Engage!11 at The Grand del Mar, San Diego - Part I

Get ready, you are in for a long read…but there will be fun photos I promise, all thanks to the amazing mel and co. Last week I was away from the studio. I love to travel but my business time away from the Momental Girls and our work at the studio is precious; aka, I don’t attend every conference out there. I choose carefully. The Engage symposiums are lovingly crafted by two women who consistently change their game, in a good way. They raise the bar and give it a good throw, if you know what I mean. They listen to our needs as an industry and continually produce events that will wow us visually and most importantly make us better artists. Rebecca and Kathryn of Engaging Concepts are two very real, very smart woman I am proud to know. This was my sixth Engage experience and each time I learn something new about myself and the work I create.

Good friend Karen Tran created this gown of blooms perched atop a marble table during registration. I die. Of course I took a few moments to hide away in a corner and sketch this masterpiece. More on that tomorrow….

Simon T. Bailey led our opening session with his insights on the concept vuja de; taking the familiar and flipping it; seeing the world differently than all those around you. Simon interviewed me for this session and shared the story of Momental and its very simple beginnings. Vuja de is at the heart of what makes this studio tick so it was quite an honor to hear our story told by this brilliant inspire-er.

Here the Engage!11 logo is SKETCHED by yours truly for the legendary swag bags each attendee receives. You may remember from past Engage posts that I sketch everything in sight…more on that soon!

This year Rebecca and Kathryn asked me to create custom itinerary folds for each attendee. No sooner was I on the phone with Vanessa from Twopaperdolls making plans for the individually hand painted lovelies seen above. The Grand del Mar property lends itself to being drawn of course…watercolor washes seem to perfectly capture the terracotta brilliance of this place!

Each attendee was greeted on day two with these large place cards. Moya from MM Ink penned each first name on both sides. First these were letterpressed with our roses illustration. We then contrast painted each an every of the 550 panels, then adhered to lovely Envelopments stocks. Meant to be a keepsake more than simply a conference placecard these creations were the result of pure passion for the craft of creating art, pen and brush to paper.