UNEARTHING PICTURES
Exploring analog materials and tools to create unexpected images
July 24-27, 2025
Join Sophie Blackall and Deborah Stein for four days of creative play and picture-making. Exploring analog materials and tools, we will write and paint and draw. Gathering and collecting, imagining and reimagining, conversing and sharing stories, we will dig into our histories and memories and intuitions to create unexpected images. Together we will unearth a mountain of irresistible ideas and uncover new ways of working to build upon in the weeks and months ahead.
This Workshop accommodates 10 people and is open to any and all creative adults, in and outside the children’s book community.
Prices include accommodations and all meals from Thursday dinner to Sunday lunch.
Single rooms are $1,800. Two bedrooms offer the possibility of double occupancy, at $1,450 per person.
Sophie Blackall is the author and illustrator of Things to Look Forward To and Missed Connections: Love Lost and Found, and has illustrated over 50 books for children, including the New York Times best-selling Ivy and Bean series, the 2016 Caldecott Medal winner, Finding Winnie, and the 2019 Caldecott Medal winner, Hello Lighthouse, which she also wrote. She is the five-time recipient of the New York Times Best Illustrated Picture Book Award and has worked with UNICEF and Save the Children UK on global health and literacy initiatives. Originally from Australia, she now splits her time between Brooklyn, New York, and the Catskill Mountains.
Deborah Stein is a picture-maker, writer and teacher of workshops living between NYC and a small mountain village in Northern New Mexico. She shows her art at LDBA Gallery in Santa Fe, and her writing and artworks have appeared in Khôra magazine, Rowayat and her own substack, Sometimes A Ghost. She’s been teaching visual narrative and alternative art workshops about seeing and translating the world in images and words for adults and children for a fun long while. Deborah takes pleasure in water, color, words, and wonky painted things since studying with a family of toy painters in Northern India in her formative years.
DAILY SCHEDULE for WORKSHOPS
Thursday
3:00-6:00 PM — Arrival and check-in
6:30-7:00 PM — Appetizers and cocktails in the library
7:00 PM — Dinner in the dining room
9:00PM — Introductory assignment
Friday
7:00-9:00 AM — Breakfast in the dining room
9:00 AM-12:00 PM — Workshop
12:00-1:00 PM — Free
1:00-2:00 PM — Lunch in the dining room
2:30-5:30 PM — Workshop
5:30-6:30 PM — Free
6:30-7:00 PM — Drinks in the open-air pole barn
7:00-9:00 PM — Cookout dinner in the garden
9:00 PM — Dessert around the fire pit
Saturday
7:00-9:00 AM — Breakfast in the dining room
9:00 AM-12:00 PM — Workshop
12:00-1:00 PM — Free
1:00-2:00 PM — Lunch in the dining room
2:30-5:30 PM — Workshop
5:30-6:30 PM — Free
6:30-7:00 PM — Appetizers and cocktails in the upstairs bar
7:00-9:00 PM — Dinner in the hayloft
9:00 PM — Show & Tell by guests in the hayloft
These Show & Tell presentations are short, informal, and voluntary. This is your chance to preview new work, sing a song, tell a story, entertain or amaze your fellow retreaters. We have a projector, a screen, and a speaker.
Sunday
7:00-9:00 AM — Breakfast
9:00 AM-12:00 PM — Workshop
12:00-1:00 PM — Free
1:00-2:00 PM — Lunch
2:00 PM — Check-out and farewells