word and image
• How to return to a cre­ative project after an absence
• Con­cerns of pri­vacy: Sur­pris­ing and fun ways of get­ting your ideas out with­out fear of pry­ing eyes. Con­cerns about pub­lish­ing and blogging.
• The magic of mixed-media: How to inte­grate writ­ing, paint­ing, col­lage, pho­tog­ra­phy, and the kitchen sink into your visual journals
• Being an art­ful trav­eler: How to make an extra­or­di­nary visual jour­nal of your trav­els, includ­ing essen­tial supplies
• How to approach cre­ative acts with love, and trans­mute fear (seri­ously, this is powerful!)
• How to develop a pos­i­tive and pro­duc­tive rela­tion­ship to your cre­ative process
• How to har­ness the power of dif­fi­cult (and com­monly expe­ri­enced) emo­tions that can sab­o­tage your ideas (such as envy, jeal­ousy and feel­ing over­whelmed) to make them work for you, rather than against you
• How to build and main­tain a cre­ative sup­port sys­tem to pre­vent iso­la­tion and burnout
• Crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion on how to take what you learn at the retreat and con­sis­tently apply it long after our time together
• Prac­ti­cal tools that bol­ster courage and con­fi­dence designed to help you move for­ward on your cre­ative dreams—whatever they may be

The set­ting: does a pri­vate trop­i­cal par­adise work for you?

I am tak­ing you on retreat in the most nour­ish­ing envi­ron­ment I have ever been. It’s a place I go, over and over again, to fill my own cre­ative well, get inspired, and just deeply, deeply rest. To retreat.That place is Mex­ico, where I have been trav­el­ing and teach­ing and min­gling with the local artists and cul­ture for the past decade.Specifically, this retreat is held in the most unique of envi­ron­ments, a pri­vate hacienda designed by an artist for artists. (If you don’t think of your­self as an artist, that’s OK. If you just have some cre­ative inklings…or might even be a lit­tle ner­vous about the title “artist”, then you will find kin­dred spir­its here.)

why I love this place and go back over and over again

Hacienda Mosaico is a three-dimensional expe­ri­ence of cre­ativ­ity made real. It is the liv­ing dream of artist and artist-nurturer San­dra Leonard, aka Sam, who fol­lowed her cre­ative dream to build the ulti­mate artis­tic retreat for her­self and other artists.

You expe­ri­ence art every­where from the moment you walk up to the walled gar­den and ring the bell to be let in. Sam expresses her cre­ativ­ity in every­thing from the funky, col­or­ful inte­rior design, to the lush gar­dens filled with inti­mate pri­vate spaces for relax­ation and reflec­tion, to the abun­dant, deli­cious meals, all pre­pared with ingre­di­ents fresh from the farmer’s mar­ket and art­fully presented.