Hello, friends!
Drumroll please... We're here today to announce our 2027 Smiley retreat offerings! You're going to be positively delighted by the incredible artist teachers and inspiring themes headed to the Smiley barn studio next season. There's something for everyone! Browse through our courses below and start planning your trip to Vermont today—we can't wait to host you!
Join Michelle Shain for a winter artists’ retreat. Snowy scenes and cozy interiors will be painted—all with a vintage vibe.
Daily workshops will include painting demonstrations and lessons in acryla gouache, composition and perspective, hand lettering, and journaling.
Retreat days will start after coffee but before breakfast with an optional 1-hour early morning activity: a hike, snowshoe and/or walk to town. It’s a great way to get creative juices juiced! Photographing adventures to then be painted will also happen.
The historic, 19th century brick farmhouse The Smiley Manse will be become our art studio. It's elegant double-hung windows will provide winter light on our sketchbooks. With original, creaky and lovingly-worn wood floors, antiques, vintage furnishings and classic wallpapers, the delightful old home will provide you with new inspiration.
An Heirloom Story is a five-day jewelry making and storytelling workshop from which participants leave with a cohesive collection of wearable jewelry (five or more finished pieces) and a short, informally written tale that gives the collection its meaning. This workshop starts with a personal—or imaginary—story as the basis for each creation. Having a story in mind helps lead each participant to colors, shapes, textures, and materials that will give meaning to each piece and convey a memory, a myth, or a fragment of a narrative to the work. Each collection will read as a single object with many parts as we incorporate an eclectic mix of treasures: semiprecious stones, natural elements, decorative charms, and vintage finds discovered together during our magical market excursion.
Note: No prior jewelry-making experience required. Techniques are taught at a level that welcomes beginners while giving more experienced makers room to push further into narrative-driven design.
It doesn’t matter if you are at the very beginning of your art journey or a seasoned artist - we are going to make beautiful things together! We will be using watercolours, gouache and acryla gouache and focusing on variety of techniques. We’ll paint from nature and from within and learn how to see what’s there and what could be there. If you love colour, nature and a bit of whim - you are going to have a wonderful time.
This is an immersive art retreat centered around color, creative exploration, and self-discovery. No previous art experience is necessary. Participants will learn approachable techniques for working with color, shape, composition, collage, layering, pattern, and mark-making, while using art-making as a way to slow down, play, reflect, and reconnect with their own creative voice. The retreat combines guided art instruction with nature, rest, journaling, solo time, playful excursions, and community. A central theme throughout the retreat is the rainbow as a metaphor for the full spectrum of our creative and inner lives.
Lori Siebert can never resist a good junk shop, flea market or antique mall—and the quirkier the find, the better! What she loves most is taking forgotten, well-loved treasures and giving them a brand-new life.
This year, Lori is opening up the possibilities and inviting you to play, explore and create whatever inspires you. Maybe a handful of rusty bits becomes a whimsical bird. A collection of buttons turns into a flower. An old piece of hardware becomes a face, a figure or something completely unexpected. There are no rules—and no two creations will be alike.
Throughout the week, we’ll hunt for wonderful junk gems, experiment with assembling and altering found objects, and explore how ordinary things can become extraordinary works of art. You’ll also create your own junk journal, filling it with bits, pieces, papers, words, images and treasures gathered along the way.
Bring your curiosity, your imagination and a willingness to see possibilities in the things other people might overlook. And, of course, feel free to bring some of your own favorite “junk gems” to add to the mix.
All levels are welcome. Come ready to hunt, gather, play and make something wonderfully unexpected!
Spend three creative days turning the natural world around you into your own mini fabric collection. Using The Smiley Manse property as inspiration, Stacie Bloomfield will guide participants through gathering ideas from flowers, leaves, branches, textures, colors, and other details they discover outdoors. From there, participants will bring their inspiration into Procreate, transform their sketches and photographs into digital illustrations, create seamless repeating patterns, and develop a coordinated three-pattern collection. By the end of the retreat, each participant will have a hero pattern, supporting pattern, and blender pattern ready to upload to Spoonflower, where they will order fabric samples of their finished designs.
If you find yourself scouring Pinterest for color combinations, paralyzed over which color to paint your walls, or just generally stuck in a color rut, this retreat is for you! During your week with Jill, you'll work through a series of exercises that build on one another to boost your color confidence and help you discover your personal color voice.
Color theory is at the foundation of art education, but it can feel overwhelming and formulaic. Jill will share her intuitive approach to color and how it has shaped both her career and creative experiments. To her, color is all about noticing, building stories, and having fun along the way.
All experience levels are welcome, especially the color-curious. Jill is an open book when it comes to art and creativity, and she's happy to answer questions, share tips and tricks for each medium, and help you reach your color goals.
The hardest part will be choosing which of these amazing retreats to attend! Start planning your creative adventure today and don't forget about our generous scholarship fund. We'll be sharing more about our 2027 retreat leaders over the coming months, but until then, wishing you a fantastic fall and we can't wait to see you at the Smiley 🌞
Kindly,
Jennifer